The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-05-25
ATHEISTS ATTACK.
ralmare DisoourDes on Q World
Without Christianity.
Awful Enscts Of lnndelIty's friumph-
Femlnine Degradation sure to Follow
the Overthrow 0f Religious Belief
Encouragement for Believers.

In bis late sermon ut B-ooxlyn upon the
subject Observation" REV. 7. De Witt
Talmage took for his text: The sun shall
be turned into darkness" Acts Ii. % He
said:
Solar eclipse IL hero prophesied to take
place about the time Of the destruction OF
ancient Jerusalem. Josephus, the his
torian. says that the prophecy was literal
" fu.hlled, aud that about that time thene
were strange appearances in the heavens.
The sun was not destroyed, but for little
while hidden. Christianity Is the rising
sun of our time. und men have tried with
the uproliing vap0rs OF saepticism and the
smoke of their blaaphemy to turn the sun
into darkness. Suppose the archangels Of
malice and horror should be let loose "A
little while and be allowed to extinguish
and destroy the sun in the natural heavens.
They would take the oceans from other
worlds AMI pour them on this lumin1ry Of
the planetary system, and the waters 20
Kissing down amid the ravines and the
caverns. and there IL explosion after ex.
plOsion, until there arc only few peaks
OF fire left in the sun, and these are cooling
down and going out until the vast conti-
nents of flame are reduced to q small acre
age Of fire, and that whitens and cools OF
until there arc only few Goals left, and
these arc whitening and going out until
there is not . spark left In all the mount
aims of ashes and the valleys OF ashes and
the chasms Of ashes.
An extlnguished sun. A dead sun. A
buried sun. Let all worlds wall at the
studendous obsequies. or course. this
withdrawal Of the solar light and heat
throws our earth into universal chill, and
the tropics become the temperate, and the
temperate becomes the Arctic, and there
are frozen rivers and frozen lakes and frozen
oceans. From Arctic and Antarctic regions
the inhabitants ga'her in toward the GEN.
ter and find the equator as the poles. The
slain forests are piled up into q great bon.
fire, and AROUND them gather the shivering
villages and cities. The wealth of the
coal mines 10 hastily poured into the fur
naces and stirred into rage OF combustion,
but soon the bonfires began to lower, and
the furnaces begin to go out, and the
nations begin to die. Cotopaxi, vesuvius,
to smoke, and the ice Of hail storms re-
mains unmelted IN their crater. All the
flowers have breathed their last breath.
Ships with sailors frozen at tho mast and
helmsmeu frozen Mt the wheel and passen-
gers frozen in tho cabin; all nations dying,
first at the North and then at the South.
Child frosted and dead in the cradle
Octogenarian frosted and dead at the
hearth. Workmen with frozen hand on
the hammer and freq IN foot on the shuttle.
Winter from sea to sea. All-conRealing
winter. Perpetual winter. Globe OF frig-
idity. Hemisphere shackeled to hemis-
pherc by chains OF ice Universal Nova Fem.
bla The earth an ice-iloe grinding against
other ice-foes. The archangels Of malice
and horror have done their work, and now
they may take their thrones OF glacier and
look down upon tbs ruin they have wrought.
What the destruction OF the sun in the
natural heavens would be to our physical
earth, tue dest, uctiOn of Christianity would
Se to the moral world. The sun turned
Into darkness. Iufidelity in our time Is
considered great joke. There are people
who rejoice to hear Christianity carica-
cured and tohear Christ assaulted with Quib.
BILE and quirk and misrepresentation and
badnage and harlequinade. l propose
this morning to take infidelity and atheism
out Of the realm of popularity into one
Of tragedy and show you what they pro-
pose and what, ii they are successful, they
will accomplish. There are those in all
our communities who would like to see the
Christian religion overthrow aud who say
the world would he better without it
want to show you what Is the end OF this
road and what is the terminus of this cru
SADIE and what this world will be when
atheism and infidelity have triumphed over
1t, if they Gun, 1 say, if they can. reiter-
ate it, If they can.
In the first place It will DO the complete
and unutterable degradation OF woman.
hood. will provo 1t By facts and argu.
ments 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 aud improved and she IS
deferred to and honorcd in q thousand
things and every gentleman takes OF his
hat before her. II your associations have
been good you know that the name Of wife,
mother, daughter, suggest gracious sur
roundings. You know there are no better
schools aud scmlnaries in Brooklyn or IN
any city of this country than the schools
and Summaries for our young ladies' You
know that while women may suffer in.
Justice in England and the United States
she has more Of her rights in Christeudom
than she has anywhere else.
Now, compare this with woman's ccndi-
ton In lands where Christianity has made
little or no advance--in China, in Barbary,
in Borneo. in Tartary, in Egypt, in Hin.
dostan. The Burmese sell their wives and
daughters as SO many sheep The Hindoo
Bible makes 1t disgraceful and an outrage
for o woman to listen to music. or lo"k out
Of the window in the absence Of her hus.
band, and gives rs a lawful ground for
divorce o woman's beginning to eat before
her husband has finished his meal. What
mean those white bundles on the ponds
and rivers In China in the morningl H.
ianticide following infan;icide. Female
children DESTROYED simply because they
are female. Woman harnessed to q plow
as IN OK. Woman vailed and barricaded,
Snd in all styles Of cruel seclusion. Her
birth o misfortune. Her life o torture.
Her death horror. The missionary Of the
cross to-day III heather lands breaches
generally to two groups-a group CT men
who do rs they please aud sit where they
please; the other group women hid.
oR..n. S.A II L.