The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1890-05-08
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Weekly Discourse of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.

TEXT; 1.-THE glory Of Lebanon SHAH come
unto thee; the fr tree, TIE pine tree and the
boa together, 10 bedutifu the place of my
soactuary"--lsa. TX, 49,"
On our way from Damascus we saw the
mountains OF Lebanon white with snow, and
the places from which the cedars were hewu
and then drawn by OK teams down to tho
Mediterranean Sea, and then floated in great
RATS TO Joppa, and then again drawn by OK
teams up TO Jerusalem TO build Solonon's
temple, Those mighty trees in my text are
called the "glory of Lebanon Inanimate
nature felt the effects of the first transgres-
sion. When Eve touched the forbidden tree
it seems as II the sinful contact had smitten
not only that tree but as il ths air caught
the pollution from the leaves, and as if the
cap had carried the virus down into the very
soil until the entire earth reeket with the
ieprosy. Under that sinful touch nature
withered. The inanimate creation, as il
aware OF the damage done it, sent IN the
thorn and brier and nettle TO wound and
hercely oppose the human race.
NOW as the physical earth felt the effects
OF the first trans2ression, so ii shall also feel
the effect of the Saviour's mission. As from
that one tree in Paradise blight went forth
through the entire earth, so from one tree on
Calvary another force shall speed out to in
terpenetia ate and check, suhdue and override
the evil. In the end it shall be found that
the tree of Calvary has more potency than
the tree of Paradise. As the nations are
evangelical, think corresponding change
will be effected in the natural world. verify
believe that the trees, and the birds, and the
rivers and the skies will have their millenni-
UNI. il mans sin affected the ground, and
the vegetation, and tho atmosphere, shall
Chrlsts work be less powerful or less extern
sive!
Doubtless God will take the irregularity
and fierceness from the elements so as to
make them congenal to the race, yet to be
sosymmetrical and evangelical. The ground
shall not be SO lavish Of weeds and SO grudge-
full of grain. Soils which now have peculiar
prochvlties toward certain forms of evil pro-
duction will be delivered from their besetting
sins. Steep mountains plowed down into
more gradual ascent, shall be girded with
Hooks OF sheep and shocks of corn. The wet
marsh shall become the deep erased meadow.
Cattle shall eat unframed by caverns once
haunted of wild beasts Children will build
play houses in what was once cave of SER
pents; and, as the Scripture saith: 1.-THE
weaned child shall put his hand on the cock
atrices den"
oh what harvests shall be reaped when
neither drouth nor excessive rain, nor mill
dew, nor infesting insects shall arrest the
growth, and the utmost capacity of the fields
FOR production saall to tested by an intslli-
gent and athleti"yeomanry. Thrift and COM
potency characterizing the worlds inhabit-
ants, their dwelling places shall be graceful
and healthy and adorned Tree and arber
and grove around about will look as if Adam
and Eve had got back to Paradise. Great
cities, now neglected and unwashed, shall be
orderly, adorned with architectural symms-
try and connected with far distant seaports
by present modes of transportation carried to
their greatest perfection, or by new inven-
tons yet TO spring up out OF the water or
drop from The air at the beck Of Morse or
Robert Fulton belonging to future genera
tions.
Isaiah in my text seems to looS forward to
the future condition of the physical earth as
condition of great beauty and excellence,
and then prophesies that as the strongest and
most ornamental timber in Lebanon was
brought down to Jerusalem and constructed
into the ancient temple SO all that is beauti-
full and excellent in the physical earth Shall
yet contribute to the church now being built
in the world. ''rhe glory of Lebanon shall
come unto thee; the fir tree, the pine tree,
and the box together, to beautify the place
of my sanctuary"
Much of this prophecy has already been
fulfilled, and proceed to some practical re-
marks upon the contributions which the
natural world is making to the kin .dom of
first contribution that nature gives to the
church is her testimony in behalf of the
truth of Christianity. This is an age OF pro-
found research. Nature cannot evade mans
inquiries as once. In chemists laboratory
she is put to torture and compelled to give up
her mysteries Hidden laws nave come out
OF their hiding place. The earth and the
heavens, since they have been raasackei by
geolog1st and botanst and astronomer pear
SO different from what they once were that
they may be called ''the new heavens and the
new earth"
Thisresearch and discovery will have pow
erful effect upon the religious world They
must either advance or arrest Christianity
make men better or make them worse be tia
church's honor or the clurch's overthrow.
Christians, aware of this ia the early ages os
discovery, were nervous and fearful as to the
progress of science. They feared that soma
natural law before unknown, would sudden
~ spring into harsh collision with Christian
ity. Gunpowder and the CLEAN OF swor Is
would not SO muca haze been fearei byre-
hgionists as electric batteries voltaic piles
and astronomical apparatus 1t was feared
that Moses and the prophets would be run
over by skeptical chemists and philosophers.
Some of the followers of Aristotle, after tbs
invention of the telescope, refused to look
through that instrument, lest what they saw
would overthrow the teachings of that great
philosopher. But the Christian religion has
no such apprehension now.
Bring on your telescopes and microscopes
and spectroscopes the more the better.
The God of nature is the God of the Bible,
and in all the universe and in all the etsrni-
ties He has never once contradicted Himself.
Christian merchants endow universities and
in them Christian professors instruct the chill
dren Of Christian communities The warm
est and most enthusiastic friends of Christ
ore the bravest and most enthusiastic friends
of science. The church rejoices as much
over every discovery as the world rejoices.
Good men have found that there is no war be-
tween science and religion. That which
at first has seemed to be the weapon
of the infidel has turned out to be the
weapon of the Christian.
Scientific discussions may be divided into
those which are concluded, and those which
are still in progress, depending for decision
upon future investigation. Those which are
concluded have invariably rendered their
| verdict for Christianity and we have faitl
to believe that those which are still in prose-
| cutlon will come TO as favorable a conclusion.
| The great systems OF error ara falling before
these discoveries. They have crushed every
thing but the Bible, and that they have es-
| tablished. Mohammedanism and paganism
| In their ten thousand forms have been proved
false, and by great natural laws shown to be
| impositions Buried cities have been ex-
humed and the truth of God found written
on their coffin lids Bartlett, Robinson and
Layard have been not more ths apostles of
science than the apostles of religion. The
dumb lips of the pyramids have opened to
| preach the Gospel. Expeditions have been
| fitted out for Palestine, AMI explorers have
| come back to say that they have found among
mountains and among ruins, and on the shore
of waters living and undying evidences OF
our glorious Christianity.
| Men who have gone to Palestine infidels
| have come back Christians. They who were
| blind and deaf to the truth at home have
seemed to see Christ again preaching upon
| Olivet, and have beheld in vivid imagination
the Son of God again walking the hills about
Jerusalem. Caviglia once rejected the truth,
| but afterward said: II came to Egypt, and
the Scriptures and the pyramids converted
me- When / was in Bayrout, Syria, last
| December, our beloved American mission
airy, Rev. DR.. Jessup, told me OF his friend
who met sSeptic at Joppa, the seaport OF
Jerusalem, and the unbeliever said to his
friend: 81 am going into the Holy Land tc
show up the folly of the Christian religion
am going to visit all the so-caled sacred
| places and write them up, and show the
| world that the New Testament is an imposi
ton upon the worlds c-ednlity." Month:
after DR.. Jessup's friend met tic sksptic al
of ho Ind tai