The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-01-30
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "A Bright Sunday Versus
q Doleful Sunday"

TEXT: "And call the Sabbath delight" "
Isaiah lviil, 13.
There is an element of gloom striking
through all false religions Paganism is a
brood of horrors The god Of Confucius
frowned upon its victims with blind fate.
Mohammedanism promises nothing; to those
| exhausted with sin in this world but an
eternity Of the same passional indulgences.
But God intended that our religion should
| have the grand characteristic of cheerfulness
st. Paul struck the keynote when he said:
"Rejoice evermore, and again say, re-
| ioice." This religion has no spikes for the
feet; it has no hooks for the shoulder; it has
no long pilgrimages to take; it has no funer-
al-pyres upon which to leap; it has no Jug
gernauts before which to fall. Its good cheer
| is symbolized in the Bible by the brightness
| of waters and the redolence OF lilies, and the
| sweetness OF music, and the hilaritles OF a
| banquet. A choir of seraphim chanted at its
induction, and pealing trumpet, and waving
| palm, and Tapping wing of archangel are to
celebrate its triulnphs. 1t began its chief
mission with the shout: "Glory to God in
the highest!" and it will close its earthly
mission with the ascription: "Hallelujah, for
the Lord God omnipotent reignethw
| But men have said that our religion is not
| cheerful, because we have such doletul Sab
| bath. They say: "You can have your re.
ligious assemblages, and your long faces, and
your shifting cant, and your psalm books,
and your Bibles. Give us the Sunday excur-
| sion, and the horse-race, and the convlvial
laughter. We have SO much joy that we
want to spread it all over the seven days OF
the week, and you shall not have one of our
| days of worldly satisfaction for religious
| dolefulneSs." l want to show these men-if
there are any such in the house this morning
| that they are under a great delusion, and
| that God intended the fifty-two Sundays OF
the year to be hung up like bells in tower,
-. Iohi nf inr onA O10rv
and salvation, and heaven; for want you to
carry out the idea Of the text, land call the
Sabbath delight"
remark, in the first place, we are to find
in this day the joy of healthy repose. In
this democratic country we all have to
some with foot. If there is in all this house
hand that hac during the past year,
been stretched forth to some kind OF toll, let
it be lifted. Not one, not one. You sell the
goods. You teach the school, You doctor
In the sick room. You practice at the bar.
You edit newspaper. You tan the hides.
You preach the Gospel. You mend the shoes;
Of bricks up the ladder on the wall. And
the one occupation is as honorable as the
other, provided God calls you to it. 1 care
not what you do, if you only do it well. But
when Saturday night comes you are jaded
and worn. The hand cannot so
skillfully manufacture; the eye cannot
see as well; the brain is not so clear;
the judgment IS not so we'll balanced. A
prominent manufacturer told me that he
could see a difference between the goods
which went out Of his establishment on Sat-
urday from the goods that went out on Mon
day. He said: "They were very different
indeed Those that were made in the former
part of the week. because OF the rest that
had been previously given, were better than
those that were made in the latter part Of the
week, when the men were tired out" The
Sabbath comes, and it buthes the soreness
from the limbs, quiets the agitated brain,
and puts out the fires of anxiety that have
been burning all tie week. Our bodies are
seven day clocks, and unless OH the seventh
the grave The Sabbath was intended as
savings bank: into it we are to gather the re-
sources upon which We are to draw all the
week. That man who breaks the Sabbath
robs his own nerve, his own muscle, his own
brain, his own bones. He dips up the wine
of his own life and throws it away. He
who breaks the Lords day gives a mortgage
to disease and death upon his entire physical
estate, and ut the most unexpected moment
that mortgage will be foreclosed, and the
soul elected from the premises. Every gland,
and pore, and cell, and tinger-nail demands
the seventh day for repose. The respiration
Of the lungs, the throb Of the pulse in the
wrist, cho fn0tlOn OF Cne OOne IN lCS SOckeG
declare: ''Remember the Sabbath day, TO
keep it holy" There are thousands OF men
who have had their lives dashed out against
the golden gates of the Sabbath. A promi-
pent London merchant testifies that thirty
years ago lie went to London. He says: II
have during that time watched minutely.
and I have noticed that the men who
went to their business on the Lords
day, or opened their counting-houses,
have without single exception,
come to failure" A prominent Christian
merchant in Boston says: "Itnd it don't pa"
to work on Sunday. When was a boy, /
noticed out OH Long Island there were mer-
chants who loaded their vessels on the Sab
bath day, keeping their men busy from
morning until night, and it is my observa-
tiou that they themselves came to nothing
these merchants-and their children came to
nothing. 1t doesn't pay" he says, Ito work
on the Sabbath"
Iappeal to your observation. Where are
the men who twenty years ago were Sab
bath breakers, ami who have been Sabbath
breakers ever since! Without single ex-
ception, you will tell me, they have come
either to financial or to moral beggary. l
defy you to point out single exception, and
you can take the whole world for your
field. 1t has either been Il financial or moral
dofalcation in every instance. Six hundred
and forty physicians in London petition Par
ll6tleuU,
bath obeyed. We can not have health
in this city and in this nation un-
less the Sabbath is observed" Those
in our own country have given evil
dence on the same side The man who takes
down the shutters of his store on the Sabbath
takes down the curse OF Almighty God.
That farmer who cultures his ground on the
Sabbath day raises crop of neuralgia, and
of consumption, and Of death. A farmer
said: IL defy your Christian Sabbath. I
will raise Sunday crop" So he went to
work and plowed the ground on Sunday, and
narrowed it on Sunday, and he planted corn
on Sunday, and he reaped the corn ON Sunday,
and he gathered it into the barn Oh Sunday.
'There," he says, II have proved to you that
all this idea about fatality accompanying
Sabbath work is perfect sham: My corn
IS garnered, and ell is we'll" But before
many weeks passed the Lord God struck that
barn with his lightnings, and away went the
Sunday crop.
So great is the moral depression coming
upon those who toll upon the Sabbath day,
that you may have noticed iii you have not,
I call your attention to the fact that in
cases where the public interest demands
Sabbath toll the moral depression is so great
that there are but very few who can stand
it. For instance, the police service, without
which not one of our houses would be safe
there are very few who can stand the pres
sure aud temptation of it. In London, where
there are five thousand policemen, the sta
tistic is given that in one year nine hundred
and twenty-one Of that five thousand were
dismissed, five hundred and twenty-three
were suspended and two thousand. four
hundred and ninety-two were fined. Now,lt
the moral depression is SO great IN occuPa-
tions that are positively necessary for the
peace and prosperity OF society, ask You
l,o 81 ,,ooro1 6oprpSSi0O in @lOSa