The Forrest City times., 1891-10-16
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
rALMAoE AND THE TRUTHS OF
 THE BELLA
4 Foreible sermon from the Text, n samuel e3;IO. "And Ills Hand Gave Unto the sword.-thristians should Not be Ashamed of the ERIhle.

the Brooklyn Tabernacle at every service are large numbers of young -men, many of whom are theological students Dr. Talmage's sermon this morning had special interest Tor | them. At this time when so many are giving up the Bible, or holding the ! truth less firmly than before, the eloquent preacher pui himself on recood so clearly and forcibly that no one who heard him could have any doubt as to his attitude. His text was: II. Samuel g; 10, And his hand clave unto the sword"
 A great general of King David was Eleazar, the hero of the text The Philistines opened battle against him, and his troops retreated. The towards
 fled. Eleazar and three of his com rades went into the battle and swept | the field, for four men with God on their side are stronger than whole
 battalion with God against them.
 "Fall back" shouted the commander
 of the Philistine army. The cry ran along the host: Fall back.
 Eleazar having swept the held throws himself on the ground 10 rest, but the muscles and sinews of his hand had been so long bent around the hilt of the sword that the hilt was inn
 bedded in the flesh, and the gold wire of the hilt had broken through the
 skin of the palm of the hand, and he could not drop this sword which he had so gallantly wielded. His hand clave unto the sword" That is what I call magnificent fighting for the Lord God of Israel. And we want
 more of it. l propose to show you this morning how Eleazar took
 hold of the sword and how the sword
 took hold of Eleazar. l look at Flea l zar's hand, and come to the conclu- 1 sion that he took the sword with very tight grip The towards who fled had no trouble in dropping their swords. As they fly over the rocks hear thelr ! swords changing in every direction. II 1 is easy enough for them to drop their swords. But Eleazar's hand clave unto 1 the sword.
 O my friends, in this Christian con
 fiict we want tighter grip of the Cos pei weapons, a tighter grasp of the | two-edged sword of truth It makes me sad to see these Christian people l who hold only a part of the truth, and 1 let the rest of the truth go, so that the | Philistines, seeing the loosened grasp, wrench the whole sword away from l them. The only safe thing for us i to do IS to put our thumb on the book 1 of Genesis and sweep our hand
 around the book until the new testa
 ment comes into the palm, and keep or sweeping our hand around the book until the tips of the fingers clutch al 1 the words: ''In the beginning Goo created the heavens and the earth. ' I like an infidel a great deal bet ter than do one of these namby- -pamby christians who hold part of the truth and let the rest go. By miracle Goo preserved this Bible just as it is, and it is a Damascus blade. The severest test to which sword can be put in a sword factory is to wind the blade around a gun barrel like a rlb- bon, and then when the sword is let loose it flies back 10 it's own shape So the sword of God truth has been fully tested and it is bent this way and that way, but 1t always comes back to its own shape Think of it! A book written eighteen centuries ago, and some of it thousands of years ago, and 1 yet in our time the average sale of this Book is more than twenty thousand | copies every week, and more than a million copies year l say now that a | book which is divinely inspired and di-
 yinely kept and divinely scattered is a
 weapon worth holding a tight griI
 of. Bishop Colenso will come along and try to wrench out | ,f your hand the five books of Moses, and Strauss will come along md try to wrench out of your hand the miracles, and Renan will come along and try to wrench out of your
 hand the entire life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and your associates in the store, or the shop, or the factory, or the
 banking house, will try to wrench out of your land the entire bible; but in the strength of the Lord God of Israel, and with Eleazar's grip, hold on it. You glve up the bible, you give up any | part of it, and you give up pardon, and pace, and life and heaven.
 l see hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young men ln this audience. Do not be ashamed, young man, to have the world know that you are friend oi the bible This book IS the friend oi all that is good, and it is the sworn enemy of all that is bad. An eloquent | q very bad man who stood in the cell oi | Western prison. This criminal had | gone through all styles of crime. and he was there waiting for the gallowS | The convict standing there at | the window of the cell, this write, says, ''looked out and declared, I an an infidel' He said that to all the men and women and children who hap | l. tI 1 infidel,'" and the eloquent writer says
 'every man and woman there believed him" And the writer goes on to say. If he had stood there saying, I am a Christian, every man and woman would have said: He is liar.' This bible is the sworn enemy of all this wrong, and it is the friend of all thai is good. Oh, hold on it. Do not take part of it and throw the rest away. Hold on to all of it. There are so many people now who do not know. You asl them if the soul is immortal, and they say, "I guess it is, l don't know; per haps it is, perhaps it lsn't." Is the Bible true? Well, perhaps it is. cnc
 ,erhaLs It isn't, perhaps 1t may oe figuratively, and perhaps it may be partly. and perhaps it may not De al all" They despise what they call the Apostolic creed put il their own creed were written out it would read like this: II believe Tn nothing. the maker of heaven ana earth, and in nothing which it hath sent, which nothing was born oi nothing, and which nothing was dead and buried and desce nded into nothing and arose from nothing, and ascende6 to nothing, and now sitteth at the