Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-04-10
PLAGUE OF INFIDELITY.
Or. TALMAGE SAYS IT IS TnE
MOTHER OF PLAQUES.
Infideiity a Negative Religion.-It
Can Offer the Christian Nothing
in Exchange for HIS Faith.

his course Of sermons on ''The Ten
Plaques of the Cities" Rev. DR.. Talmage
today took for his subject 1.-THE Plague of
Infidelity." The discourse was delivered
10 large and appreciahvo audiences at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music in the fore
noon and the New York Academy OF
Music in the evening. The text was,
Romans 3. 4: "Let God DO true, but every
man a liar"
That is if God says enc 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. In
fidelity 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 hugo
blunder; 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 flood and Noahs ark were impossi-
bilities; 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
womanS tyrant and mans qualification;
that the Bible from lid TO lid is a fable, a
cruelty, humbug, sham, lie; that the
martyrs who died for its truth were miser-
able dupes; that tho Church OF Jesus
Christ is properly gazetted as fool; that
when Thomas Carlyle, the sceptic, said,
'"rhe Bible is q noble book, he was drop
ping into imbecility; that when Theodore
Parker declared in Music Hall, Boston,
Never a boy or girl in all Christendom
but was protted by that great book" he
was becoming very weak minded; that it is
something TO bring blush TO the cheek
of every patriot, that John Adams the
father of American independence, de-
clared, 1.-The Bible is the best book in all
the world" and that lion-hearted Andrew
Jackson turned into SWIVEL
ling coward when he said, THAT
book, sir, Is the rock on which
our Republic rests" and that Daniel
Webster abdicated the throne Of his intel
iectual 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 treasures me that
the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be q
divine reality. From the time that at my
mothers feet, or on my fathers knee, /
first learned TO lisp verses from the sacred
writings, they have been my daily study
and vigilant contemplation, and IL there is
anything in my style or thought 10 be
commended, the credit is duo TO my kind
PARENTS in instilling into my mind an early
love Of the scriptures" and that William
H. Seward, the diplomatist 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 Bible;" and that it Is
wisest for US 10 take that book from the
throne in the affections Of uncounted
multitudes, and put 1t under our feet TO be
trampled upon by hatred and Kissing con-
tempt: and that your old father was hood
winked, and caioled, and cheated, and
befooled, when he leaned on this as a staff
after 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 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
of 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 il
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 under tho shadow Of the old
country meeting house, where they sleep
today waiting for resurrection that will
never como. This book having deceived
them, and having deceived the mighty in
! telleCts OF the past must not be allowed TO
deceive our larger, mightier, vastcr, more
stupendous intelects. And so out with the
book from the courtroom, where it is used
| in the solemnization Of testimony. Out
with it from under the foundation of church
! and asylum. Out with il from the domes-
tic circle. Gather together all the Bibles
the children's Bibles, the family Bibles,
those newly bound and those with lid near
ly 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
criticism, and after that turn under with
tho ploughshare of public indignation the
polluted ashes of that loathsome, adulter-
Gus, obscene, Cruel and beautiful book
which is so antagonistic TO mans liberty,
and woman's honor, and tho worlds happi-
ness.
Now that is tho substar co of wb2S inf
deity purposes and declares, and the at
tack on the Bible is accompanied by great
jocosity, and there is hardly any subject
about which more mirth is kindled than
about the bible.
Now In this sentiment of in6del thinkers
I cannot Join, and l propose to give you
some reasons why I cannot be an infdel,
and so will try to help out of this present
condition any who may have been struck
with the awful plague Of scepticsm.
First, l cannot be an inhdel because iu-
fidelity has no good substitute for the con-
ISOLATION it proposes TO take away. You
know there are millions Of people who get
their chief consolation from this book
Infdelity is a religion Of Don't know"
Is the soul immortal? Don't knowl Is there
a God? Don't lrnowl a religion of don't
know" for the religion Of ~ know 81
know In whom have believed" al know
that my Redeemer liveth." lnfdelity pro-
poses to substitute religion of awful nog-
atives for our religion of glorious posit.s..s.
Furthermore, cannot be an iafdel. be-
cause of the false charges inh6elity is all
the time making against the Bible. Per-
hapo too SANDER that has made tho most
impression and that some Christians have
not been intelligent enough TO deny is that
-