Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-04-24
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "a Plague Of In8delity."

1tdT.-Romans Ill, 4.
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. Infdelity Is
not only plague, but it is the mother OF
plaques
1t seems from what we hear on all sides
that the Christian religion is huge bum
der; that the Mosaic account of the creation
Is an absurdity large enough to throw all
nations into rollicking guffaw; that Adam
and Eve never existed; that the ancient
food and Noah's ark were imposslbllltles;
that there never was a miracle; that 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 lid is fable, cruelty, hum
bug sham, lie; that the martyrs who
died for its truth were miserable dupes;
that the church of Jesus Christ Is
properly gaZetted as a fool; that when
Thomas Carlyle, the skeptic, said. 1.-The
into imbecility: that when Theodore Parker
declared in Music hall, Boston, ''Never
boy or girl in all Christendom but was
profted by that great book" he was be-
coming very weak minded; that it is some
thing to bring a blush to the cheek of
every patriot that John Adams, the father
of American independence, declared, THE
Bible is the best book in all the world"
and that lion hearted Andrew Jackson
turned into a sniveling coward when he said,
That book, sir, is the rock on which our re-
public rests" and that Daniel Webster alb
Dictated the throne of his intellectual power
and resigned his logic, and from being the
great expOunder of the constitution and the
great lawyer of his age turned into an idiot
when he said, my heart assures and reas-
sures me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must
be divine reality. From the time that at
my mothers feet or on my fathers knee 1
first learned to lisp verses from the sacred
writings they have been my daily study and
vigilant contemplation, and if there is any
thing in my style or thought to be commend
ed the credit is due to my kind parents in in
stilling into my mind early love of the
Scriptures" and that William 81. Seward,
the dlplomatist of the century, only showed
his puerility when he declared, ''The whole
hope of human progress is suspended on the
ever growing influences Of the Blble;" and
that it is wisest for us to take that book from
the throng in the affections Of uncounted
multitudes and put it under our feet.
to be trampled upon by hatred
and Kissing contempt and that
your old father was hoodwinked and cajoled
and cheated and befooled when he leaned on
this as a 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 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
CfJOu who stood around her, but with the
children she had buried with infinite heart
ache, SO that she could read no more until
she took off her spectacles and wiped from
them the heavy mist Of many tears. Alas!
that for forty and fifty years they should
have walked under this delusion and had
1t 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
tombstone under 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 hav-
ing deceived the mighty intellects of the
past, must not be allowed to deceive our
larger, mightier, vaster, more stupendous
intellects. And so out with the book from
the court room, where it is used in the solemn
iZatiOn of testimony. Out with it from I'M
der the foundation Of church and asylum.
Out with it from the domestic circle. Gather
together all the Bibles-the children'S Bibles,
the family Bibles those newly bound, and
those with lid nearly worn out and pages al
most obliterated by the fingers long ago
turned to dust-bring them all together, and
let US make bonfire of them, and by it
warm our cold criticism, and after that turn
under with the plowshare of public indig-
nation the polluted ashes of that loathsome,
adulterOus, obscene, cruel and beautiful book
which is so antagonistic to mans liberty, and
and woman's honor, and the worlds
happiness.
Now that is the substance of what infidel-
ity proposes and declares and the attack on
the Bible is accompanied by great jocos1ty,
and there is hardly any subject about which
more mirth is kindled than about the Bible.
like fun: no man was ever built with a
keener appreciation of it. There is health
in laughter instead of harm-phys health,
mental health, moral health, spiritual health
provided you laugh at the right thing.
The morning is jocund. The Indian with its
own mist baptiZes the cataract Minnehaha
or Laughing Water. You have not kept
your eyes open CT your ears alert if you have
clap their hands, or the orchards in blossom
week aglee with redolence But there is
laughter which has the rebound of despair.
1t is not healthy to giggle about God or
chuckle about eternity or smirk about the
things of the immortal soul.
You know what caused the accident years
ago on the Hudson River Railroad. 1t was
an intoxicated man who for joke pulled the
string of the air brake and stopped the train
at the most dangerous point of the journey.
But the lightning train, not knowing there
was any impeachment in the way, came down,
crushing out of the mangled victims the i'm
mortal souls that went speeding instantly to
God and Judgment. It was only joke. He
thought it would be such fun to stop the
chiefly anxious to stop the long train of the
Bible, and the long train of the churches,
and the long train of Christrian influences,
while coming down upon US are death judg-
ment and eternity, coming thousand miles
a minute, coming with more force than all
the avalanches that ever slipped from the
Alps, coming with more strength than all
the lightning express trains that ever whis-
tied or shrieked or thundered across the con-
tinent.