The Dickinson press., 1892-04-09
THE WIT OF CHRIST.
Rev. Talmage Discusses It in the
Great Brooklyn Tabernacle,
at Length.
Ministers Who Make a Dormitory Of
Their Sanctuaries Had Better Quit
The Business of Preaching.


Brooklyn, N. Y. Especial. DIR. Tai
mage created a great stir int the Brook
lyn Tabernacle by making the follow
ing announcement:
81 am happy to say that as q
church, after the exhaustive work o
building three immense churches, two
of them having been destroyed by fire
"a burden before put upon the
back Of any congregation-we are now
financially in smooth waters. Arrange
ments have been made by which our
pecuniary difficulties are fully adjust
ed. Our income exceeds our outgo,
and this church will beyours and your
children's hereafter.
"When came to Brooklyn, l came
to a small church with a big indebted
ness. We now worship in this, the
largest Protestant church in America,
and financially, as a congregation, we
niC WOtli over HlIu Ucy Oliu stil iIiuCtll-
edness, considerably workmanship
900. ask youto rise, and led by the
cornet and organ. to Join in. singing
Praise God From Whom All Blessings
Flow"
THE SERMON.
The tendency to Journalism in religion
and to hypocritical pretencein society
received Il severe castigation from the
pulpit of the Brooklyn Taber-
nacle. DR.. Talmage made a
vigorous onslaught upon it, basing
his remarks on the text, Matt. xiii,
"a: eye blind guides, who strain at
a gnat and swallow a camel"
A proverb is compact wisdom,
knowledge in chunks, a. library in n
sentence, the electricity ofmany clouds
discharge in one bolt, a river put
through a mill race. When Christ
quotes the proverb of the text, he
means to set forth the ludicrous be-
havior OF those who made Il great
bluster about small sins and have no
appreciation of great ones.
My text shows you the prince OF in
consistencies. A man after ~ long
observation, has formedthe suspicion
that in the cup of water he is about
to drink, there is a grub or the grand
parent Of q gnat. He goes and gets a
sieve or q strainer. lie takes the
water and pours it through the sieve
in the broad light. Hesays, II would
do anythingalmost than drink
this water until this larva he extirpat-
ed" This water is brought under
inquisition. The experiment is suc-
cessful. The water rushes through
the sieve and leaves against
the side of the sieve the
grub or gnat. Then the man careful
ly removes the insect and drinks the
in placidity. But going out one
day, and hungry, he davours a "ship
of the DESERT" the camel, which the
Jews were forbidden to eat. The
astronomer has no compunctiops OF
conscience. He suffers from no indi-
gestion. He puts the lower jaw under
the camel's fore foot, and his upper
jaw over the hump OF the camel's
back, and gives IL swallow and the
disappears forever. He
strained out a gnat, he swallowed a
camel.
While Christ's audience were yet
smiling at the appositeness and wit of
illustration-for smile they did in
unless they were too stupidto
understand the hyperbole-Christ
practically said to them, "T'hat is
you" Punctilious about small things,
reckless about affairs of great magni-
tude. No subject ever withered under
surgeons knife more bitterly than
did the Pharisees under Christ's
sCALPELoF TRUTH.
As an anatomist will take a human
body to pieces and put them under q
microscope for examination, so Christ
finds his way to the heart of the dead
Pharisee and cuts it out and puts it
under the glass OF inspection for all
generations to examine.
There are in our day a great many
gna.s strained out and,A greet many
swallowed: and it is the object
of this sermon to sketch q few persons
who are extensively engaged i'll that
business.
First, ] remark, that all those min
listers 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 re-
convocation. But there are
Illustrations and there are hyperboles
like that OF Christ that will irradiate
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
all those things which have
tendency to draw the rne of the
mouth up and these men will go to IN
stallations and to presbyteries and
to conferences and to associations,
there pockets full of fine sleeves to
out the gnats, while in their
own churches at home every Sunday
there are so people sound asleep.
They make their churches
A GREAT DoRMIToRY,
and their somniferous sermons are u
cradle, and the drawled-out hymns a
JulltDy, WHO SUITE Whkelut soul ill u
pew with her fan keeps the flies off I'M
conscious persons approximate. Now,
/ say it is worse to sleep in church
than to smile in church, for the latter
implies at least attention, while the
former implies the Indifference of the
hearers and the stupidity ofthespeak.
er. In old age, or from physica! in
trinity, or from long watching with
the sick. drowsiness will sometimes
overpower one; but when a minister
of the gospel looks off upon an au-
dience and finds healthy and intelli-
gent people struggling with drowsi-
ness. it is time for him to give out the
doxology or pronounce the benedic-
ton. The great fault of church SER
vices today is not too much vivacity,
but tco much somnolence. The one
is All irritating gnat that may be
easily st trained out; the other is q
great, sprawling and sleepy-eyed
camel of the dry desert. In all our
Sabbath schools, in all our Bible
classes, in all our pulpits we need to
brighten up our religious message
with such ChriSt.lika vivacitv "a we