The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-01-28
TALMAGES SERMON.
The Closing Sermon of 1895 In the
Brooklyn Tabernacle.
A Review Of the Journey of Life, With Its
Obstacles and yicissitudes-Sug-
gestions ofNew Things for
the New Year,

Rev. L. De WIZ 1aimaSe, III pfeacHIug
the last sermon of the old year at the
Brooklyn Tabernacle, chose an appropriate
theme, taking for his text:
knowing the time that now 1t is high time
TO awake out of sleep.-iRomans, xiii, IL. "a
While this morning with glad anthem
we celebrated the Christmas hour, has it
occurred to you that this is the last Sab
bath night of grand, and beautiful, and
eventful, and joyous, and solemn 1885? The
occasion is nightly suggestive.
Starting out on long journey on horse
back, you ride along without stopping for
many mile, until after while you come
on top of high hill You rein in the
steed. The horse smokes by reason Of the
length of the way. You take your feet out
of the stirrups. You turn around in the
saddle. You look off upon tho ravines
through which you have passed, and the
hills over which you have come, and make
an estimate Of how many miles you have
Travelled. Then turning around again in
the saddle, and putting your feet in the
stirrups, you look ahead and wonder how
far it will be before you come to the
place of destination. And SO to- day we
come up on the Sabbatic Mount of privi-
1ege. No horseman ever spurred on O.
steed faster than we have gone up the
sleeps of life and down the dangerou,
declivities; but having come here day,
we stop and look back upon the way
through which we have come-the dark
ness and the sunshine, the accidents and
the successes-and then look forw ard and
wonder how long Or how short will yet be
the way. And sitting and standing here,
the hour seems to me, as to you, it must
be, momentous. l put my finger on the
pulse of this moment and feel that it
beats high and eternal destinies. You and
I have started on in life which will con-
tinue to live after the sun has gone out
cold in death and this wrecked and foun-
dered world shall have strewn its timbers
on the coast of an eternal desolation. O.!
it is mean question for me to ask my
self and you to-day: "Where am I? What
am 1? Whence came I? And whittier am
I bound?" The simple fact is that
each one of us has a soul to save
Now, when any man in olden
times had saved the life of a
Roman citizen from drowning, for instance,
that man who rescued the unfortunate
was honored. He was allowed sometimes
to sit in the Senate; he was allowed to ride
in great professions, and when ihe entered
room the other people would rise up to
greet him and do him honor. l would to
God that tonight we might aspire for the
higher honor of saving a soul--an immor-
tai soul.
There are three or four reasons that |
can think of why we should obey the in
junction of my text and wake up. The
first arousing consideration that occurs to
my mind is the fact that there are so many
obstacles in the way of our salvation. Now,
there is no need of our hiding this fact. We
sometimes hear people talking to the I'M
converted and saying: "It is just as easy
for you to become Christian as it is to
turn over your hand" It is not. There
are tremendous obstacles in the way Of
your becoming Christian, and every
man that has tried in thorough earnest
ness to become q child of God has found
that there are obstacles. That is not a
wise general who deprecates the force OF
an enemy-who says to his men: "My
troops, you will have an easy time of it
Those castles can be captured without any
very serious bombardment. There are
only few enemies in that opposing hos
1t will only be few moments assault and
we will gain the victory" No. A wise
general says: "Those are strong
battlements; those men who are
coming out to assault us are armed,
and they are brave men. If you ever cap
ture those fortresses, and if you ever over
come that host, it will be by mi ghty rally
ing of all your energies" And have to tell
you now, that If you are ever going to gel
to Heaven, it will be by going out in con.
test as one against hundred, as enc
against thousand, as one against a hun.
dred thousand, aye, it is an infinite impos.
sibility that you ever succeed by any
strength or resolution of your own, and il
there were not some supernatural aid to be
offered and some divine promise to take
hold of, we would be lost, and we would al
be lost.
In the first place, there are the obstacles
In the worldliness that surrounds you.
need not tell you, men of Brooklyn ant
New York, that there is tide of worldli
ness setting away from God and from
Heaven. You have felt it. You hav,
waded down in it until the flood came tx
your knee, until it came to your girdle
until it has come to your hip. You rise il
the morning. You find it is few moments
later than you thought it was. You are il
great haste. You hurry through the morn
ing meal. You race down the street. Yo,
go to your Office. You open the letters ant
you answer them. You examine the money
market. You run hither and thither. You
life is a toll and turmoil. The long day
save the fifteen or twenty minutes in which
you lunch, is given up to the influence o
this world, and it is very rare, indeed
that from eight o'clock in the morn
ing until four or five o'clock in the after
noon that you have a single thought abou
the great future. Some thought may
while you are standing at the counter or il
the banking house, some stray thought O
the future world may come through you
mind, but it darts out again, just like
swallow that in summer thine wheels int,
the open window, makes a circuit of a few
minutes and then goes out. Oh! this it'd
of worldliness! You have felt it. It set
away from God and away from Heaven
You know it.
Then there are obstacles in the way o
your getting to Heaven, in Satanic and in