The Red Cloud chief., 1892-04-08
BLIND GUIDES.
Dr.. Talnage Discourses on Hypo-
critical Pretenders.
helDdlcrousness OF Those Who Make a
Crest Cutlery Against Small Sins and
Overlook Greater Ones-The Sa-
yiour's Rebuke Of Such.

In a late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage discoursed upon the
tendency to Journalism in religion and
to hypocritical pretense in society. He
made a vigorous onslaught upon it, bas-
ing his remarks on the text, Matthew
xiii. "a: "Ye blind guides, who strain
at a gnat and swallow a camel" DR..
Talmage said:
A proverb is compact wisdom, knowl-
edge in chunks, u library in n sentence,
the electricity of many clouds discharged
in n bolt, a river put through a mill
race. When Christ quotes the proverb
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 a large
quadruped are brought into comparison
"a gnat and a camel. You have in
museum or on the desert seen the latter,
a great awkward, sprawling creature,
with back two stories high, and stom-
C having a collection of reservoirs for
desert travel, an animal forbidden to
the Jews as feed, and in many litera-
teurs entitled 1.-The ship of the desert
The gnat spoken of in the text is the
grub form. 1t is born in pool or pond,
after a few weeks becomes a chrySalis,
and then after 4 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
consistencies. A mar after long obser-
walton has formed the suspicion that in
a cup of water he is about to drink,
there is a grub or the g%randparent of a
gnat. He goes and gets a sieve or
strainer. He takes the water and pours
1t through the sieve in the broad light.
He says: Il would rather do anything
almost than drink this water until this
larva 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-
~Ours a ship of the desert" the camel,
which the Jews were forbidden to eat.
The astronomer has no conjunction
of conscience. He suffers from no indi-
gcstion. He puts his lower jaw under
the camel's foot, and his upper jaw over
the hump of the camel's back. and gives
, one swallow and the d~romedary disap-
pears forever. He strained out a gnat;
he swallowed a camel.
While Christ's audience was vet 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-Christ prac-
tically said to them. THAT is you"
Punctilious about small things. reckless
about affairs of great magnitude, no
subject ever withered under a surgeons
knife more bitterly than did the Phari-
sees under Christ's scalpel of truth. AS
an anatomist will take a human body
to 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
epulchres, We blind guides, which strain
out a gnat and swallow a camel"
There are in our day a 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, 1 remark, that all those minis
ters of the gospel are photographed in
the text who are very s%crupulous about
she conventionalities of religion, but
put nc particular stress upon matters OF
vast Importance. Church services
ought to be grave and solemn. There
is no room for frivolity in religious con-
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 tine corners of the
month 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 soAniferous sermons are a
cradle. and the drawled out hymns
a lullaby, while some wakeful soul in a
pew with her fan keeps the flies off I'M
conscious persons approximate. Now,
/ say it is worse to sleep in church than
10 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
inirmity. or from long watching with
the sick. dowsiness will sometimes over
power one. But when a minister of
the gospel looks off upon an audience
and finds healthy and intelligent peo-