Lewiston teller. [volume] (Lewiston, North Idaho) 1878-1900, 1891-04-30
PLAGUE OF INFIDELITY
| OF. TALMAGE SAYS 1T is THE
MOTHER OF PLAQUES
tnfldelity Negative Religion.-It
Can Offer the Christian Nothing
in Exchange for His Faith.

in Exchange for His Faith.
NEw YORK, April 5. 1891.
mis- course Of sermons on ''rhe Ten
Plaques Of the Cities" Rev. DIR. Talmage
today took for his subject ''The Plague Of
Intidelity." The discourse was delivered
to large and apprcciative audiences at the
Brooklyn Academy OF Music in the fore
noon aud the New York Academy OF
Music in the evening. The text was.
Romans 8. 4: "Let God be true, but every
man liar"
That is il 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 o plague, but it is the
mother Of plaques.
1t seems from what we hear on all sides,
that tho Christian religion is huge
blunder; that the Mosaic account of the
creation is an absurdty large enough to
throw all nations into rollicking guffaw;
that Adam and Eve mover existed; that the
ancient flood and Noahs ark were impossi-
bilities; that there never was . miracle;
| that tho Bible is the friend of cruelty, of
murder, Of polygamy, Of all forms Of base
crime; that the Christian religion is
woman's tyrant snd mans qualification;
that the Bible from lid to lid is u fable, a
cruelty, humbug, u sham, a lie; that the
| martyrs whc died for its truth were miser-
| able dupes; that the Church of Jesus
Christ is properly gazctted rs a fool; that
| when Thomas Carlyle, the sceptc, said
THE Bible is q noble book" he was drop
Iv>yS i,$0 h.,
Parker declared in Music Hall, Boston,
| "Never boy or girl in ali Chrstendom
but was protted by that great book" he
was becoming very weak minded; that it is
something to bring blush to the check
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-hcarted Andrew
Jackson turned into SWIVEL
ling coward when he said, THAT
| book, sir, is the rock on which
our Republic rests" and that Daniel
| Wooster abdicated the throne of his intel
| lectual 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 a
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 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. Seward, the diplomatist of the century,
only showed his puerility when he
declared, 1.-THE whole hopo of human
progress is suspended on the ever-growing
influences Of the Bible;' and that it is
wisest for US to take that book from tho
throne in the affections of uncounted
mul,itudes and put it 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 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 tho children
| she had buried with infinite heartache, so
| that She could read no more until she took
| on 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 dclusion and had it
under their pillow when they lay a-dying in
| the back room, and asked that somc words
from the old book might bo cut upon the
tombstone under the shadow Of tho old
| country meeting House, where they sleep
today waiting for resurrection that will
| never come. This book having deceived
them, and having deceived the mighty in
tellccts of the past, must not be allowed to
deceive our larger, mightier, vastcr, more
stupcndous intellccts. And so out with the
book from the courtroom, where it is used
III tho solcnnization Of testimony. Out
with it from under tho foundation of church
and asylum Out with it from the domcs-
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 obliteratcd
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
the ploughsnare 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 the worlds happi-
| ness.
Now that is the substar &c OF what inf
deity purposes and declares, and the atr
tack on the Bible is accompanied by great
jocosity. and there is hardly any subject
about which more mirth is kndled than
about the bible.
Now in this sentiment Of infidel thinkers
cannot join, and propose to give you
some reasons why I cannot be an infidel,
and so l will try 10 help out Of this present
condition any who may have been struck
with the awful plague Of sceptcism.
First, cannot be an infidel because in
fidelity has no good substitute for The con.
ISOLATION it proposes to take away. Yo,
know there are millions of people who &c
their chief consolation from this book
Infidelity is religion Of "Dont know.
Is the soul immortal? Don't know! Is Their,
God? Don't know! A religion of ''don'
know" for the religion OF ~ know" ..
know in whom have believed" 81 know
that my Redcemer liveth." Infidelity pro
, poses to substitute a religion Of awful neg
) atiyes for our religion of glorious positives
Furthermore, l cannot be an iuhdel, be