Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-04-01
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
THE GREAT DIVINE ON BIBLE
PROVERBS.
Men Who Have Consecrated Their wit
as Well as Their Wisdom to the
Cause of Christ-Abhoring Small
Sins and Reckless of Large Thefts.

BROOKLYN, NY, March 81. 1892. The
tendency to Journalism in religion and
to hypocritical pretense IN society re-
ceived a severe castigation from the
pulpit of the Brooklyn tabernacle this
morning. DIR. Talmage made vigor'
GUS onslaught upon it, basing his re-
marks on the text, Matt. 90 "a: "Ye
blind guides, who strain at gnat and
swallow a camel"
A proverb is compact wisdom,
knowledge in chunks, library in a
sentence, the electricity of mary
clouds discharged in one bolt, a 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 a great
bluster about small sins and have no
appreciation of great ones.
In my text n small insect and large
quadruped are brought into COMPARE
soma gnat and 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 collection of
reservoirs for desert travel, an animal
forbidden to he.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 few weeks be-
comes chrysalis, and then after few
days becomes the gnat as we recognize
it. But the insect spoken of in the
text is in it's very smallest shape and 1t
yet inhabits the watcr-for my text is
misprint and ought to read ''strain
out a gnat."
NV 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
gnat. He goes and gets sieve OF
strainer He takes the water and
pours it through the sieve in the broad
light. He says, 81 would rather do
any thing 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 a
'ship of the desert" the camel, which
gastronomer has no compunctions OF
conscience. He suffers from no indi-
gestion. lie 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. lie strained out
gnat, he swallowed camel.
While Christ's audience were yet
smiling at the appositeness and wit OF
his illustration--for smile they did in
church, unless they were too stupid to
understand the hyperbole-Christ prac-
tically said to them, "That is you.
Punctilious about small things; recll-
less about affairs of great magnitude.
No subject ever withered under a
surgeons knife more bitterly than
did the Pharisees under Christ's
scalpel of truth. AS an
anatomist will take 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 7ed-hot
words as he said "Ye fools, we whited
sepulchres, We blind guides which
strain out a gnat and swallow a
camel"
There are in our day q great many
gnats strained out and 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 mat
tiers of vast importance. Church
services ought to be grave and
solemn. There isno room for frivolity
in religious convocation. 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 denounce all those
things which have a tendency to draw
the corners of the mouth up, and these
men will go to installations and
to presbyteries and to con-
ferences and to 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 great dormitory,
and their somniferous sermons are
cradle. and their drawled out hymns "a
lullaby, while some wakeful soul in a
pew with her fan keeps the flies off un-
conscious persons approximate. Now,
j say it is worse to sleep in
church than to smile i'm church.