The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1889-01-18
M ANKATe FREE Press
FRIDAY. JANUARY ls, 1880.
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON.
A BRIGHT SUNDAY VERSUS A DOLE.
Full SUNDAY.

Tho Gioominess That Pervades All False
Reiigions-The Christian Religion Should
Have the Grand Characteristic OF Cheer
fs,iness-A Word to Long Faced People.
BROOKLYN, Jan. l8-The Rev. 7. De Witt
Talmage, D. D., preached today on "a Bright
Sunday versus O Doleful Sunday" After
expounding appropriate passages Of Script
ure he gave out the hymn;
Welcome sweet day OF rest.
That saw the Lord arise
The text was; "And call the Sabbath de-
light Isaiah lviii, Is DR.. Talmage said:
There IL 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
Accommodation 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 key note when he said:
ARejoice evermore, and again say, rejoice. "
This religion has no spikes for tho feet; 1t has
no hooks for the shoulder; it has no long pill
grtmages to take; 1t has no funeral pyres on
which to leap; It has no juggernauts be-
fore which to fall It's good cheer Is symbol
lied In the Bible by the brightness of waters,
and the redolence Of lilies, and the sweet
ness of music, and the hilarities Of
q banquet A choir Of seraphim chanted at
It's induction, and pealing trumpet, and wav-
ing palm, and tapping wing Of archangel are
to celebrate its triumphs It 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 reignethl"
But men have said that our religion Is not
cheerful, because we have such doleful Sab
bath. They say; "You can have your relig-
ious 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 convivial
laughter. We have so much Joy that we
want to spread II all over the seven
days Of the week, and you shall
not have one Of our days Of worldly
satisfaction for religious dolefulness" Iwant
to show these men-tf there are any such In
the house this morning-that they are under
Q great delusion, and that God intended the
ffty-two Sundays Of the year to be hung up
Ike bells In a tower, beating a perpetual
chime Of Joy and glory and salvation and
heaven; for want you to carry out the idea
Of the text, land call the Sabbath delight {"
THE DoLEFUL SABBATH Is AN ABoMINATIoN.
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 work
some with hand, some with brain, some with
foot. If there Is In all this house hand that
has not, during the past year, been stretched
forth 10 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 a
newspaper. You tan the hides. You preach
the Gospel You mend the shoes You sit
at the shuttle You carry the hod Of bricks
up the ladder on the wall. And the one occu-
patton Is as honorable as the other, provided
God calls you to 1t. care not what you do,
II you only do 1t 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 well balanced.
A prominent manufacturer told me that he
could see a difference between the goods
which went out Of his establishment on
Saturday from the goods that went out on
Monday He said: ''They were very differ
emit 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 battles the sore
ness from the limbs, quiets the agitated brain,
and puts out the fires Of anxiety that have
been burning all the week. Our bodies are
seven day clocks, and unless on the seventh
day they are wound up, they run
down into the grave. The Sabbath
was intended as q savings bank; into
It we are to gather the resources 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 O mortgage to disease and
death upon his entire physical estate, and at
the most unexpected moment that mortgage
viii be foreclosed, and the soul elected from
the premises. Every gland, and pore, and
cell, and finger nail demands the seventh
day for reposa The respiration of the lungs,
the throb Of the pulse in the wrist, the motion
Of the bone in its socket 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 prominent
London merchant testifes that thirty
years ago he went to London. He
says: 81 have during that time watched
minutely, and have noticed that the men
who went to business on the Lords day, or
opened their counting houses, have, without
q single exception, come to failure" A
prominent Christian merchant in Boston
says: 81 find it don't pay to work on Sunday.
When l was a boy, I noticed out on Long
wharf there were merchants who loaded
their vessels on the Sabbath day, keeping
their men busy from morning till night, and
1t Is my observation 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"
HOW THE SABBATH BREAKERS END.
appeal to your observation Where are
the men who twenty years ago were Sabbath
breakers, and who have been Sabbath
breakers ever since2 Without a single excep-
ton, you will tell me, they have come either
to financial or to moral beggary, Idefy you
to point out single exception, and you can
take the whole world for your field. It has
either been financial or moral defalcation
In every instance Six hundred and forty
physicians In London petition parliament,
saying, 1--WE must have the Sabbath obeyed.
Wecannot have health in this city and In this
nation, unless the Sabbath Is observed" Those
In our own country have given evidence on the
sameside. The man who takes down the shut
tiers Of his store on the Sabbath takes down the
curse Of Almighty God. That farmer who
cultures his ground on the Sabbath day raises
o crop of neuralgia, and Of consumption, and
Of death. A farmer said: ~ defy your Chris
tian Sabbath. 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 on Sunday. There" he says, 81
have proved to you that all this idea about a
fatality accompanying Sabbath work Is a
perfect sham. My corn Is garnered and all
Il we'll" But before many weeks passed the
Lord God struck that barn with his light
nings, and away went the Sunday crop. So
great Il the moral depression coming upon
those who toll upon the Sabbath day, that
you may have noticed df you have not, I call
your attention to the fact that In cases
where the public interest demands Sabbath
toll the moral depression Is 80 great that
there are but very few who can stand 1t.
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 and temptation Of 1t. In London, where
there are five thousand policemen, the statis-
tic Is given that in one year nine hundred and
twenty-one Of that five thousand were dis
missed, FIVE hundred and twenty-three were
and two thousand four hundred
and ninety-two were fined. Now, If the
moral depression be 80 great In occupa-
lions that are positively necessary for
the peace and prosperity of society,
I ask you what must be the moral depression
In those cases where there Is no necessity for
Sabbath work, and where a man chooses
worldly business on the Lords day just be-
cause he likes 1t or wants to add to his emolu-
mentsi During the last war it was found
out that those public works which paused on
the seventh day turned out more war mate
dali I.sol- III