The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-05-23
ATHEISM AS A TRAGEDY.
TALMAGE PICTURES THE ENTIRPA-
TION OF CHRISTIANITY.

TALMAGE PICTURES THE ENTIRPA'
TION OF CHRISTIANITY.
woman's Condition Under the Sway OF
Atheism and Infdelity--Where and
What Examples May be Found--Horrors
of the Old World--The Awful End.
The Rev. DR.. Talmsge preached Sun
day morning upon "Obscuration" taking
the text from Acts IL, 20: "He shall be
turned into darkness. He said:
"What the destruction Of the sun in
the natural heavens would be to our
physical earth, the destruction of Chris
tianity would be to the moral world.
The sun turned Into darkness. Infdelity
in our time is considered a great joke.
There are people who rejoice to hear
Christianity caricatured. and to hear
Christ assailed with quibble and quirk
and misrepresentation and badinage
and harlequinade.
81 propose this morning to take in
fidelity and atheism. out of the realm OF
jocularity into one Of tradedy, and show
you what they propose and what, if
they are successful, they will accomplish.
There are those in all our communities
who would like to see the Christian re-
igion overthrown, and who say the
world would be better without it. want
to show you what is the end of this
road, and what is the terminus of this
crusade, and what this world will be
when atheism and in6delity have tri
umphed over it, if they can.
''In the first place, It will be the COM
plete and unutterable degradation of
womanhood. I will prove it by facts
and arguments which no honest man
will dispute. In all communities and
cities and States and nations where the
Christian religion has been dominant,
woman's condition has been ameliorated
and improved, andsshe is deferred to
and honored in thousand things, and
every gentl -man takes off his hat before
her.
"Now compare this with woman's
condition in lands where Christianity
has made little or no advance-in China,
in Barbary, in Borneo, in Tartary, in
Egypt, in Hindoostan. The Burmese
sell their wives and daughters like so
many sheep. The Hindoo Bible makes
it disgraceful and an outrage for wo-
man to listen to music, or to look out of
the window in the absence of her hus-
baud, and gives as lawful ground for
divorce woman's beginning to eat be-
fore her husband has finished his meal.
What mean those white bundles on the
ponds and rivers in China in the morn
ing? Infanticide following infanticide
Female children destroyed because they
are female. Woman harnessed to a
plow as an OK. Woman yelled and bar
ricaded, and in all styles of cruel seclu-
sion. Her birth a misfortune. Her life
a turture. Her death a horror.
"The missionary Of the cross to-day
in heather lands breaches generally to
two groups-a group of men do as they
please and sit where they please; the
other group, women, hidden and care
fully secluded in side apartment, where
tGsy may hear the voice of the preacher.
but may not be seen. No refinement.
No liberty. No hope for this Life. No
hope for the life to come. hinged nose.
Cramped foot. DIST cured face. EN-
bruted soul. Now compare those two
conditions. How far toward this latter
condition that I speak of would woman
90 if Christian influence were withdrawn
and Christianity were destroyed. It is
only question of dynamics. If an OBJ.
iect be lifted to certain point and not
fastened there, and the lifting power be
withdrawn, how long before that object
will fall down to the point from which it
started? It will down, and it will go
still further than the point from which
it started. Christianity has lifted woman
up from the very depths of degradation
almost to the skies. If that lifting pow
er be withdrawn she falls clear back to
the depth from which she was resur-
rected.
eff infdelity triumph and Christianity
be overthrown, it means the demoraliza-
ton of society. The one idea in the
Bible that atheists and infdels most hate
is the idea of retribution. Take away
the idea of retribution and punishment
from society and it will begin very soon
to disintegrate, and take away from the
minds of men the fear of he'll and there
are great many of them who would
yerv soon turn this world into a hell.
The majority of those who are indignant
against the Bible because of punishment
are men whose lives are bad or whose
hearts are impure, and who hate the
Bible because cf the idea of future pun
ishment for the same reason that crimi-
nails hate the penitentiary. Oh, I have
heard this brave talk about people fear
ing nothing Of the consequences of sin
in the next world, and 1 have made up
my mind it is merely coward's whist
ling to keep his courage up. Ihave seen
men haunt their immoralities in the
face of the community, and have heard
them defy the Judgment day and scott at
the idea Of any future consequence of
their sin; but when they came to die
they shrieked until you could near them
for nearly two Elocks, and in the sum-
mer night the neighbors got up to put
the windows down because they could
not endure the horros.
"I would not want to see railway train
with 500 Christian people on board go
down through a drawbridge into a
watery grave. would not want to see
500 Christian people 60 into such q dis
aster, but I tell you plainly that I could
more easily see that than could for any
protracted time stand and see an inGdel
aia thnnnh his nillnu ware of elder