The Red Cloud chief., 1892-04-15
Z ~TABERNACLES.
d.. Talmage breaches His TWAnty-
third Anniversary Sermon.

A Story OF Trials and Triumphs Eloquently
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Severely
Denounced-Au Things Work To.
gether For Good.
In preaching his twenty-third ami
versary sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T. De-
Witt Talmage took for his subject
THE Three Tabernacles; a Story of
Trials and Triumphs," and his text was
from Luke tx. 80: Let us make three
tabernacles." He said:
Dur Arab ponies were almost dead
with fatigue and in December, 1889, W.
rode near the foot of Mount Hermon in
the Holy Lond, the mountain called by
one "a mountain of ice;.' by another "a
the Mount Blanc of Palestine" Its
top has an almost unearthly brilliance.
But what must it have been in the time
to which my text refers. Peter and
James and John were on that mountain
top with Jesus when, suddenly, Christ's
facf took on the glow Of the MONDAY
sur. and Moses and Elijah, who haI
been dead for centuries, came out from
The heavenly world and talked with our
Saviour. What al overwhelming three!
Moses, representing the law; Elijah,
representing the prophets, and Christ,
Representing all worlds. Impetuous
Peter was SO wrought upon by the
p,esence of this wondrous three, that,
without waiting for time to consider
low preposterous was the proposition,
lie cried out: "Let us make three taber-
,.ac,es; one for Thee, one for Moses and
one for Elijah" Where would they get
Che material for building one tabernacle,
much less to build two tabernacles, and,
! still less, how would they get the ma
terial for building three? Where would
they get the hammers? Where the gold?
where the silver? Where the curtains?
Where the costly adornments? oHermon
is a barren peak, and to build one taber-
nacle in such a place would have been
an undertaking beyond human achieve
ment, and Peter vas propounding the
impossible when he cried out in en-
thusiasm: "Let us build three tabere
nacles." And, yet, that is what this
congregation has been called to do and
have done. The first Brooklyn taber
nacle was dedicated in 1870 and de-
stroyed by fire in 1872. The second
Brooklyn tabernacle was dedicated in
1874 and destroyed by fire in 1889. The
third Brooklyn tabernacle was dedicat-
ed in April, 1891, and in that we in
worshiping to-day. What sounded alb
surd for Peter to propose, when he said
on Mount Hermon, in the words of mi
text: "Let us build three tabernacles,l
we have not only done, but, in the mysl
terious providence of God, were cog
PEELED to do.
We have been unjustly criticised q
people who do not know the facts, sose-
times for putting S 20 much money IN
church buildings and sometimes for6ot
giving as much as we ought to thj Tor
that UNCONVENTIONAL project, and D.ex-
PLANTATION has yet been made. Be1re
get through with the delivery o this
sermon and its publication and istri
button l shall show that no churh on
earth has ever done more magnif,ently
and that no church ever conquerd more
trials and that no membership Ger had
in it more heroes and heroines tan this
Brooklyn tabernacle, and 1 lean to
have it known that any indidual or
religious newspaper or secusr new
paper that hereafter casts ay refiec-
tons on this church's fidelityand gem
~erosit:' is guilty of a weakness for
which God will hold him or it responsible.
One year it was sent out thrugh a syn
Iso,%a ~ no~c <ha<f hIe nhrroh |
vas doing nothing in the way OF iber-
atty. when we had that year raised
s94, 900 in hard cash for religious uses.
There has been persisten and hemis-
pheric lying against this church. We
have raised during my ~pastorate for
church building and religious purposes
s99s. 600, or practically a,000, 900. Not
an Irish famine, or q Charleston earth
quake, or an Ohio fresh.t, or a Chicago
conf1agration, but our church was among
the first to help. We lave given free
seats il the morning AID evening ser
vices to 240,000 STRANGERS a year, and
that, in twenty years. would amount to
4, 500, 900 auditors. We have received
into our membership 5,357 men,
bers, and that S only a small
of the number of those who
have been converted to God from all
parts of this land ard from other lands.
And yet there are minister's Of the Cos
pei and religious newspapers that
Systematically and industriously ana
continuously charge this church with
idleness and ~selfisnness and parsimony.
| call the attention, of the whole earth
to this outrage chat has been heaped
upon the Brooklyn tabernacle, though
a more consecated, benevolent, and
convoation of men and women
we're never gathered together outside of
Heaven. PAt
But this continuous misreprepresenta-
ton of my beloved church, in the name
IF Almighty God. I~denounce. while l APP
peal to the fair-minded men and women
see that Justice is done this people, who
a few years have gone through
, struggle hat NO other church in any
and or any age has been called to en-
lure, and l fray God that no other
.hurch may ever be called on to endure,
viz: the building Of three tabernacles.
ask the friends of the BROOKLYN tab