The Forrest City times., 1892-04-01
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
THE GREAT DIVINE ON BIBLE
 PROVERBS.
Men Who Have Consecrated Their Wit as We'll as Their Wisdom to the Cause of Christ-Abhoring Small Sins and Reckless of Large Thefts.

BROOKLYN, NY, March 27. so2.-The tendency to formalism in religion and to hypocritical pretense Tn society re- ceived q severe castigation from the pulpit of the Brooklyn tabernacle this morning. Dr. Talmage made a vigor- ous onslaught upon it. passing his re. marks on the text, Matt. 23 : 24: "YG blind guides, who strain at gnat and swallow a camel"
 A proverb is compact wisdom, knowledge in chunks, a library in a sentence, the electricity of many clouds discharged in one bolt, river put through mill race. When Christ quotes the proverb of the text, he means to set forth the ludicrous be- havior of those who make great buster about small sins and have no appreciation of great ones.
 In my text small insect and large quadruped are brought into compari- son-a gnat and a camel. You have in museum or on the desert seen the lat ter. great awkward sprawling creature, with back two stories high, and stomach having a collection of reservoirs for desert travel. an animal forbidden to the Jews as food, and in many literatures entitled "the ship of the desert" The gnat spoken of in the text is in the grub form. 1t is born in pool or pond, after d few weeks be- comes 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 inhabit the water-for my text is misprint and ought to read strain out gnat."
 My text shows you the prince of in constituencies. A man after long obser- vation has formed the suspicion that in a cup of water he is about to drink, there is a grub or the grandparent of gnat. He goes and gets sieve or strainer. He takes the water and pours it through the sieve in tine broad light. He says, II would rather do anything almost than drink this water until this larva be extirpated." This water is brought under inquisition. The experiment 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 devours q ship of the desert" the camel, which the Jews were forbidden to cat The gastronomer has no compunctions of conscience. He suffers from no indi- gestion. He puts the lower jaw under the camel's forefoot. and his upper jaw over the hump of the camel's back, and gives one swallow and the dromedary disappears forever. He strained out n gnat, he swallowed camel.
 While Christ's audience were yet smiling at the appositeness and wit of his illustration smile they did in church, unless they were too stupid to understand the hyperbole--Christ prac- tically said to them. That is you. Punetilious about small things: reck- less about affairs of great magnitude No subject ever withered under a surgeons knife more bitterly than did the Pharisees under Christs S scalpel of truth. As an anatomist will take a human body to pieces and put them under 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 fatter them and compliment them, and how they must have writhed under the red-hot words as he said: ''Ye fools, ye whited sepulchres, ye blind guides which strain out gnat and swallow a camel"
 There are in our day great many pnats strained out and a great many camels swallowed, and it is the object of this sermon to sketch 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 mat ters of vast importance. Church services ought to be grave and solemn. There is no room for frivolity 1 in religious eonvocation. But there are illustrations. and there are hvperboles like that of Christ in the text that will irradiate with smiles any intelligent auditory. There are mer like those blind guides of the text who advocate only those things in religious service which draw the corners of tn, mouth down, and denounce all thos, l things which have a tendency to draw | the corners of the mouth up, and these men will go to installations ant to presbyteries and to con 1 ferences and to association' their pockets full of fine sieves to straiI out the gnats, while in their owl churches at home every sunday there are fifty people sound asleep Thel make their churches great dormitory 1 and their somniferous sermons gre ; cradle. and their drawled out hymns ; l lullaby, while some wakeful soul in ;
 pew with her fan keeps the flies off un
 conscious persons approximate. Now
 1 say it is worse to sleep II
 church than to smile in church
 for the latter implies at least attention
 while the former implies the indiffer
 ence of the hearers and the stupidity O
 the speaker. In old age, or from phy
 sical infirmity, or from long watching
 with the sick, drowsiness will some
 times overpower one: but when min
 ister of the gospel looks off upon al I audience and finds healthy and intel