Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-04-20
TALMAGE ON PROFANITY.

1yn tabernacle Sunday morning, Aprll
g, began with the words:
SO let our lips and lives express
The holy gospel we profess.
After reading appropriate passages
of scripture, Rev T. De Witt Talmage,
D. D., preached on the habit of cursing
and swearing. His text was from the
Book of Job, chapter 2, verses 7, &
and 9
So went Satan forth from the pres
ence Of the Lord and smote job with
sore boils from the sole of his foot unto
his crown. And he took him Potsherd
to scrape himself withall: and he sat
down among the ashes Then said his
wife unto him: "Dost thou still retain
thine integrity? Curse God and die.
DR.. Talmage said:
A story oriental and marvellous. Job
was the richest man In all the east. He
had camels and oxen and asses and
sheep, and what would have made him
rich without anything else, seven sons
and three daughters. It was the habit
of these children to gather together for
family reunion. One day Job is think
ing of his children as gathered together
at banquet at the elder brothers
house.
While the old man is seated at his
tent door he sees some one running, evil
IDENTIFY from his manner bringing bad
news. What is the matter now? ooh,
says the messenger, "a foraging party
of Sabeans have fallen upon the oxen
and the asses and destroyed them, and
butchered all the servants except my
self. Stand aside. Another messen-
ger running. What is the matter now {?
"Oh, says the man, "the lightning has
struck the sheep and the shepherds,
and all the shepherds are destroyed ex-
cept myself. Stand aside Another
messenger running. What is the mat
ter now? ~Oh," he says, "the Chalde-
ans have captured the camels and slain
all the camel-drivers except myself.
Stand aside. Another messenger run
ming. What is the matter now? "Oh,
says he, "a hurricane struck the four
corners of the tent where your children
were assembled at the banquet, and
they are all dead"
But the chapter of calamity is not
ended. Job was smitten with elephan-
tiasia, or black leprosy. TumOrs from
head to foot, forehead ridged with
tubercles, eyelashes fall out, nostrils
eXcOriated, voice destroyed, intOlerable
exhalatiOns from the entire body, until,
with none to dress his sores, he sits
down in the ashes with nothing but
pieces of broken pottery to use in the
surgery of his wounds. At this mo-
ment, when he needed all encourage
ment and all consolation, his wife comes
in a fret and rage and says, "This is
Is intolerable. Our property gone, our
children slain, and now you covered up
with this lOathsOme and disgusting dis
ease. Why don't you swear? Curse
God and die" An Job knew right
we'll that swearing would not cure one
of the tumOrs of his agOnized body,
would not bring back one of his de
strOyed camels, would not restore one
of his dead children. He knew that
profanity would only make the pain
more unbearable, and the poverty more
distressing, and the bereavement more
excruciating. But, Judging from the
profanity abroad in our day, you might
come to the conclusion that there was
some great advantage to be reaped from
profanity.
Blasphemy is all abroad. You hear
it in every direction, The drayman
swearing at his cart, the sewing girl
imprecating the tangled skein, the ac-
cOuntant cursing the long line of trOu-
blesome figures. Swearing at the store,
swearing in the loft, swearing in the
cellar, swearing on the street, swearing
in the factory. Children swear. Men
swear. Women swear. Swearing from
the rough, calling on the Almighty in
the low restaurant, clear up to the reck-
less 90 Lord" of a glittering drawing
room; and the one is as much bias
phemy as the other. There are times
when we must cry out to the Lord by
reason of our physical agony or our
mental distress, and that is only throw
ing out our weak hand toward the
strong arm of a father. 1t was no pro-
family when James A. Garfield, shot in
the Washington depot, cried out, MY
God, what does this mean ?" There is
no profanity in calling out upon God
in the day of trouble, in the day Of
darkness, in the day of physical an
glIish, in the day of bereavement; but
L am speaking now of the trivialty and
of the recklessness with which the name
of God is sometimes managed. The
whole land is cursed with it.
A gentleman coming from the far
west sat in the car day after day behind
two persons who were indulging IN
profanity, and he made up his mind
that he would make record of their
prOfonities, and at the end of two days
several sheets of paper were covered
with these imprecatiOns, and at the
close of the journey he handed the