Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-04-11
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Diyine's Sur
day Sermon.
Subject. .Ths rl.g-. Of r-nle,.,,.r


ddf.-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 1ufidelity is
not only plague, but 1t is the mother of
plaques
1t seems from what we hear on ell sides
that the Christian religion is huge blum
der; that the Mosaic account of the creation
Is an sbsurdity large enough to throw all
nations into rollicking guffawl that Adam
a1d Eve never existed, that the ancient
Hood and Noahs ark were impossibilities;
That there never was a miracle; that the
Bible is the friend of cruelty, of murder, of
poiygamy, of all forms of base crime; that
the Christian religion is woman's tyrant
and mans qualification; that the Bible
from lid to lid iii fable, a craelty, hum
bug, sham, lie; that the martyrs who
died fcz its truth were miserable 5upes
that the church of Jesus Christ is
properly gazetted as a fool; that when
Thomas Carlyle the skeptic, said, 1.-THE
INTO tmbeciity, that when Theodore Parker
declared In Music hail. Boston, ''Never a
boy Or girl in all Christendom but was
proited by that reat book" he was be-
coming very weak minded; that it is some
thing to bring blush TO the cheek of
every patriot that John Adams, the father
of American independence, declared, "fhe
Bible is the best book in all the world"
and that lion hearted Andrew jackson
turned into sniveling coward when he said,
That book, sir. is the rock on which our re-
public rests,' and that Daniel W ebster 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 en- idiot
when he said, MY heart assures and rees-
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 l
first learned to lisp verses from the sacred
writings they have been my daily study and
| Sigilant Contemplation, and If there is any
thing III my style Or thought to be commend
ed the credit is due TO my kind parents in in
sitting into my mind an early love of tho
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 ths
ever growing influences of the Bible;n and
that it is wisest for us TO take that book from
the throng in the affections of uncomted
multitudes and put it under cur feet
to be trampled upon by hatred
| and Kissing contempt; and that
your old father was hoodwinked and cajoled
and cheated and befooied when he leaned on
this as staff after his hair grew gray, and
| his hands were tremulous, and bis 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 thu ending of all her aches
| ai~l palms, and reunion not only with those
/ otyou 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
I them the heavy mist of many tears. Alasi
4 that for forty and fifty years they should
have walked under this delusion and had
I it under their pillow when they lay a-iying
\ in the back room, and asked that some words
/ from the vile page might be cut upon the
tombstone un'ier the shadow Of the old
country meeting house where they sleep
to-day waiting Tor a resurrection that will
never come.
/ This book, having deceived them. and hav-
| ing deceived the mighty inteilects Of tho
| past, must not be allowed to deceive our
! larger, mightier, vaster, mora stupsndous
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 un-
der the foundation of church and asylum.
Out with it from the domestic circle Gather
I together all the Bibles-the childrens Bibles,
the family Bibles, those newly bound, and
those with lid nearly worn out and pages al
most obliterated by the fingers long ago
tui ntL " huSl-blitiS5 tliSHi all Lt5EAntI. duI
let us make d bonfire of them, and by it
warm cur cold criticism, and after that turn
under with the plowshare of public indig-
nation tae polluted ashes of that loathsome,
aduterous, 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 jocosity,
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-physical health,
mental health, moral health spiritual health
! provided you laugh at the right thing
The morning is jocund. The In5ian with its
own mist baptizes the cataract MiRpehaha,
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 the orchards in blossom
week aglee with redolence. But there is a
laughter which has tho rehound-of despair
1t is not healthy to gigg!o 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. II 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. 1t was only Joke. He
thought it would be such fun to stop the
train He stopped it. And so infidelity is
chiefly anxious to stop the long train of the
/ Bible, end 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
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.
Now in this POPULARITY of inflde, thinkers |
cannot join, and propose TO give You some
reasons why cannot be 81 iufidel, and so
will try to help out Of this present condition
any who may have been struck with the
awful plague of skeptcism.
First, | cannot be an infidel because inf.
deity has no good substitute for the conso-
lation it proposes TO take away. You know
there are millions Of people who get their
chief consolation from this book What
! would you think of a crusade of this sort?
| Suppose man should resolve that he would
/ organize n conspiracy to destroy all the
medicines from all the apothecaries and from
! all the hospitals of the earth. The work is
done Tie medicines are taken, and they
are thrown into the river, or the lake or the
/ sea.
| A patient wakes up at midnight in a par
! oxYsm of distress, and wants au ano1yne.
"Oh, says the nurse, "the anodynes are all
! DESTROYED; we have no drops to give YOU
but instead of that I'll read you q book on
the absurdlties of morphine and the abSur-
dities of all remedies" But the man contin-
ues to writhe in pain, and the nurse says:
| an continue to read you some discourses on
anodynes the cruelties OF anodynes, the in.
deceucies of anodyneS the absurdities of
anodynes. For your groan I'll give you a
laugh
Here in the hospital is patient having a
gangrened limb amputated. He says: oh,
for ether Oh, for chloroform' The doc.
tor says: why, they are all destroyed; we
don't have any more chlorosorm or ether,
but have got something great deal bet
ter. ~ read YOU a pamphlet against
James Y. Simpson, the diScovererof chloro-
form as an anRSthetic. aud aCaiust Drs Az
new aud Hamilton and Hos.9ci5 and Mott
and Harvey and Aberne.hy." But SAYS
the man, II must have some ana5theticsr
No, says the doctor, they are all de
stroyed, but we have got something a great
deal better What is thatg' Fun"
Fun about medicines. Lie down, all We pa
'N'S ~ bSheN ue hOepltdi, dnI sVOp your
grooming, all ye broken hearted of all the
cities and quit your crying; we have the
catholicon at last.
here is dose Of wit, here is a strengthen
ing plaster of sarcasm, here is bottle of
rlbaldry that YOU are to keep well sha ken nm
ana take spoonful of il after each meal
ana If that does not cure You here is a solu-
lon OF blasphemy in which you NAV battle,
and here is a tiucture of derision. Tickle the
skeleton OF death with a rsuartee! Make the
hlng OF TerrorS ezekiel For oil the aoorieS