Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-28
Theories Adopted by Different
People on all Subjects.
There are the Political Creeds, the Social
Creeds. the Esthetieal Creeds and
the Religious Creeds.
Inc Idiot Alone has 10 Credible SeOffer De-
nouneed as an Ignoramus-Sermon De-
liyered by DR. Talmage.
Special TO the Gazette

morning was on Islanders Against Re-
Hgion Answered - His text was: /" And
took the little book out of the angel IS
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 prophesy
AGAIN before many peoples, and nations,
ana tongues, and kings ''-Rev. Y, 10
IL The reverend gentlemen said:
Domitian, the Roman emperor, had in
MS realm troublesome evangelist who
would keep preaching, and so he exiled
MN TO barren island, as now the Rus
SLAMS exile convicts TO Siberia, or as
sometimes the English government used
TO send prisoners To Australia The is
land speak Of is now called PatmOs
and Is so barron and unproductive that
It's inhabitants live by fishing.
But one day the evangelist of whom
speak, sitting at the mouth of q cavern
on the hillside, and perhaps half asleep
under the drone of the sea, has super
natural dream, and before him pass as
III panorama, time and eternity. Among
the strange things that he saw was an
angel with little book in his hand and
III ms 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 homogeneous, the
evangelist took the little book and ate il
up. The angel told him beforehand that
II 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 the mastication, but
afterward phys cal 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 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 while 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 il makes them smile at first, but
afterward il is TO them a dire dyspepsia.
All intelligent people have Creeds-that
is, favorite theories which they have
adopted. Political creeds-that is, theO-
Ties about tariff, about finance, about
civil service, about government. Social
creeds-that is, theories about manners
and customs and good neighborhood
EstheticaI creeds-that is, theories about
tapestry, about Dric-a-brac, about styles
of ornamentatOn Religious cTeeds-
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 soothing against
creeds is always a sign of profound
ignorance on the part of the scoffer, for
ne has himself q hundred creeds i'll re-
gard to other things In our time the
beliefs Of evangelical churches are under
a fusilade of Caricature and misrepresen-
ton. Men set up what they call OTtho-
doX faith, and then they rake it with the
musketry Of their denunciation. They
falsify what the Christian churches be-
lieve. They take evangelical doctrines
and set them in harsh and repulsIve
way, and put them out of the associa-
ton with other truths They
are like a mad anatOmist who,
desiring to tell what man is, dssects
human body and hangs up in one place
the heart, and in another place the two
lungs, and in another place an ankle
bone, and says that is man. They are
only fragments of 4 man wrenChed out of
their God appointed places.
Evangelical religion is healthy, sym
ing life, and the scalpel and the dissect-
ing knife of the infdel or the atheist can
not tell you what it is. Evangelical re-
ligion is as different from what il is rep
resented TO be by these enemies as the
scarecrow which a farmer puts i'll the
cornfeld
TO KEEP OFF THE RAVENS
is different from the farmer himself
For instance, these enemies of evange-
lism say that the Presbyterian church be-
ieves that God is u savage sovereign, and
that He made some men just To damn
them, and that there are infants in hell
a span long. These old SANDERS come
down from generation to gen.
Grafton. The Presbyterian church
believes no such thing. The Presbvte-
Tiau church believes that God is a loving
and just Sovereign, and that we are free
agents. No, no, that cannot be, -
say these men who have chewed up the
creed and have the consequent embittered
stOmarhs. THAT is impossible. If God
is a sovereign we can t be free agents. -
Why, my friends, we admit this in every
other direction. ], Dewitt Talmage,
am a free citizen of Brooklyn. l go
when | please aud come when 1 please,
but have at least four sovereigus. The
GluiC0 court OF our uSloIlludliOu| ludI
is nv ecclesiastical sovereign. The mayor
of this city; he is my municipal SOW
ereign. The governor of New York; he
is my state sovereign. The president
Of the United States; he is my
national sovereign. Four sovereigns
have l, and yet in every faculty
of body, mind and soul am free man.
So, you see, il is possible that the two
doctrines 20 side by side, and there is
comm on-sense way of presenting it, and
there IS way that is repulsive. If you
have the two doctrines in 4 worldly direc-
ton, why not in religious direction? If
I choose tomorrow morning TO walk into
the mercantile library and improve my
mind, or 90 through the conservatory of
my friend at Jamaica who has flowers
from all lands growing under the arches
of glass, and who has an aquarium all
asquirm with trout and goldfish, and
there are trees bearing oranges and
bananas-if / want 10 go there, could.
1 am free to go. If want to go over TO
Hoboken and
LEAP INTO 4 FURNACE
OF an oil factory, if l want to jump from |
the platform of the Philadelphia express |
train, if 1 want to leap from Brooklyn |