Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1889-02-01
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly DisoOurses Of the Great
BROOKLYN Preacher.
Subjects "a bright Sunday
Versus n DOlefuI Sunday"

WILL 10.
There is an element of gloom striking
through all false religions Paganism is
brood of horrors The god of Confucius
drowned 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
'Reloice evermOre, and again | say, re-
joiceh 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-
aEpyres upon which TO leap; it has no jug
gernauts before which to fall. Its good cheer
is symbolized in the Bible by the br ghtness
of waters, aud the redolence OF lilies, and the
sweetness of music, and the hilarities of n
banquet. A choir of seraphim chanted at its
induction, and pealing trumpet, and waving
palm, and tapping wing of archangel are to
celebrate its triumphs. 1t began its chief
mission with the shout: "Glory to God in
the highestr' and it will close its earthly
mission with the ascription: "Halleujah, for
the Lord God omnpotent Teignethm
But men have said that our religion is not
cheerful, because we have such doleful Sab
bath. They say: "You can have your re-
lgious asSemblages, and your long faces and
your smiling 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 it all over the seven days of
the week, and YOU shall not have one of our
days of worldly satisfaction for religious
dolefulness." | want to show these men-if
there are any such in the house this morning
that they are under great deuslon, and
that God intended the fifty two Sundays OF
the year to be hung up like bells in tower
beating 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 a 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
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 to some kind of toll, let
1t be lifted. Not one, not one. y GU 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
You sit at the shuttle. You carry the hod
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 well balanced A
prominent manufacturer told me that he
q
which went out of his establishment on Sat-
nrday 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 battles the soreness
from the limbs quiets tho 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 a
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 wins
of his own life and throws it away. He
VIM JIe-.H ~ Lcrl.'s day gives a mortgage
TO disease and death upon his entire physical
estate, and at the most unexpected moment
that mortgage will be forsclosed, and the
soul elected from the premises. Every gland,
and pore, and cell, and fnger-nail demands
the seventh day for repose 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, 10
keep it holyn There are thousands of men
who have had their lives dashed out against
the golden gates of the Sabbath A promi-
Dent London merchant testifes that thirty
years ago he went to London. He says: II
have during that time watched infinitely,
and l have noticed that the men who
went to their business on the Lords
day, or opened their counting-hous
come to failure.n prominent Christian
merchant in Boston says: "Ifind it don't pay
to work on Sunday. When | was boy, l
noticed out on 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-
ton 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, ana who have been Sabbath
breakers ever since2 Without single ex-
csption, you will tell me, they have come
either to financial or to moral beggary. /
defy you to point out single exception and
you can take the whole world for your
field. 1t has either ceen financial or moral
defalcation in every instance. Six hundred
and forty physicians in London petition Par
lament, saying: ''We must have the Sab
bath obeyed We can not have health
in this city and in this nation I'M
less the Sabbath is observed" Those
in our own country have given evi.
dence or 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 a crop of neuralgia, and
of consumption, and of death. A farmer
said: Il defy your Christian Sabbath. |
will raise Sunday crop" So he went to
work and plowed tue 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 fatality accompanying
Sabbath work is a perfect sham. My corn
is garnered, and all 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 Of you have not,
L 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 and 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,if
the moral depression is so great in occupa-
lions that are positively necessary for the
peace and prosperity Of society, / ask you
what must be the moral depression in those
cases where there is no necessity for Sabbath
work. and where man chooses worldly bust
ness on the Lords day just because he likes
it, or wants to add to his emoluments? Dur.
ing the last war it was found out that these
public works which paused on the seventh
day turned out more war material than those
which worked all the seven days. Mr. Bag
nall, a prominent iron merchant, gives this
testimony 81 find we have fewer accidents
in our establishment and fewer interruptions
oIen o,.lio Iory. o,,1 ut he