Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-04-06
INFIDELITY SCORCHED.
DR.. TALMAGE'S ELOQUENT REVIEW
OF AGNOSTIClSM.

D1. RLNHOE'S GGONlOCNi hGFiEW
OF AGNOSTIClSM
The Most Remarkable of Very Re-
markabIe Series of Sermons on ''The
Plaques of the Cities''-Does the Bible
Justify PoIygamy?
NEW YORK, April Continuing his
course Of sermons on 1.-The Ten Plaques
of the Cities" Rev Dr. Talmage today
took for his subject The Plague of In
fidelity" The discourse was delivered
to large and appreciative audiences at
the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the
forenoon and the New York Academy
of Music in the evening. The text was
Romans ill., 4 Let God be true, but
every man liar
That is. if God says one thing and the
whole human race says the opposite,
Paul would accept the divine veracity.
But there are many in our time who
have dared arraign The Almighty for
falsehood !nfdelity is not only a
plague bat il is the mother of plaques.
1t seems from what we hear on all
sides that the Christian religion is a
huge biunder; that the Mosaic account
of creation is an absurdity large enough
to throw all nations into roliiclling GUT
faw; that Adam and Eve never existed :;
that the ancient flood and NOahs Ark
were impossibilities that there never
was a miracle; that the Bible is the
friend Of cruelty, of murder, OF polyg
amy. Of all forms of base crime; that
the Christian religion is wOman's tyrant
and mans qualification; that the Bible
from lid to lid is fable. cruelty, a
hulhbug, Il sham, u lie; that the mar
tyrs who died for its truth were miser-
able dupes; that the church of Jesus
Christ is properly gazetted as fool;
that when Thomas Carlyle, the skeptic,
said The Bible is Il noble book" he
was dropping into ilnbecility; that
when Theodore Parker declared in
Music Hall, Boston, Never a boy
or girl in all Christendom but was
profited by that great book" he was
becoming very weak minded; that it is
something to bring Il blush to the cheek
of every patriot that John Adams, the
father Of American independence, de-
clared. The Bible is the best book in
ali the world" and that lion hearted
Andrew Jackson turned into q snivel-
fng coward when he said, That book,
sir, is the rock on which our republic
rests" and that Daniel Webster abdi-
Gated the throne of his intellectual
power and resigned his logic, and from
being the great expOunder of the con
stitution and the great lawyer of
his age, turned into an idiot when he
said, My heart assures and treasures
me that the gospel Of Jesus Christ
must be Il divine reality. From the
time that ut MY mothers feet or
on my fathers knee / first learned
to lisp verses from the sacred writ
ings they have been my daily study
and vigilant contemplation, and if
there is anything in my style or
thought to be commended the credit is
due to my kind parents in instilling
into my mind an early love of the
Scriptures" and that William H. Sew
ard, the diplomatist of the century,
only showed his puerility when he de
clared, The whole hope of human
progress is suspended ON the ever grow
ing influences of the Bible;" and that
it is wisest for US to take that book
from the throne in the affections of
uncounted multitudes, and put it I'M
der our feet to be trampled upon by
hatred and kissing contempt, and that
your old father was hoodwinked and
caioled and cheated and befooIed
when he leaned on this as staff after
his hair grew gray, and his hands were
tremulous and his steps shortened as
he came up to the verge of the grave,
and that your mother sat with a pack
of lies on her lap while reading of the
better country, and of the ending of all
her aches and pains, and reunion not
only with those of you who stood
around her, but with the children she
had buried with infinite heartache, SO
that she could read no more until she
took off her spectacles and wiped
from them the heavy mist of many
tears.
THE GLORIOUS CONSULTATION.
Alas that for forty and fifty years
they should have walked under this
delusiOn, and had it under their pillow
when they lay a-dying in the back
room, and asked that some words from
the vile page might be cut upon the
country meeting house, where they sleep
today waiting for a resurrection that
will never come. This book, having
deceived them, and having deceived
the mighty intellects of the past, must
not be allowed to deceive our larger,
mightier, vaster, more stupendous in
teIlects.
And so out with the book from the
court room, where it is used in the
solemnization of testimony. Out with
it from under the foundation of church
and asylum. Out with it from the do
mestic circle. Gather together all the
Bibles-the children's Bibles, the fam
those with lid nearly worn out and
pages almost obliterated by the fingers
long ago turned to dust-bring them
all together, and let US make a bonfire
of them, and by it warm our cold crit
icism, and after that turn under with
the plowshare of public indignation
the polluted ashes of that loathsome,
adulterous, obscene, cruel and death
full book which is SO antagonistic to
mans liberty, and woman's honor, and
the worlds happiness.
Now that is the substance of what
infideIity proposes and declares, and
the attack on the Bible is accompanied
by great jocosity, and there is hardly
any subject about which more mirth is
kindled than about the Bible. l like
fun; no man was ever built with a
keener appreciation of it. There is
health in laughter instead of harm
health, mental health, moral
health, spiritual health-provided you
laugh at the right thing. The morning
is jocund. The Indian with it's own
mist baptizes the cataract Minnehaha,
or Laughing Water. You have not kept
your eyes open or your ears alert if
you have not seen the sea smile, or
heard the forests clap their hands, or