The Russellville Democrat., 1889-02-07
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Discourse on Answers to Sian.
 ders Against Religion.
The Enemies of Evangelism Rebuked- The Regenerating Influences of the Religion of Jesus-The Fate
 of the Sceptic.


 Brooklyn Tabernacle. His text was:
 And took the little book out of the angels hand, and ate it up, and it was in my mouth sweet as honey; and as soon as had eaten it my belly was bitter. And he said unto me. '"Thou must prophecy again before many peo- pies. and nations, and tongues, and Kings."-- Revelations, X, 10-I1.
 Domitian, the Roman Emperor, had in his realm a troublesome evangelist who would keep preaching, and so he exiled him to barren island, as now the Rus- sians exile convicts to Siberia, or as some- times the English Government used to send prisoners to Australia. The island speak of is now called Patmos, and is so barren and unproductive that it's inhab- itants live by fishing.
 But one day the evangelist of whom I speak, sitting at the mouth of a cavern on the hillside, and perhaps half asleep un- der the drone of the sea, has a supernat- ural dream, and before him pass, as in panorama, time and eternity. Among the strange things that he saw was an angel with little book in his hand, and in his dream the evangelist asked for this little book, and the angel gave it to him, and told him to eat it up. As in dream things are sometimes incongruous, the evangelist took the little book and ate it up. The angel told him beforehand that 1t would be very sweet in the mouth, but atterward he would be troubled with in- digestion. True enough the evangelist devours the book and it becomes to him @ sweetness during mastieation, but after | ward physical bitterness.
 Who the angel was and what the book was no one can tell. The commentators do not agree, and I shall take no respon sibility of interpretation, but will tell you that it suggests to me the little book of creeds, which skeptics take and chew up and find a very luscious morsel to their witticism, but after awhile it is to them a great distress. The angel of the church hands out this little book of evangelism, and the antagonists of the Christian church take it and eat it up, and it makes them smile at first, but afterward it is to them dire dyspepsia.
 All intellectual people have creeds- that is, favorite theories which they have adopted Political creeds--that is, theo- ries about tariff, finance, about civil sev- ice, about government. Social creeds- that is, theories about manners and cus- toms, and good neighborhood. Esthet- ical creeds-that Is, theories about tapes try, about bric-a- brac, about styles of or- namentation. Religious creeds-that is, theories about the Deity, about the soul, about the great future. The only being who has no creed about any thing is the idiot. This scoffing against creeds is always a sign of profound ignorance on the part of the scoffer, for he has himself a hundred creeds in regard to other things. In our times the beliefs of evangelistic churches are under fusillade of caricature and misrepresentation. Men set up what they call orthodox faith, and then they rake it with the musketry of their de- nunciation. They falsify what the Chris tian churches believe. They take evan- gelican doctrines and set them in harsh and repulsive way, and shut them out of the association with other truths. They are like a mad anatomist who, desiring to tell what man Is, dissects human body and hangs up in one place the heart and in another place the two lungs, and in an other place an ankle bone, and says that is man. They are only fragments of a man wrenched out of their God-ap- pointed places.
 Evangelical religion is healthy, sym metrical, well-jointed, roseate, bounding life, and the scalpel and the dissecting knife of the infidel or the atheist can not tell you what 1t is. Evangelical religion is as different from what it is represented to be by these enemies as the scarecrow which @ farmer puts in the cornteld to keep off the ravens is different from the farmer himself.
 For instance these enemies of evangel- ism say that the Presbyterian Church be- lieves that God is a savage sovereign, and that He made some men to damn them, and that there are infants ip hell span long, These old islanders come down from generation to generation. The Pres- byterian church believes no such thing. The Presbyterian church believes that God is a loving and just sovereign, and that we are free agents. No, no, that can not be-" say these men who have chewed up the creed and have the conse- quent embittered stomachs, That is im- possible. If God is a sovereign we can't De free agents" Why, my friend, we admit this in every other direction. I, De Witt Talmage, am free citizen of Brooklyn. go when I please and I come when I please, but have at least tfoursoyereigns. The church court Of our denominationi that Is my ecclesiastical soverei gn. The mayor of this city; he is my municipal sovereign. The Governor of New York; he is my State sovereign. The President of the United States; he is my National sovereign. Four sovereigns have 1, and yet in every faculty of body, mind and soul am free man. So, you see, it is possible that the two doctrines go side by side and there Is a common sense way of presenting it, and there is way that is repulsive. If you have the two doctrines In a worldly direction, why not in religious direction? If I choose to- morrow morning to walk into the Mercantile Library and improve my mind, or to go through the conservatory Of my friend from Jamaica, who has flowers from all lands growing under the arches of glass, and who has an aquarium all asquirln with trout and gold fish, and there are trees bearing oranges and bananas-if 1 wanted to go there could. l am free to go. If l want to go over to Hoboken and leap into the furnace of an oil factory; if | want to jump from the platform of Philadelphia express train; if want to leap from the Brooklyn Bridge, may. But suppose 1 should go tomorrow and leap into the furnace at Hoboken, who would be to blame. That is all there is about sovereignty and free agency. God rules and reigns,and He has conseryatories and He has blast furnaces. If you want to walk in the gardens, walk there. If you want 10 leap in the furnace you may.
 Suppose, now, man had charmed key with which he could open all the jails, and he should open Raymond Street jail and the New York Tombs, and all the prisons on the continent. In three weeks what kind of country would this bey All the inmates turned out of these prisons and penitentlaries. Suppose all the repro bates, the bad spirits, the outrageous spirits should be turned into the New Jerusalemf Why, the next morning the gates of pearl would be found of the hinge, the linohpin would he gone out of the chariot wheels, the house of many mansions" would be burglar ized, Assault and battery, arson, libertinism and assassination would r...ila u ln. a.nl.ifaI re Aln nl,las ..ar.In