The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-04-08
BLIND GUIDES.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on Hypo.
critical Pretenders.
The LudicrOusness of Those Who Make
Great Cutlery Against Small Sins aud
Overlook Greater Ones-The Sa-
vIour's Rebuke of Such.

In late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T
Dewitt Talmage discoursed upon ths
tendency to Journalism in religion ant
to hypocritical pretense in society. He
made vigorous onslaught upon it. has
ing his remarks on the text, Matthew
xiii. "a: Eye blind guiGes, who strain
at gnat and swallow camel DIR
Talmage said:
A proverb is compact wisdom. knowl-
edge in chunks, library in a sentence
the electricity of many clouds discharged
in one bolt, river put through a mill
race. When Christ quotes the provert
of the text. he means to set forth the
ludicrous behavior of those who make a
great clustering about small sins and
have no appreciation of great ones.
In my text a small insect and large
quadruped are brought into comparison
"a gnat and a camel. You have in
museum or on the desert seen the latter,
great awkward, sp.awling creature,
with back two stories high, and stom-
ach having a collection of reservoirs for
desert travel, an animal forbidden to
the Jews as feed. and in many litera-
tours entitled THE ship of the desert. -
The gnat spoken of in the text is the
grub form. 1t is born in pool or pond,
after few weeks becomes a chrysalis,
and then after a few days becomes the
gnat as we recognize it. But the insect
spoken of in the text is in its very
smallest shape, and it yet inhabits the
water-for my text is a miSprint and
ought to read, strain out a gnat."
My text shows you the prince of in
constituencies. A man after long obser-
walton has formed the suspicion that in
a cup of water he is about to drink,
there is grub or the grandparent of n
gnat. He goes and gets sieve or
strainer. He takes the water and pours
it through the sieve in the broad light.
He says: Il would rather do anything
almost than drink this water until this
larya be eXtirpated." The water is
brought under inquisition. The expert
ment is successful. The water rushes
through the sieve and leaves against the
side of the sieve the grub or gnat. Then
the man carefully removes the insect
and drinks the water in placidity. But
going out one day, and hungry, he de-
YOURS a ship of the desert" the camel.
which the Jews were forbidden to eat.
The gastronomer has no conjunction
of conscience. He suffers from no indi-
gestion. He puts his lower jaw under
the camcIs foot, and his upper jaw over
the hump of the camel's back, and gives
one swallow and the dromcdary disap-
pears forever. He strained out gnat;
he swallowed camel.
While Christ's audience was yet smil-
ing at the appositeness and wit of his
illustration-fOr smile they did in
church. unless they were too stupid to
understand the pyperbole-Ghristp rac-
tically said to them, THAT is you"
Punctilious about small things, reckless
about affairs of great magnitude. no
subject ever withered under surgeons
knife more bitterly than did the Phari-
sees under Christ's scalpel of truth. AS
an anatUmist will take human body
10 pieces and put it under a micro
scope for examination, so Christ finds
his way to the heart of the dead Phari-
see and cuts it out and puts it under
the glass of inspection for all genera
tions to examine. Those Pharisees
thought that Christ would fiatter them
and compliment them, and how they
must have writhed under the red hot
words as he said: ''Ye fools, We whited
sepulchres, We blind guides. which strain
ont gnat and swallow a camel"
There are in our day great many
gnats strained out and a great many
camels swallowed, and it is the object
of this sermon to sketch a few persons
who are extensively engaged in that
business.
First, remark, that all those minis
ters of the gospel are photographed in
the text who are very scrupulous about
the conventionalities of religion, but
put no particular stress upon matters of
vast Importance. Church services
ought to be grave and solemn. There
is no room for frivolity in religious con-
vocation. But there are illustrations,
and there are hyperboles like that of
Christ in the text that will irradiate
with smiles any intelligent auditory.
There are men like those blind guides
of the text who advocate only those
things in religious service which draw
the corners of the mouth down and de-
nounce all those things which have a
tendency to draw the corners of the
mouth up, and these men will go to in
stallations and to preSbyteries and to
conferences and associations, their
pockets full of fine sleeves to strain out
the gnats, while in their own churches
at home every Sunday there
are fifty people sound asleep. They
make their churches a great dormitory,
and their somniferous sermons are a
cradle, and the drawled out hymns
lullaby, while some walzeful soul in a
pew with her fan keeps the flies off I'M
conscious persons approximate. Now.
say il is worse to sleep in church than
to smile in church. for the latter i'm
plies at least attention, while the
former implies the indifference of the
hearers and the stupidity of the
speaker. In old age, or from physical
5nfrmity, or from long watching with
the sick, dowsineSs will sometimes over
power one. But when i minister of
the gospel looks off upon an audience
and finds healthy and intelligent peo-
pie struggling with drowsiness. it is
time for him to give out the doxology
or pronounce the benedictiou.
The great fault of church SER
vices to-day is not too much vivacity,
but too much somnolence. The one is
an irritating gnat that may be easily
strained ont, the other is a great.
sprawling and sleepy-eyed camel of the
dry desert. In our Sabbath schools. in
all our Bible classes. in all our pulpits.
we need TO brighten up our religious
messages with such Christ-lille vivacity
as we find in the text