Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1892-04-07
THE WIT OF CHRIST.
Rev. Talnage 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 in the Brook
Ign Tabernacle by making the follow
ing announcements:
I'll am happy to say that as q
church, after the exhaustive work OF
building three immense churches, two
OF them having been destroyed by fire
Ia burden never before put upon the
back of any congregation-we are now
financially in smooth waters. Arrange
ments have been made by which DUR
pecunlary difficulties are fully adjust
ed. Our income exceeds our outgo,
and this church will be yours and your
childrens hereafter.
"When l came to Brooklyn, came
to a small church with a big indebted
ness. We now worship in this, the
largest Protestant church in America,
and financially, as q congregation, we
are worth over and beyond all indebt-
. edness, considerably more than $780,
900. l ask you to 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 a severe castigation from the
pulpit of the Brooklyn Taber-
nacIe. DR.. Talnage made a
vigorous onslaught upon it, basing
his remarks on the text, Matt. xiii,
24: eye blind guides, who strain at
u gnat and swallow a camel"
n proverb is compact wisdom.
knowledge in chunks, IL library in a
sentence, the electricity OF many 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 q great
buster about small sins and have no
appreciation OF great ones.
My text shows you the prince of in
consistencies. A man after q long
observation, has formed the suspicion
that in the cup OF water he is about
to drink, there is grub or the grand
parent OF u gnat. He goes and gets u
sieve or O. strainer. He takes the
water and pours it through the sieve
in the broad light. Hesays, II would
rather do anything almost than drink
this water until this larva be extirpat-
ed" This water is brought under
inquisition. The experiment is sue
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
water in placidity. But going out one
of the desert" the camel, which the
Jews were forbidden to eat. The
astronomer has no compunctions 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 one swallow and the
dromedary disappears forever. He
strained out q gnat, he swallowed d
camel.
While Christ's audience were yet
smlinga at the appositeness and wit of
his illustration-for smile they did in
church, unless they were too stupid to
understand the hyperbole-Christ
practically said to them, "That is
you" Punctilious about small things,
reckless about affairs of great magni-
tude. No subject ever withered under
a surgeons knife more bitterly than
did the Pharisees under Christ's
sCALPEL OF TRUTH.
AS an anaton1ist will take q human
body to pieces and put them under a
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 great many
gnaus 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 min
listers OF the gospel are photographed
in the text who are very scrupulou
about theconventionalities 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-
ligious convocation. But there are
illustrations and there are hyperholes
like that OF Christ 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 60 to IN
stallations and to presbyteries and
to conferences and to associations,
there pockets full Of fine sleeves to
strain 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 a
cradle, and the drawled-out hymns
1rll q h1y whiia Soma waknfl1l SolI IN a.