The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-04-04
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 IdD6Tnacl0s Ills bcAb Hdo'
And took the little book out of the angels
hand, and ate 1t up, and it was in my mouth
sweet as honey; and as soon as 1 had eaten it
my belly was bitter. And he said unto me-
Thou must prophesy again before many peo-
pies. and nations, and tongues, and Kings. -
Revelations, K. 1911.
Domitian, the Roman Emperor, had in
his realm a troublesome evangelist who
would keep preaching, and SO he exiled
him to a barren island, as now the Rus
SLAMS 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 its inhab-
itants live by fishing.
But one day the evangelist of whom |
speak, sitting at the mouth of a cavern on
the hillside, and perhaps half asleep I'M
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 a 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 a dream
things are sometimes incongruous, the
evangelist took the little book and ate it
up. The angel told him beforehand that
il would be very sweet in the mouth, but
afterward he would be troubled with in
digestion. True enough the evangelist
devours the book, and it becomes to him
a sweetness during mastication, but after
ward physical bitterness.
Who the angel was and what the book
was no one can tell. The commentators
do not agree, and / shall take no respon
sibility of Interpretation, but will tell you
that Il suggests to me the little book of
creeds, which skeptics take and chew up
and find q very luscious morsel to their
witticism, but after awhile it is to them
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 ereeds-
that is, favorite theories which they have
adopted. Political creeds-that is, theo-
ries about tariff, finance, about civil sew
ice, about government. Social creeds-
that is, theories about manners and GUS
toms, and good neighborhood Esthet-
ical creeds-that is, theories about tapes
try, about bric-a -brac, about styles of or
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
scofing against creeds is always a
sign of profound ignorance on the part of
the scoffer, for he has himself hundred
creeds in regard to other things. In our
times the beliefs of evangelistic churches
are under a 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 mad anatomist who, desiring to
tell whata 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 thai
is man. They are only fragments of q
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 it is. Evangelical religion
is as different from what it is represented
to be by these enemies as the scarecroN
which farmer puts in the cernfeld tC
keep off the ravens is different from the
farmer himself.
For instance these enemies of evangel
ism say that the Presbyterian Church be
lleves that God is savage sovereign, and
that He made some men to damn them
and that there are infants in hell spar
long. These old ISLANDERS come down
from generation to generation. The Pres
byterian church believes no such thing
The Presbyterian church believes thai
God is a loving and just sovereign, anC
that we are free agents. mo, no, tha
can not be-" say these men who have
chewed up the creed and have the conse-
quent embittered stomachs. ''That is i'm
possible. If God is asovereign we can't be
free agents." Why, my friend, we admit
this In every other direction. l, De Wit
Talmage, am free citizen Of Brooklyn
60 when I please and | come when
please, but have at least four sovereigns
The church court o. our denomination
that is my ecclesiastical soverei gn. Thu
mayor of this city; he is my municipal
sovereign. The Governor of New York,
he is my State sovereign. The Presiden
of the United States; he is my National
sovereign. Four sovereigns have |, and
yet in every faculty OF body, mind ant
soul am free man. So, you see, it ii
possible that the two doctrines go side By
side, and there is a common-sense way O.
presenting it, and there is way that i:
repulsive. If you have the two doctrine
in a worldly direction, why not in
religious direction? If I choose to
morrow morning to walk into tht
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 asquirm with trout and golt
fish, and there are trees bearing oranges
and bananas-if l wanted to 90 there
could. | am free to go. If l want to q
over to Hoboken aud leap into the furnace
of an oil factory; If / want to Jump from
the platform of Philadelphia express.
train; il want to leap from the Brooklyn
Bridge, may. But suppose should gC
tomorrow and leap into the furnace a
Hoboken, who would be to blame? Tha
is all there is about sovereignty and free
agency. God rules and reigns, and He ha:
ea,,5 II. ba. lSI.r4