The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-10-15
TALMAGE's SERMON.
A Pointed Discourse on Profanity,
Drunkennessa and Kindred Evils.

The Occasion Ripe for God to Arise and
Scatter His Enemies-The BIighting
Evils of fntemperance ana Swear
ing Throughout the World.
Rev. t. Dewitt FaffagS; III a recent serz
mon at the Brooklyn TabernscTe5 made a
determined onslaught on the prevailing
vices of the time, taking for his text:
Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered.
SPaalufs xviii, /.
You viii 6bser7e my text Is not like
complimentary and ta5selsd Sword that
you sometimes see hung up III q PaTror; 4
sword that was never in battle and only to
be used on general training day, but more
like some weapon carefully hung up in
your home, telling it's story of Chapulte-
pee, Cerro Gordo and CherubuscO, and
Hateher's Run, and Malvern Hill; for my
text habgs In the Scrip ure armory, telling
of the holy wars of 5000 years in which it
has been carried, but as keen and mighty
as when Davi1 first unsheathed 1t. 1t
seems to me what IN the Church Of God,
and in all styles of reformatoFy work; we
most need now, is battle cry. We raise
our little standard and put on it the 9ame
of some man who only a few years ago
began to live, and in a few years will
cease to live. We go into contests against
he armies of iniquity, dePerding too
much on human agencies. We use for q
battle cry the name of some brave CHRIS
tian reformer, but after a while that re-
former dies, or gets old, or loses his cour-
age, and then we take another battle cry,
and this time PERHAPS we put the name of
some one who plays Arnold aid sells out
to the enemy. What we want for battle
IL. rI,,r i
never betray US, and will never surrender,
and will never die.
ALI respect have for brave men and
women, but if we are going to get the VIC
tory ali along the line we must put God
first: We must take the hint of the Gid
eonites, who wiped out the Bedodin Arabs,
commonly called Midianites. These Gid=
eonites had a glorious leader in Gideon,
but what was the battle-cry with which
they flung their enemies in to the worst de-
feat into which any army was ever tum-
bled? 1t was:
The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.
Put God first, whoever you put second.
If the army of the American Revolution is
to free America, it must be:
The sword of the Lord and of Washington.
If the GGrnicns want to win the day at
Sedan, 1t must be!
The sword of the Lord and Won Moltke.
Waterloo was won for the English be-
catse not only the armed men at the front
but the woFshipers in the eathedrals at the
rear were crying:
The sword of the Lord and Wellington.
The Methodists have gone in triumph
across nation after nation with the cry:
The sword of the Lord and of wesley.
The Presbyterans have gone from VIC
tory to victory with the cry:
The sword of the Lord and of John Knox.
The Baptists have conquered millions
after millions for Christ with the cry:
The sword of the Lord and of Jordan.
The Americans EpiscopaIians have won
their mighty way with the cry:
The sword of the Lord and of Bishop Nc
Ivaine.
The victory is to those who put God
first. But as we want battle cry suited
to all sects of religionists, and to allIands,
1 nominate as the battle-cry of Christen-
dom in the approaching Armageddon the
words of my text, SCUM led before the ark
as it was carried to Mount Zion;
Let God arise; let his enemies be scat
tered
AS far as our finite mind can judge, 1t
seems about time for God to rise. Does it
not seem to you that the denominations of
this earth have gone far enough? Was
there ever time when sin was so defiant?
We're there ever before so many fists lifted
toward God, telling him TO come on if he
dare? Look at the blasphemy abroad !
| What towering profanity Would it be
possible for any one to calculate the num-
ber of times that the name of Almighty
God, and of Jesus Christ, are every day
taken irreverentIy on the lips? So COM
mon has blaspheny become that the pub
lie mind and public ear, have got used to
it, and a blasphemer goes up and down
this country in his lectures defying the
plain law against blasphemy, and there is
uot mayor in America that has back
bone enough to interfere with him save
one, and that the mayor of Toronto. Pro-
fame swearing is as much forbidden by the
law as theft, arson, or murder; yet who
executes it! Profanity is worse than
theft, or arson, or murder, for these
crimes are attacks on humanity-that is
an attack on God.
This country is pre-eminent for BIAS
phemy. A man travelling in Russia was
supposed 10 be a clergyman.
"Why do you take me TO be a clergy
man2" said the man.
"Oh," said the Russian, "all other Amer
! leans swear"
The crime is multiplying in intensity.
! Sod very often shows what He thinks of
! It, but for the most part the fatality is
| oushed up. A few summers ago among
! the Adirondacks met the funeral process
sion of a man who, two days before, had
fallen under a flash of lightning while
| boasting, after a Sunday of work in the
| fields, that he had cheated God out Of one
! day anyhow; and the man who worked
with him on the same Sabbath is still liv-
| ing, but helpless invalid under the same
fash. On the road from Margate to Rams
| gate, England, you may find a rough mon
ument with the inscription:
A boy was struck dead here while in the
! act of swearing.
Years ago in a Pittsburgh prison two
men were talking about the Bible and
! Christianity, and one Of them, Thompson
| by name, applied to Jesus Christ very
low and vilIainous epithet, and as he was
altering it he fell. A physician was called,
but no help could be given. After lying a
day with distendsd pupils and palsied
| tongue, he passed out of this world. In a
cemetery in Sullivan County, in this State,
are eight headstones in a line and all
alike, and there are the factsl In 1861
4 diphtheria ragged in the village, and a
I physician was remarkably successful in
curing the patients. s. confident did he
become that he boosted that no case Of
/ diphtheria could stand before him, and
finally defed Almighty God to produce a
case Of diphtheria that he could not cure.
/ His youngest child soon after took the
/ disease and died, and one child after an
I other, until all the eight had died Of
4 diphtheria. The blasphemer challenged
/ Almighty God, and God accepted the chal-
/ lenge.