The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-05-30
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUM-
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Obscuration."

ness.-Acts il, 90
Solar eclipse is here prophesied to take
place about the time of the destruction OF
ancient Jerusalem. Josephus, the historian,
says that the prophecy was literally fulfilled,
and that about that time there were strange
appearances in the heavens. The sun was
not destroyed, but for little while hidden.
Christianity is the rising sun of our time,
and men have tried with the uprolling va
pors of skepticism and the smoke of their
blasphemy to turn the sun into darkness.
Suppose tt archangels of malice ana horror
should be let loose little while and be al
lowed to extinguish and destroy the sun in
the natural heavens. They would take the
oceans from other worlds and pour them on
this lunlinary of the planetary system, and
the waters 60 Kissing down amid the ravines
and the caverns, and there is explosion after
explosion until there are only few peaks OF
fire left in the sun, and these are cooling
down and going out until the vast continents
Of fame are reduced to q small acreage OF
fire, and that whitens and cools off until
there are only few Goals left, and these are
whitening and going out until there is not q
spark lefs3n all the mountains OF ashes and
the valless of ashes and the chasms of ashes.
An extinsuished sun. A dead sun. A buried
sun. Letnn worlds wall at the stupendous
obsequieSs
OF course this withdrawal Of the solar heat
and light 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 gather in toward the
center and find the equator as the poles. The
slain forests are piled up into great bonfire,
and around them gather the shivering viii
lagos and cities. The wealth of the coal mines
is hastily poured into the furnaces and
stirred into rage of combustion, but soon the
bonfires begin to lower and the furnaces be-
gin to go out and the nations begin to die.
Cotopaxi, Vesuvius, Etna, Stromboli, Cali
fornian geysers cease to smoke and the ice
of hail storms remains unmelted in their
craters All the flowers have breathed their
last breath. Ships with sailors frozen
wheel, and passengers frozen in the cabin;
all nations dying, first at the north and then
at the south Child frosted and dead in the
cradle. 0ctogenarian frosted and dead at
the hearth. Workmen with frozen hand on
the hammer and frozen foot on the shuttle.
Winter from sea to sea- All congealing win
ter. Perpetual winter. Globe of frigidiGy.
Hemisphere shackled to hemisphere by
chains Of ice Universal Nova Zembla.
The earth an ice doe grinding against other
ice foes The archange!s Of malice and hor-
ror have done their work, and now they may
take their thrones Of glacier and look down
upon the ruin they have wrought
What the destruction Of the sun in the
natural heavens would be to our physi-
cal earth, the destruction Of Christianity
would be to the moral world. The sun
turned into darkness. Infdelity in our time
Is consI,sred great joke. There are people
who rei3ce to hear. Christianity caricatured,
and to hsar Christ assailed with quibble and
.uuirk and Misrepresentation and badinage
and harlequiuade.
I propose this morning to take infdelity
and atheism out Of the realm Of jocularity
into one Of tragedy ,and show you what they
propose, and what, if they are successful,
they will accomplish. There ere those in all
our communities who would like to see the
Christian religion overthrown, and who say
the world would be better without it, I 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 inidelity have triumph I'd over it, if they
can. say, If they can. l reiterate it, II
they can.
In the first place, it will be the complete
and unutterable degradation Of womanhood.
will prove it by facts and arguments which
no honest man will dispute. In all COM
munities and cities and states and nations
where the Christian religion has been domi-
nant, woman's condition has been ameli-
GRATED and improved, and she is deferred to
and honored in a thousand things, and every
gentleman takes off his hat before her. If
your associations have been good, you know
that the name of wife, mother, daughter,
suggest gracious surroundings. You know
there are no better schools and seminaries in
Brooklyn or in any city of this country than
the schools and seminaries for young ladies.
You know that while woman may suffer in
Justice in England and the United States,
she has more Of her rights in Christendom
than she has anywhere else.
Now, compare this with woman's condi-
tion in lands where Christianity has made
little or no advance-in China, in Barbary,
in Borneo, in Tartary, in Egypt, in Hindo-
stan. The Burmese sell their wives and
daughters as SO many sheep. The H:ndoo
Bible makes il disgracetul and an outrage
for q woman to listen to music or look out OF
the window in the absence Of her husband,
and giges as a lawful ground for divorce
womaSss beginning to eat before her husband
has finished his meal. What mean those
white bundles on the ponds and rivers
In China in the nlorninga Infanticide fol-
lowing infanticide Female children de-
stroyed simply because they are female.
Woman harnessed to plow as an OK: Wo-
man veiled and barricaded, and in all styles
Of cruel seclusion. Her birth a misfortune.
Her life torture. Her death horror.
The missionary Of the cross to-day in
heathen lands breaches generally to two
groups-a group or men who DO al
they please and sit where they please;
the other group-women hidden and care.
fully secluded in side apartment, where they
may hear the voice Of the preacher but
may not be seen. No refinement. No lib
erty. No hope for this life. No hope for the
Life to come hinged nose. Cramped foot.
Disfgured face. Embruted soul Now COM
pare those two conditions. How far toward
CHS latter condition that I speak of would
woman 60 if Christian influences were with
drawn and Christianity were destroyed? 1t
is only question Of dynamics. If an object
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 starteds 1t will
the point from which it started. Christian
ity has lifted woman up from the very depths
Of degradation almost to the skies. If that
lifting power be withdrawn sha falls clear
back to the derth from which she was resur-
rected, not going any lower because there is
no lower depth. And yet, Notwithstanding
the fact that the only salvation Of woman
from degradation and woe is the Christian
religion, and the only influence that has ever
lifted her in the social scale is Christianity
I have read that there are women who reject
Christianity. l make no remark in regard
to those persons. / make no remark in re-
gard to them. In the silence Of your own
soul make your observations.
II infidelity triumph and Christianity be
overthrown, it means the Generalization Of
society. The one idea in the Bible that athe-
lists and infidels most hate. is the idea Of ret.
ributira Take away the idea of retribu-
ton and punishment from society, and it
will begin very soon to disintegrate; and
take away from the minds Of men the fear
of hell, and there are great many of them
who would very soon turn this world into
hell. The ma ;ority of those who are indig--
nant against the Bible because Of the idea Of