The Forrest City times., 1888-08-11
1ALNAGE AT CHAUTATQUA
ls Orthodoxy Stale and Un-
 feasonable7s
The Great Divine Answers This Question
 Ably and In.slligibly.

CHAurArQUA N r., August s-The Rev. T. DeWlts Talmage. D. D.. of Brooklyn. is present for the Twelfth time at the national meeting Of religious edncators and students held yearly in this place. Ills sermon today. which ~as delivered to sn auiieDee imposing in numbefs and intelligence. vas from the following text, ia the book of Jeremiah. eh- vi, v 16t ''Ask fo< the old paths where is the good vsy, and walk therein. and ye shall snd rest for your soglsn and answered the auestion: "Is Orthoioxy Stale and Unrea- sonabef" Following is verbatim report of 1t:
 A great London fog has come down upon some of the ministers and some Of the churches in the shape of what Is called -'Aj- vAuced fhoaxht'' in Biblical lnterrreiation. All of them, and without any exception, deny the fun inspiration of the Bible. Genesis $ sn allegory, and there are many myths in t6e reason and evolute until theJ land in great continent of mud, from ~hicb, fear, for s1 eternity they will not be able 10 eItrieate themselves.
 The BIble is not oniy dirIDeiy inspired, but i | H divinels protected iu It's present. shsp~. i You could ss essilys sithout detection, take | from the writings Of shske.pes,e Hamlet, sud institute in place thereof Alexandet Smith drama, se al any time during the las. fftceG I hundred years . man could have made any i important change in the Bihle without i'm mediate detection. If there had been su eie- 1 iegration, the Book would long ago have fallen | 10 pIeces If there had been one loose brick or cracked easement in this eAstenated truth, surely the bombardInent of eight centuries would have dlscovered and broken throug . that imperfection- Tbe fact that the Bible stands in tact notvitbsianding all the fur 1 ;ous assaults on ail sides upon It Is prooi to me that it is miracle, and erery miracle is | of God
 "Bu,n says some one, awhfe ve admit the Bible is of God it has not been understood until our time.n My snswer is, that If the I Bible be letter from God, our Father, 10 | man, His child Is 1t not strange thai that letter should have been written in such a | way that it should silow seventy generations | to pass aHay and be buried before the letter ] could be understoodi That would be very bright father who should write letter for i the guidance and intelligence Of his children, not understandable until . thousand years after they were buried and forgo,teni While | ss the yesrs roll on other beauties and excel ! leneies will unfold from the Scriptures that | the Bible Is such \ dead failure that all the l Christian scholars for elghteen hundred years wefe deceived in regard to vast reaches of its | meaning, is q demand upon my erednlity 60 great that if found myself at all disposed 
 apply at some insane asylum as unh, to be alone
 Who make up this precious group of sd- 1 vanced thinkers to whom God has made espe- cial revelation In our time of that which He l tried to make known thousands Of years ago and failed to make iutelligiblei Are theF so distinguished for unworldliness, piety, and | scholarship that it is to be expected that they would have been chosen 10 nx up the defective work of Moses and Isaiah sr4 md Ehrfs Ia possfblei wonder on what mountain i these modern exegetes were trsnshguredi | wonder what star pointed down to their birthplacei Wasit the North star, or the evening star, or the Dipperi As they came through and descended to our world did Mars blush or Saturn lose one of its rings, When find these modern wlseacres attempt ing to improve upon the work of the AL mighty and 10 interlard 1t with their wisdom and to sugzest prophetic and apostolic errata, am filled with disgust insuferable. Ad- ysnced thought, which proposes to tell the Lord what He ought to have said thousands of years ago and would have said if He had been as wise as His nineteenth century criticsi All this comes of living away back 1 in the eternities instead of 1888. have two wonders in regard 10 these men. The first one Is how the Lord got along without them before they were born. The second wonder is how the Lord will get along without them after they are dead.
 
 the Scriptures are inspired throughoutf' Yes, either as history or ss & guidance. Gib- bon and Josephus and Prescott record in their histories great many things they did not approve of. When George Bancroft puts upon his brilliant historical page the sc- count of sn Indian massacre, does he approve of that msssacrel There are scores of things in the Bible which neither God nor in. spired men sanctioned Either as history or as guidance the entire Bible was inspired Of God.
 'But,n says some one, don't you think that the copyists might have made mistakes in transferring the divine words from one manuscript to anotherf' Yes, DO doubt there were such mistakes; but they no more affect the meaning of the Scriptures than the misspeling of word or the ungram- matical structure of sentence in last will and testament affects the validity or meaning of that will. All the mistakes made by the copyists in the Scriptures do not amount to any more importance than the difference be. tween your spelling in a document the word fortr, forty or fourty. This book is the last VIII and testament of God to our lost world, snd 1t bequeat1s everything in the right way Although human hands may have damaged the grammar or made unJustifable interpola- tiona
 These men who pride themselves in our day ou being advanced thinkers in Biblical inter. pretstion will all of them end in atheism, fl 1 day they are doing more in the different de- nominations of Christians, and throughout the world, for damaging Christianity and hindering the cause of the worlds better
 nent than i've thousand Robert lngersoll. l could do. That man who stands inside a castle Is far more dangerous if be be an enemy than i've thousand enemies outside the castle- Robert G, Ingersoll assalls the castle from the outside. These men who pre- tend to be advanced thinkers in sil the de. -l.N-t GswAs q inside, and trying to shove back the bolts and swing onen the gates.
 Now, am in favor of the greatest freedom of religious thought and discussion. l would have as much liberty for heterodoxy as for orthodoxy. If 1 should ehsnge my theories Of religion should preach them out and out, but not in the building where am sccustom. ed to preach, for that was erected by people 1 who believe in an entire Bible, and 1t would bs dishonest for me to promulgste senti. building was put up When we enter any denominations as ministers Of relig ion We take . solemn VOW that we vnl preach the sentiments of that denomination If we change our theories, ss 1 we have . right to change them, then there is . world several thousand mics In circumfer- ence, and there are hundreds of halls and l hundreds of academies of music where we can ventilate our sentiments
 remember that in all our cities in time of I pUiitiS2i hkftdtiou tuctc are tue xpcpuDAShu headquarters and the Democratic headqusrt- era Suppose l should go into one of these headquarters pretending to be in sympathy 1 with their work, at the same time electlooeer. ing for the opposite party. would soon find that the centrifugal force was greater than the centripetali Now, if man enters a denomination of Christians, taking 6 solemn oath, as we all do, that we will promulgste l the theories of that depomnation, and then I the man shall proclaim some other theory, he 8 L lf tk h.t ta ~.I perjurer. Nevertheless, declare for largest l liberty in religious discussion. I would nc ] more have the attempt 10 rear q monument ' to Thomas Paine iuterfered with than 1 would have interfered with the lifting of ,he splendid monument to Washington. Largest i liberty for the body. largest liberty fer the mind, largest liberty for the soul
 | Now. want 10 show you, as matter of advocacy for what believe to be the right, ! the splendors of orthodox. Many have 1 supposed that It's disciples are people Of fiat l skuiis and DO reading, and behind the age, | and the victims of gullIbilty. I shall show xh.x Sla worA f,rfh hn1oyv sfap1a for ha