Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1892-04-07
DIR. TALMAGE REPLIES
THE ATTACKS ON HIS CHURCH
BY ENEMIES.
He Reviews the Twenty-Three Years of
His Passionate of the Brooklyn Tab
ernacIe--A Sensational Sermon Rebuke
to His Critics.

BROOKLYN. N. Y, April 8, s92.-This is a
festival day at the Tabernacle. DR.. Talmage
| is celebrating the twenty-third anniversary OF
his settlement in Brookly In white flowers
embedded in green at the back of the pulpit
stood the inscription 1859 and 1892" DIR. Tai
IMAGES subject was, 1.-The Three Tabernacles:
A story of trials and triumphs," and his text,
Luke 8: 49, Let us make three tabernacles. v
Our Arab ponies were almost dead
with fatigue, as, in December, 1889, we
rode near the foot of Mount Hermon in
the Holy Land. Peter and James and
John were on that mountain top with
Jesus, when, suddenly, Christs face
took on the glow of the MONDAY sun,
and Moses and Elijah, who had been
dead for centuries, came out from the
heavenly world and talked with our
Saviour. What an overwhelming
three! Moses, representing the law,
Elijah, representing the prophets, and
Christ, representing all worlds. I'm
petuous Peter was so wrought upon by
the presence of this wondrous three,
that, without waiting for time to con-
slider how preposterous was the PROPOSE
ton, he cried out: LET us make three
taberpacles; one for thee, one for
Moses and one for Elijah" Where
would they get the material for build
ing one tabernacle, much less the ma
terial enough to build two tabernacles,
and, still less, how would they get the
material for building three? Where
would they get the hammersP Where
the gold, where the silver? Where the
curtains? Where the costly adorn-
mentS?
We have been unjustly criticised by
people who did not know the facts,
sometimes for putting so much money
in church buildings, and sometimes for
not giving as much as we ought to this
or that UNCONVENTIONAL project, and no
explanation has yet been made. Be
fore | get through with the delivery of
this sermon and its publication and
distribution, | shall show that no
church on earth has ever done more
magnificently and that no church ever
conquered more trials, and that no
membership ever had in it more heroes
and heroines than this Brooklyn
Tabernacle, and ! mean to have it
known that any individual or religious
newspaper or secular newspaper that
hereafter casts any reflection on this
churchs fidelity and generosity, is
guilty of n wickedneSs for which God
will hold him or it responsible. One year
it was sent out through a syndicate of
newspapers that this church was doing
nothing in the way of liberality, when
we had that year raised S94, 900 in hard
cash for religious uses. There has been
persistent and hemisphere lying
against this church. We have raised
during my pastorate, for church build
ing and church purposes, 1898, 900 or
practically million dollars Not an
Irish famine, or a Charleston earth
quake, or an Ohio freshet, or Chicago
confagratiOn, but our church was
among the first to help. We have given
free seats in the morning and evening
services to 24O,O strangers year,
and that, in twenty years,
would amount to 4,sOO, 900 auditors.
5,357 members, and that is only a small
portion of the number of those who
have here been converted to God from
all parts of this land and from other
lands. Under the blessing of God, and
through the kindness of the printing
press, my sermons now go every week
into every neighborhood in Christendom
and are regularly translated into nearly
all the great languages of Europe and
Asia. The syndicates having charge of
this sermonic publication informed me
a few days ago that my printed SER
mons every week, in this and other
lands. go into the hands of $4,000, 600
people. During the last year,
am authoritatively informed,
over 1000 different periodicals
were added to the list of those who
make this publication. And yet there
are ministers of the gospel and religious
newspapers that syste natically and in
dustrtously and continuously charge
this church with idleness and selfish
ness and parsimony. i call the atten-
ton of the whole earth to this outrage
that has been heaped upon the Brook
lyn Tabernacle, though a more con-
secra ed, benevolent and splendid con-
vocation of men and women were never
gathered together outside of heaven.
have never before responded to these
injustices, and probably will never
refer to them again, but I wish
&c
other countries to know that what they
read concerning the selfshness and in
dolence and lack of benevolence and
lack of missionary spirit on the part of
this church, is, from top to bottom and
from stem to stern, alsehood-dastard-
ly falsehood - diabolical falsehood
What is said against myself has no
effect, except, like that of a coarse
Turkish towel, the rubbing down by
which improves circulation and pro
duces good health. But this continu-
Gus misrepresentation of my beloved
church, in the name of Almighty God,
denounce, while | appeal
the fair-mind ed men and women to
see that justice is done this people, who,
within a few years, have gone through a
struggle that no other church in any
land or any age has been called to en-
dure, and | pray God that no other
church may ever be called to endure,
viz:-the building of three tabernacles.
ask the friends of the Brooklyn taber-
nacle to cut out this sermon from the
newspapers and put it in their pocket
books, so that they can intelligently an
swer our falsifiers. whether clerical or
lay. And with these you may put that
other statement, which recently went
through the country and which | saw
in Detroit, which said that the Brook
| lyn Tabernacle had hard financial
struggle, because it had all along
been paying such enormous salaries To
its pastor, DIR. Talmage, when the fact
is that, after our last disaster and for
two years, gave all my salary to the
church building fund, and ! received
$4,000 less than nothing; in other
words, in addition to serving this
| church tr,ito,Slr Co.. ,