Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-14
THE GOLDEN
DR.. Talmage Talks of A Bright Sun
day Versus a Doleful Sunday.
REST ONE DAY A WEEK NECESSARY
For the Moral, Intellectual, and Physical
Well-Being of Man.
A PLEA FOR HOSPITABLE CHURCHES.

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE pIsPArcH.l
BROOKLYN, January 13-The Rev. I. De Witt
Talmage, d. D., preached to-day on "a Bright
Sunday versus a Doleful Sunday" After ex-
pounding appropriate passages Of Scripture he
gave out the hymn:
Welcome, sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise.
The text was: And call the Sabbath q de-
light" Isaiah lvii. lS Dr.. Talmage said:
There is an element of gloom striking through
all false religions. Paganism is brood of hor-
rors. The god of Confucius trowned upon Its
victims with blind fate. Mohammedanism
promises nothing to those exhausted with sin
in this world but eternity of the
same passional indulgences. But God
intended that our religion should
have the grand characteristic of cheer
fulness. St. Paul struck the keynote when he
said: Rejoice evermore, and again l say, re-
loice." This religion has no spikes for the
feet; it has no hooks for the shoulder; it has
no long pilgrimages to take; 1t has no funeral
pyres upon which to leap: it has no Jugger-
nauts before which to fall. Its good cheer is
symbolized in the Bible by the brightness of
waters and the redolence of lilies and the
sweetness of music and the hilarities of BAN
uuet. A choir of seraphim chanted its in
duction, and pealing trumpet, and waving
palm. and fapping wing of archangel are to
celebrate its triumph. 1t began its chief mis-
sion with the shout: "Glory to God in the high
est" and it will close its earthly mission with
the ascription: "Hallelujah, for the Lord God
omnipotent reignethr'
But men have said that our religion is not
cheerful, because We have such a doleful Sab
bath. They say: You can have your religious
assemblages, and your long faces and your
shifting cant, and your psalm books. and your
Bibles. Give us the Sunday excursion 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 Gays of worldly satisfac-
tion for religious dolefulness." want to show
these men-if there are any such in the house
this morning-that they are under a great delu-
bion. and that God intended the 81 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
Iremark, 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 it be lifted. Not one not
one. You sell the goods. You teach the
school You doctor in the sickroom. 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 occupation is as honor
able as the other provided
GOD CALLS YOU ToIT.
care not what you do, if you only do it well. |
But when Saturday night comes you are jaded |
and worn. The hand cannot soskilfully manu- |
facture; the eye cannot see as well; the brain is
not so clear; the judgment is not so well bal |
anced. prominent manufacturer told me |
that he could see 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 different |
indeed. Those that were made in the former
part of the week, because of the rest that had |
han
that were made in the latter part of the week
when the men were tired out"
The Sabbath comes. and it bathes 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 a 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
ii away. He who breaks the Lords day gives
a mortgage to disease and death upon his en-
tire physical estate, and at the most unex-
pected moment that mortgage will be fore
closed and the soul elected from the premises.
Livery gland and pore and cell and finger 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,
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 testifies that
30 years ago he went to London. He says: Il
have during that time watched minutely and
have noticed that the men who went to busi-
ness on the Lords day. or opened their count
ing houses have, without a single exception,
come to failure A prominent Christian mer-
chant IN Boston says: Il find it don't pay to
work on Sunday. When ! was boy noticed
out on Long Wharf there were merchants who
loaded their vessels on the Sabbath day. keep
ing their men busy from morning till night,
came to nothing. These merchantssand their
children came to nothing 1t doesn't pay" he
says, Ito work on the Sabbath"
appeal to your observation. Where are the |
men who 20 years ago were Sabbath breakers
and who have been Sabbath breakers ever |
since? Without single exception, you will
10 moral beggary. / defy you to point ont a !
single exception, and you can take the whole
world for your field. 1t has either been a |
financial or moral defalcation in every instance
petitioned Parliament, saying: I'VE must have | ;
the Sabbath obeyed. We cannot have health
in this city and in this nation unless the Sab !
bath is observed" Those in our own country | !
have given evidence on the same side. The
man who takes down the shutters of his store I
on the Sabbath takes down the curse of | ,
Almighty God. That farmer who cultures his |
ground on the Sabbath day raises crop of
neuralgia and Of consumption and of death. !
bba46 aaFmeT 2 sald defy your Christian
went to work and plowed the ground on Sun
day and narrowed it on Sunday and he planted I
corn on Sunday and he reaped the corn !
barn on Sunday. There" he saws 81 have
proved to you that all this idea about fatality
My corn is garnered and all is well" But be-
fore 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 (if you have not, call your
attention to the fact) that in cases where the
public interest demands Sabbath toll the moral
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 pressure and temptation of it. In
London, where there are 5000 policemen the
statistic is given that in one year 92l of that :
900 were dismissed, 523 were suspended and :
J 492 were fined. Now, if the moral depression !
be so great in occupations that are positively :
necessary for the peace and prosperity of So !
,iety, ask you what must be the moral depres- !
don in those cases where there is no necessity .
lor Sabbath work, and where a man chooses =
yorldly business on the Lords dayiust becanse !
ne likes it, or wants to add TO his emoluments? | :
During the last war it was found out that those !
public works which paused on the seventh day
urned out more war material than those which
worked all the seven days
Mr.. BaRnallI prominent iron merchant |
yives this testimony: ~ find we have fewer ac- Z
.idents in our establishment and fewer inter O
uptions, now we observe the Lords day; and 1
Il the close of the year, now that we keep the =
sabbath. find that we turn out more iron and .
ave larger profits than any year when we
worked all the seven days" The fact is. Sab a
'ath-made ropes will break and Sabbath-made | 4
hoes will leak and Sabbath-made coats will v
ip and Sabbath-made muskets will miss fire (
nd Sabbath occupations will be blasted. A il
entleman said: Il invented a shuttle on the :
,ord's day: was very busy, SO / made the v
model OF that new shuttle on the Lords day n
70 very busy was during the week that had s
o occupy many Sabbaths. 1t was a great sue :
ess. l enlarged my buildings; / built new 81
actories and made hundreds of thousands of e
ollars; but have to tell you that all the re- il
ult of that work on the Sabbath has been to i;
ne ruin. enlarged my buildings, j made e
reat many thousands of dollars, but / have d
1st all, and charge it to the fact of that Sun
ay shuttle" / Will place in two companies :,
be men in this community who break the Sab ! N
ath and the men who keep it, and then ask
ou who are the best friends of society? Who W