The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-05-27
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Silence, Under Some circumstances,
May be Crime
Christians should Defend Christianity,
and Not, by Their silence, Per-
NIT ReprOach 90 the Cause
of Christ.

Thou dumb and DEAF spirit, charge thee
come out Of him--Mark tx, %.
Here was a case of great domestic an
guish. The SON of the household was
posed of an evil spirit, which. among
other things, paralyzed his tongue and
made him SPECIFICS. When the in
fiuence was on the patient he could not
say word-articulation was impossf-
BILE. The spirit that captured this mem
Der of the household was a dumb spirit
-so-called by Christ-a spirit abroad
to-day, and as lively and potent as in
the New Testament times Yet, in all
the realms of sermonology, can not
find discourse concerning this dumb
devil which Christ charged upon in my
text, saying: Come out of him"
There has been much destructive
superstition abroad in the world con-
corning possession by evil spirits. I'M
der the form of belief in witchcraft,
this delusion swept the continents.
Persons were supposed to be possessed
with some evil spirit, which made them
able to destroy others. In the six
teenth century, in Geneva. 1900 per
sons were burned to death as witches
hundred persons were burned to
death as witches In one neighbor-
hood of France one thousand persons
were burned. In two centuries two
hundred thousand persons were slain
as witches So mighty was the delu-
sion that it included among its victims
some of the greatest intellects of all
time, such as Chief Justice Matthew
Hale and Sir Edward Coke, and such
renowned ministers of religion as Cot
ton Mather, one of whose books, Ben
jamin Franklin said, shaped his life
and Richard Baxter, and Archbishop
Cranmer, and Martin Luther; and,
among writers and philosophers, Lord
Bacon: That belief, which has be-
come the laughing stock of all sensible
people, counted its disciples among the
wisest and best peoples of Sweden,
Germany, England, France, Spain and
New England. But, while we reject
witchcraft, any man who believes the
Bible must believe that there are dia-
bolical agencies abroad in the world.
While there are ministering spirits to
bless, there are internal spirits to him
der, to poison and to destroy. Christ
was speaking to a spiritual existence,
when, standing before the afflicted one
of the text, he said: Thou dumb and
deaf spirit, come out of him"
Against this dumb devil of the text /
put you on your guard. Do not think
that this agent or evil has put his blight
on those who by omission of the vocal
organs have had the goldenrgates of
speech bolted and barred. Among those
who have never spoken word are the
most gracious and lovely and talented
souls that were ever incarnated. The
chaplains of the asylums for the dumb
can tell you enchanting stories of those
who never called the name of father
mother or child, and many of the most
devout and prayerful souls will never
in this world speak the name of God or
Christ. Many a deaf mute have / seen
with the angel of intelligence seated at
the window of the eye, who never came
forth from the door of nthe mouth.
What a miracle of loneliness and l1nowl-
edge was Laura Bridgman, of New
Hampshire, not only without faculty of
speech, but without hearing and with
out sight, all these faculties removed
by sickness when two years of age, yet,
becoming a wonder at needle work, at
the piano. at the sewing machine, and
an intelligent student of the Scriptures,
and confounding philosophers, who
came from all parts of the world to
study the phenomenon. Thanks to
Christianity for what it has done for the
amelioration of the condition of the
deaf and the dumb. Back in the ages
they were put to death as having no
right, with such paucity of equipment,
TO live, and for centuries they were
classed among the idiotic and unsafe.
But in the sixteenth century came
Pedro Ponce, the Spanish monk;
and in the seventeenth century
came Juan Pablo Bonet, another
Spanish monk, with dactylol-
ogy or the finger alphabet; and in our
own century we have had John Braid
wood and Doctors Mitchell and Ackcrly,
and Peet and Gallaudet, who have given
20 uncounted thousands of those whose
tongues were forever silent the power
to spell out on the air by manual al
phabet their thoughts about this world
and their hopes for the next. We re-
ioice in the brilliant inventions in be-
half of those who were born dumb. One
of the most impressive audiences / ever
addressed was in the far west two or
three years ago-an audience of about
six hundred persons, who had never
heard sound or spoken a word, an in
terpreter standing beside me while
addressed them. congratulated that
audience on two advantages they had
over the most of us-the one that they
escaped hearing great many disagree
able things, and, on the other fact, they
escaped saying things they were sorry
for afterward. Yet, after all the al
leviations, a shacl1led tongue is an APP
palling limitation. But we are not this
morning speaking of congenital mutes-
We mean those who are born with all
the faculties of vocalization, and yet
have been struck by the evil one men
toned in the text-the dumb devil to
whom Christ called, when he said:
Thou dumb and deaf spirit, charge
thee. come out of him"
There has been apotheosization of
silence. Some one has said silence is
golden, and sometimes the greatest
triumph is to keep your mouth shut
But sometimes silence is a crime and
the direct result of the baleful infiu-
ence on the dumb devil of our text
There is hardly a man or woman in
this house to-day who has not been
present on some occasion when the
Christian religion became a target for
raillery. Perhaps itswas over in the
store some day, when there was not
much going ON and the clerks were in q
group: or it was in a factory at the
nan sDa1l. or II was ont IN the farr,