The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-02-05
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Sunday Christian and Week
Day Sinner Excoriated-
The True Christian rs Such mt All Times
aud Under All Circumstance
Every Day n Sabbath
10 Him.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage delivered
the following discourse on the applica-
ton of religion to the daily affairs of
life in the Brooklyn tabernacle. taking
for his text:
Whether, therefore. ye eat OF drink. or what
soever ye do. do all to the glory Of God.-L Co
rint hans. X. 81
When the apostle, In this text, sets
forth the idea that SO common an nc
ton as the taxing of food and drink is
10 be conducted to the glory of God.
he proclaims the Importance of religion
In the ordinary affairs of our life. In
all ages of the world there has been
tendency to set apart certain days,
places and occasions for worship, and
20 think those were the chief realms in
which religion was to act Now, holy
days and holy places have their i'm
portance. They give opportunity for
especial performance of Christian duty,
and for RECALLING of the religious appe-
tite; but they can not take the place of
continuous exercise of faith and pray
or. In other words, a man can not be
much of n Christian on Sunday that he
can afford TO be n wording all the rest
of the week If a steamer put out
for Southampton and 60 one day in
that direction and the other six
days in other directions, how long be-
fore the steamer will get to Southamp-
ton? 1t will never get there. And
though a man may seem to be voyag-
ing Heavenward during the holy Sab
bath day, IL, during the following six
days of the week, he is going toward
the world, and toward the flesh, and
toward the devil, he will never ride up
into the peaceful harbor of Heaven.
You can not eat SO much at the Sab
bath banquet that you can afford re-
ligious abstinence me other six days.
Heroism and princely behavior on
great occasions are no apology for lack
of right demeanor in circumstances in
signifcantand inconspicuous. The gen.
uine Christian life is not spasmodic;
does not go by fits and starts. 1t tolls
on through heat and cold, up steep
mountains and along dangerous declivi-
ties, it's eye. on the everlasting hills
crowned with the castles of the blessed.
l propose, this morning. to plead for
a religion for to-day. t-
In the first place we want to bring
the religion of Christ into our converse
ton. When a dam breaks and two or
three villages are overwhelmed, or an
earthquake in South America swallows
whole city, then people begin to talk
about the uncertainty OF life, and they
imagine that they are engaged in posi-
lively religious conversation. No. You
may talk about these things and have
- o.. Ill =
We ought every day to be talking re-
ligion. If there is anything glad about
it, anything beautiful about 1t, any
thing important about it, we ought to
continuously discussing It / have
noticed that men, just in proportion as
their Christian experience is shallow,
talk about funerals, and grave-yards,
and tomb-stones and death-beds. The
real, genuine Christian man talks
chiefly about this life, and the great
eternity beyond, and not so much about
the insignificant pass between these
two residences. And yet how few cir
Giles there are where the religion of
Jesus Christ is welcome. Go into q cir
Gle, even of Christian people, where
they are full of Joy and hilarity, and
talk about Christ or Heaven, and every
thing is Immediately silenced. As on a
summer day, when the forests are full
of life, chatter, and ehirrup, and carol
"A mighty chorus of '0ird-harmony,
every tree branch an cschestra-if a
hawk appear in the SHY, every voice
stops, and the forests SSe still; just SO
have seen a lively religious circle
silenced on the appear ance of anything
Ill
had anything to sly, save, perhaps,
some old patriarch IL the corner of the
room, who really thinks that some
thing ought to be said under the cir
cumstances; so he puts one foot over
the other, and heaEes a long sigh, and
says: "Oh, yes; that's so, that's So"
My friends, ths religion of Jesus
Christ is something to talk about with
glad heart. 1t is brighter than the
waters; it is more cheerful than the
sunshine. Do net go around grooming
about your religion, when you ought
20 be singing il or talking it in cheer
full tones of voice. How often il is that
we find men whose lives are utterly in
consistent who attempt to talk re-
ligion, and always make failure of
It'll My friends, we must live religion,
or we can not talk it. IL man is
cranky, and cross, and uncongenial,
and hard in his dealings, and then be-
gins to talk about Christ and Heaven,
everybody is repeled by it. Yet I
have heard such men say in whining
tone: 1--WE are miserable sinners;"
THE Lord bless yon;" THE Lord
have mercy on youi" sheir converse
ton interlarded with suth expressions,
which mean nothing but canting, and
canting is the worst form of hypocrisy.
If we have really felt thu religion of
Christ in our hearts, let Us talk it, and
talk it with an illuminated counte-
nance, remembering tina. when two
Christian people talk God gives espe-
cial attention and writes down what
they say. Malachi, iii, 16: 'Then they
that feared the Lord spaks often to
one another; and the Lord hearkened
md heard il, and a book IF remem-
brance was written.
Again l remark: We must bring the
religion of Christ into our employment
"oh," you say, that is very well if a
man handle large sums of monB ~, or If
he have an extensive traffic; but in my
thread-and-needle store, in my trim
ming establishment in the humble
work in life that / am called 70, the
sphere is too small for the action of
such grand heavenly principles" Who
told you so? Do you not know that God
watches the faded leaf on the brock $
surface as certainlv as He does the va th