St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-02-16
What the Antagonists Of the Leading
Doctrines Say and What the De-
nominations Represent.
If All Get Into the Heavenly Temple Will
Guiteau and Booth Occupy the
Same Pew2
Let All Christians Admire and Adore the
Magnificent Doctrines Of Christ While
Infiiels Scoff and Jeer.

ANGELS hand and ate it up, and it was in my
mouth sweet as honey, and as soon as I had
eaten it my belly was better, and he said un-
to me: Thou must prophecy again before
many peoples' {" DR.. Talmage said:
Domitian, the Roman emperor, had in his
realm troublesome clergyman who would
keep preaching and he exiled him to a rocky
island used for punishment, as Russia sends
con yicts to Siberia, and England sent prison
ers TO Australia. That island, now called
Patmo, is so rocky and barren that the In
habitants live BY fishing. But one Sunday
while the exiled clergyman of whom | speak
sat at the mouth of cavern In the hillside,
perhaps hummed half asleep by the drone Of
the sea. he had supernatural dream, and
time and eternity passed in panorama before
him. Among other strange spectacles he
0reamt
EE SAW AN ANGEL
with little book and he asked the angel if
he might have It, Well you know that Things
are sometimes incongruous in dream, and
so the angel gave the little book to him and
told him to eat it up and that while it would
be luscious to his taste after he got it down
he would suffer from indigestion. Obeying
the angel the evangelist in his dream de-
voured the little book aud as had been fore
told, it was sweet while being masticated
but afterward physical distress aud bitter
ness. Who the angel was and what the little
book that he gave was Is uncertain to COM
mentators and so / take no responsibility of
Interpretation, but will say that it suggests
to me the creed of the evangelical churches,
which sceptics in our time find sweet to
chew up but never can digest. The little
book of evangelism which the angel of the
church hands out is to them a luxurious
morsel of witticism but lies in them after
ward dry dyspepsia.
All intelligent people have creeds, either
written or uuwritten, that is, a class of theo-
ries which you have adOpted-political
creeds. that Is, beliefs about tariffs, about
currency, about civil service, about govern
meuts; social creeds, that is, opinions about
manners and customs and good neighbor-
hood: aesthetic creeds, that is, belief about
tapestries and ornanentation; aye, religious
creeds, that is. group Of sentiments about
deity and about the soul and about the un
seen future. The only being who has no
creed about anything Is an
IDIOT. Recently the beliefs Of evangel-
ical churches have been under
a fuslada of caricature and misrepresenta-
ton. Men in pulplts and on platforms have
set up certain things as the orthodox faith
and then have levelled at them all their
MUsKETRY OF DENUNCIATIoS.
They put up mere efIigy Of evangelism to
shoot at They misstate and falsify the evan
geical churches. They take some of the
gospel theories and set them in harsh and re-
pulsive way, and put them out of association
with other truths. They are like a mad
anatomist, who, Wishing to demon strate what
Il man is dissects human body, and hangs
mp heart in one place, pair OF lungs in
another place, and the spleen In another
place, and an ankle bone in another place,
and saws: THAT is man. They are only
fragments Of man, and wrenched from
their God appointed places. Evangelical re-
ligion Is healthy, symmetrical, well-iointed,
roseate, bounding life and you cannot by the
scalpel aud disseetiDg knife Of inhdelity dis
cover what It is. II is no more what Its
enemies represent it than the searecrow
which the farmer puts in his cornteld 10
keep of the ravens is the farmer himself.
They say for instance that the Presbyter-
ians believe that God is a savage sovereign,
who made some men just to damn them, and
kUul kQtTG lUlAblS AZ httl u sfAu AOuEs
There ls not an infdel on earth, though
be had retainer Of a thous
and dollars day, who could
manage 10 the course Of ten years TO make
sn honest. fair and accurate representation
of what the Presbyterian church believes. 1t
believes that God is loving and
Just SOVEREIGN,
that man is a free agent! "No, mol" says
the antagonist who has chewed up the little
book Of creeds and has the consequent EN-
Uttered stomach, 'if God is n sovereign We
cannot be free agents" But we acknOwl-
edge that possibility everywhere else. /,
De Witt Talmage. am free citizen Of Brook
lyn; that l., 90 where | please and when
please. Yes. but | have four soverrigns
over me. Tue highest court Of my denom-
ination is my ecclesiastical sovereign; the
mayor Of the city is nv municipal sovereign :;
the governor of New York Is my state SOW
ereign: /: the president OF the United States is
nv natioua! sovereign. Yet with these four
soversirus in every faculty Of body, mind
and soul am g free man.
II ( would tomorrow walk in the corridor
Of Mercantile library aud improve my mind,
or 60 through the conservatory Of my friend
at Jamaica, who has blooming under the
acuariums asGuirn with trout and goldfish,
aud wish to pluck ripe oranges and bananas
from The branches NAV do so. Aud If
want to 20 up 10 the furnaces Of one of the
oil factories OF Ho6okeu aud
JUMP INTO The FLAMES,
or leap OF the platform of a Philadelphia
express train, or from the deck OF a Fulton
street ferry boat, eau do so. If 1 leap into
the Hoboken furnaces who Is to blame, Nv
friend out at Jamaica wao offers me his con-
servstorvi That is all there is in PresbyteT
iauisrn about Gods sovereignty aud mans
free agency God ruIes and reigns and has
eoaserya,ories. ard He has blast furnaces.
n you want 70 walk in the gardens you may
and If YOU want to leap into the red-hut
cauIdrons vou mav. II yOu choose the ezul-
drun rather than the conservatory who is 10
blamel or course the one Eho made the
eonservatory aud sent you a written
invitation 70 come ana spend your life among
the cactus and pain trees. We simply mean
that the empire % TIE future wi! have pal
ace and a peniieuiisry-
All cur cities have their pe1ite ntilries.
Suppose some one had a charmed KEY By
which be could 20 through the United States
and open Raymond street Jail, aud New York
tUnbs. and MoyaIeuiug prison Of Pnilsdsl-
phia,
AL IHE DCSGEoSs
aud peuite1:iaTirs, what would become Of this
eouniry in three weeks N0s the empire Of
the future has iis peuitsntiAry. Suppose al
ihs cuiprits Of that psuitendsry should be lei
O1; and enter the new jerusalem. The first
morning the gate Of pearl woaIG be found Of
its hinges. the Inch pins would be ont Of the
shzriot wheels. the hous= Of many MANSIONS
would De b1rgl1rizsd, angels Of God would
Be insuitsd on the street. assault and battery
and Ho-rtin ism and 1sszssina.io- n the zap
ital &C the skies. Hsavsn vii Be failure /.