The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1891-04-15
PLAGUE OF INFIDELITY.
DR.. TALMAGE DIsCOURSES ON THE
PREVALENT SIN.

tca0 the Got:ce human Nace-N nat
Great Men Think of til, Bible-Argu-
ments Against This Plugue.
New YORK, April 5.-Continuing
his course of sermons on ''The Ten Pla-
CUES of the Cites" Rev. DR.. Talmage
to-day took for his s1bject 1.-The Plague
of In6delity.' The discourse was daliv-
cred to large and appreciative pudiences
at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music in
the forenoon and the New York Acade-
my of Mucsic in the evening, The text
was Romans ILL.,: 4: s'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 veraclty.
But there are many in our time who
have dared arraign the Almighty for
falsehood. Infdelity is not only
plague. but it is the mother Of pla-
CUES.
It seems from what we hear on all
sides, that the Christian religion is a
huge blunder, that the Mosaic account
of the creation is an absurdity large
enough to throw all nations into rolllck-
ing guffaw; that Adam and Eye never
existed; that the ancient food and
Noah's Ark were impossibili!ies, that
there never was a miracle; that's the
Bible is the friend of cruelty, Of murder,
of polygamy, of all forms of base crime;
that the Christian religion is woman's
tyrant and mans qualification; that the
Bible from lid to litl is a fable, cruelty,
a humbug, sham, lie; that the mar
tyrs who died for its truth were misera-
Bile 6upes; that the Church Of Jesus
Christ is properly gazetted as a fool;
that when Thomas Carlyle, the sceptlc,
said, THE Bible is noble book" he
was dropping into imbecillty; that when
Theodore Parker declared in Music Hall,
Boston, ''Never a boy or girl in all
Christendom but was proftted by that
great book, ''he was becoming very weak
minded; that it is something to bring
a blush to the cheek of every patriot,
that John Adams, the father of Aneri
can independence, declared, The Bible
is the best book in all the world;" and
that lion-hearted Andrew Jackson
turned into a snivelling coward when he
said, ''That book. sir, is the rock on
which our republic rests;" and that
Daniel Webster abdicated the throne of
his intellectual power and resigned his
logic, and from being the great expoun-
der of the Constitution and the great
lawyer of his age, turned into an idiot,
when he said, My heart assures andre
assures me that the Gospel Of Jesus
Christ must be divine reality. From
the time that at my mothers feet, or on
my fathers knee, I first learned to lisp
verses from the sacred writings, they
have been my daily study and vigliant
contemplation, and if there is anything
mmy 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 II.
Seward, the diplomatist Of the century,
only showed his puerility when he de-
clared, ''The whole hope ofhuman prog
ress is suspended on the eyergrowing
influences Of the Bible;" and that it is
wisest for US to take that book from the
throne in the affections Of ulcounted
mulitudes, and put it under our feet
to be trampled upon by hatred and hiss
ing contempt; and that your old farther
was hoodwinked, and cajoled, and chea-
ed, and be fooled, when he leaned on this
as staff after his hair grew gray, and
his hands were tremulous, and his step
shortened as he came up to the verge Of
the grave; and that your mother sat with
q pack Of lies on her lap while reading
Of the better country, and OF the ending
OF all her aches. and pains, and re-
anien not only with those Of you who
stood around her, but with the children
she had buried with infinite heartache,
so that she could re ID no more until she
took off her spectacles, and wiped from
them the heavy mist of many tears.
Alas! that for forty and nifty 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 old book might
be cut upon the tombstone unoer the
shadow of the old country meeting house
where they sleep to-day waiting for a
resurrection that will never come. This
book, having deceived them, and having
deceived the mighty intellects ofthe past,
must not be allowed to deceive our larg-
er, mightier, vaster, more stupcndons in
telects. And so out with the book
from the courtroom where it is used
in the solenlnization Of testimony. Out
with it from under the foundation Of
church and asylum. Out with it from
the domestic circle. Gather together all
the Blbles-the children's Bibles. the
family Bibles, those newly bound, and
those with lid nearly worn out and pa
ges almost obhterated by the fingers
long ago turned to dust-bring them all
together, and let US make a bonfire Of
them, and py it warm our cold criticism,
and after that turn under with the
peloughshare of public Indignation the
polluted ashes of that loathsome, ad-
ulterous, obscene, cruel and deathful
book which is so aptagonistic to mans
liberty, and woman's honor, and the
worlds happiness.
Now that is the substance of what
infdelty 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. I like
fun; no man was ever built with a keener
appreciation Of it. There is health
in laughter instead Of harm-physcial
health, mental health, moral health,
spiritual health,-provided you laugh at
the right thing. The morning is jo-
cund. The Indian with It's own mist
baptizes the cataract Minnehaha, Or
laughing water. You have not kept
your eyes open, or your ear alert, if you
have not seen the sea smile, or heard
the forests clap their hands, Or the
orchards in blossom-week ag, ZEE with re-
dolence. But there is laughter which
is deathful, there is laughter which
has the rebound of despair. IL is not