Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-03
LOOSE THE BONDS!
The Brooklyn Divine Discourses
on the Division Of CreedS.
The Defect in Some OF the Creeds is
That They Try to Tell Us All
About Gods DEGREES.
Unfortunate That so Many Christians Are Only
Half Libarated-Nany in Bondage
Through Fear of Death.
erecial TO TIE Gazette.

srecjal TO the Gazette.
BROOKLYN, n. Y, March AT the
Tabernacle this morning the Rev. T.
De Witt Talmage, d. D., said he
thought the new Brooklyn Tabernacle
would be dedicated in September, and
that the idea would be carried out Of
building the church by subscription to
the Christian Herald, of which he has
become editor, all the subscriptions up
to a hundred and fifty thousand to be
paid to MIR. John Wood. treasurer of the
Tabernacle, Fulton street near Concord,
Brooklyn, n. Y. The subject of his DIS
course was "Revision of Creeds,'' and
he took for his text John XII, "A: "Loose
him, and let him co. DR.. Talmage
said:
My Bible is, at the place of this text,
written ali over with lead pencil marks,
made last December at Bethany on the
ruins of the house of Mary and Martha
aud Lazarus. We dismounted from our
horses on the way up from Jordan to the
Dead sea Bethany was the summer
evening retreat of Jesus After spend
ing the day in the hot city of Jerusalem
he would come out there almost every
evening to the house of his three friends.
! think the occupants of that house were
orphans, for the father and mother are
not mentioned. But the sol and two
daughters must have inherited property,
for il must have been, judging from what
/ saw of the foundations and the size of
his
the brother, was now the head of the
household and his sisters depended on him
and were proud of him, for he was very
popular and everybody liked him, and
these girls were splendid girls. Martha
a first-rate housekeeper and Mary
spIrituelle, somewhat dreamy, but
affectionate and As good a girl as could
be found in all Palestine. But one day
Lazarus got sick. The sisters were IN
CONSERVATION. Father gone and mother
gone, they feel very nervous lest they
lose their brother also. Disease did its
quick work. How the girls hung over
his pillow! Not much sleep about that
house, no sleep at all. From the
characteristics Otherwhere developed
judge that Martha prepared the
medicines and made tempting dishes
of food for the poor appetite
of the sufferer, but Mary prayed
and so5bed. Worse and worse gets
Lazarus until the doctor announces that
he can do no more. The shrek that
went up from that household when the
last breath had been drawn and the two
sisters were being led by sympathizers
into the adjoining room, all those of us
can imagine who have had our own
hearts broken. But why was not Jesus
there as He so often bad been? Far
away IN the country dis cts preaching,
healing other sick, how Unfortunate that
this omnipotent doctor had not been at
that domestic crisis in Bethany. When
at last Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus
had been buried four days and dssolu-
ton had taken place. In that climate
the bregthless body disintegrates more
rapidly than in ours. If, Immediately
after disease, that body had been awak-
ened into life, unbelievers might have
said he was only in COmatose state, or
in sort OF trance, and by some vigOr-
GUS manipulation or powerful stimulant
vitality had been renewed. No! Four
days dead. At the door of the sepulcher
is q crowd of people, but the three most
memorable are Jesus, who was the fam
lily friend, and the two bereft sisters.
We went into the traditional tomb in De-
cember, and it is deep down and dark,
and with torches We explored it. We
found If all quiet that afternoon Of our
visit, but the day spoken of in the Bible
there was present an excited multitude.
1 wonder what Jesus will do? He or
ders the door of the grave re-
moved and then He begins TO de-
scend the steps, Mary and Martha
close after Him and the crowd after
them. Deeper down INTO the shadows
and deeper! The hot tears Of Jesus roll
over his cheeks and plash upon the back
OF his hands. Were ever so many sor-
rows compressed into 80 small space as
that group pressing on down after Christ,
all the time bemoaning that He had not
come before? Now all the whispering
and all the crying aud all the shutting
feet are stopped. 1t is the silence of ex-
pectancy. Death had conquered, but
now the vanquisher of death confronted
the scene. Amid the awful hush OF the
tomb the familiar name which Christ had
often had upon his lips in the hospitah-
ties OF the village home came back to His
tongue, and with q pathos and an al
mightiness of which the resurrec-
ton Of the last day shall
be only an echo, he cries:
''Lazarus, come forth!'' The eyes of
the slumberer open. and he rises and
comes to the foot of the steps and with
great difficulty begins to ascend, for the
cerements of the tomb are yet on him
and his feet are fast and his hands are
fast, and the empediments to all his
movements are so great that Jesus COM
mands: 'Take off these cerements; re-
move these hindrances; unfasten these
grave clothes; loose him. and let him
go!'' Oh, am so glad that after the
Lord raised Lazarus, he went on and
commanded the looseniug of the cords
that bound his feet so that he could walk
and the breaking OF of the cerement that
bound his hands so that he could stretch
out his arms in salution, and the tearing
off the bandage from around his jaws so
that he could speak. What would
resurrected life have been to Lazarus if
he had not been freed from all those
crippIements OF his body? I am glad
that Christ commanded his complete
emancipation, saying: loose him, and
let him 60.
CHRISTIANS BUT HALF LIBERATED.