Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1892-05-19
THE DUMB DEVIL.
YOU MUST KEEP AN EYE OPEN
FOR HIM,
Or Else, Says DR.. Ta1magc, You VIII
Suffer the Consequences-A Mcmora-
BILE Sunday Sermon in Tabernacle
Pulpit, Brooklyn.

Pulpit, Brooklyn
BROOKLYN, N. Y, May 49, is92--In his SER
mon to-day the Rev. Dr. Talmage illustrated,
in potent and convincing language, the duty in
cumbent upon christians OF embracing every
opportunity that offers in this life 10 do good
and to advance the cause of the kingdom Of
Christ by a bold acknowledgment OF their
principles before men. The .ext selected was:
Mark 0: %, Thou dumb and deaf spirit /
charge thee. come out OF him"
Here was a case of great domestic
anguish. The son of the household
was possessed of an evil spirit which,
among other things, paralyzed his
tongue and made him speechless.
When the influence was on the patient,
he'could not say n northumberland
was impossible. The spirit that capt
ured this member of the household
was dumb spirit-so-called by Christ
"a spirit abroad to-day ard as lively
and potent as in New Testament times.
Yet in all the realms of sermonology, |
cannot find discourse concerning this
dumb devil which Christ charged upon
in my text, saying: 'Come out of
him."
There has been much destructive SUI
perstition abroad in the world concern
ing possession by evil spirits. Under
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 Sixteenth
century, in Geneva, 1,500 persons were
burned to death as witches. In one
neighborhood of France l,00p persons
were burned. In two centuries 200, 900
persons were slain as witches. So
mighty was the delusion that it in
cluded among its victims some of the
greatest intellects of all time, such
as Chief Justice Matthew Hale and
Sir Edward Coke, and such re-
nowned ministers of religion as Cot
ton Mather, one of whose books, Ben
jamin Franklin said, shaped his life
and Richard Baxter. aud Archbishop
Cranmer, and Martin Luther; and,
among writers and philosophers, Lord
Bacon. That belief, which has become
the laughing stock of all sensible peo-
wisest and best people of Sweden, Ger
many, 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 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 you think
that this agent of evil has put his
blight on those who by omission of the
vocal organs, have lad the golden
gates of speech bolted and barred.
Among those who have never spoken n
word are the most gracious and lovely
and talented souls that were ever in
carnated. The chaplains of the
asylums for the dumb can tell you en-
chanting stories Of those, who never
called the name of father of 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 win
dow of the eye, who never came forth
from the door of the mouth. What
miracle of loveliness and knowledge
was Laura Bridgman of New lamp
shire, 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 n wonder Mt needle
work, at the piano, at the sewing ma
chine, and an intelligent student of the
Scriptures, and confounding philoso-
pliers, 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 condi-
tion 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 dac5ylol-
ogy or the finger alphabet; and in onr
own century, we have had John Braid
wood and Drs. Mitchell and AclIerly
and Peet and Gallaudet, who have given
TO uncounted thousands of those whose
tongues were forever silent, the power
to spell out on the air by a manual
alphabet their thoughts about this
world and their hopes for the next.
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 crime and
the direct result of the baleful influence
of the dumb devil of our text. There
is hardly n man or woman in this house
to-day who has not been present on
some occasion when the Christian re-
ligion became target for raIllery.
Perhaps it was over in the store some
on and the clerks were IN group; or
it was in the factory at the noon spell;
or it was out on the farm under the
trees while you were resting; or it was
in the club-room: or it was in social
circle; or it was in the street on the
way home from business; or
it was some occasion which
you remember without my describing
it. Some one got the laugh on the
bible and caricatured the profession of
religion as hypocrisy, or made a pun
out of something that Christ said. The
laugh started and you joined in, and
not one word of protest did you utter.
What kept you silent? Modesty? No.
Incapacity to answer? No. Lack of
| opportunity? No. 1t was n blow on
both your lips by the wing of the
dumb devil. II some one should ma
lign your father, or mother, or wife, or
husband, or child, you would flush up
! quick, and either with an indignant
| word mr. don bled nm fist mako rosnopsa