Connecticut western news., 1893-04-20
EXCUSES FOR DELAY
DR. TALMAGE ON THOSE lNviTEE TO THE WEDDING FEAST.

How Very Illogical Men Are In Their Al
 titude Toward the Claims of Christianity
 Poor Doct@ :. Poor Farmers, Poor Law
 yers and Poor Christians.
 BROOKLYN, April 16.-Rev Dr. Tal mage in his sermon in the Brooklyn Tabernacle this forenoon spread before the great audience in eloquent word. the beauty and attractiveness of the gospel feast, the text chosen being from Luke xiv, IS, "And they all with one consent began to make excuse"
 After the invitations to levee are sent out the regrets come in. One man apologies for nonattendance on one ground. another on another ground. The most of the regrets are founded on prior engagements So in my text . great banquet was spread, the invita-. tons were circulated, and now the re- grets come in. The one gives an agri- cultural reason, the other a stock deal CTS reason, the other domestic reason all poor reasons. The agricultural req son being that the man had bought 2 farm and wanted to see it. Could he not see it the next day? The stock deal CTS reason being that he had bought five yoke of oxen, and he wanted to go and prove them. He had no business to buy them until he knew what they were. Besides that man who can own five yoke of oxen can command his own time Besides that he might have yoked two of them together and driven them on the way to the banquet, for locomo tion was not as rapid then as now. The man who gave the domestic reason said he had got married. He ought to have taken his wife with him. The fact was they did not want to go. "And they all with one consent began to make ex- cuse." So now God spreads great ban quet; it Is the gospel feast, and the table reaches across the hemispheres, and the invitations go out and multitudes come and sit down and drink out of the chalices of Gods love, while other multitudes de. cline coming-the one giving this apolo- gy and the other giving that apology. And they all with one consent began to make excuse" propose this morning, SO far as God may help me, to examine the apologies which men make for not entering the Christian life.
 Apology the first: am not sure there is any thing valuable in the Christian re- igion. It is pleaded that there are so many impositions in this day-so many things that seem to be real are sham. A gilded outside may have hollow inside. There is so much quackery in physics, in ethics. in politics, that men come to the habit of incredulity, and after awhile they allow that incredulity to collide with our holy religion.
 IT HAS MADE GOOD RECORD.
 But, my friends, think religion has made pretty good record in the world. How many wounds it has salved; how many pillars of fire 1t has lifted in the midnight wilderness; how many si- moom struck Saharas it hath turned into the gardens of the Lord; how it hath stilled the chopped sea! What rosy light it hath sent streaming through the rift of the storm cloud wrack; what pools of cool water it hath gathered for thirsty Hagar and Ishmael; what mama winter than coriander seed it hath dropped all around the camp of hardly bestead pill grims; what promises it hath sent out like holy watchers to keep the lamps burning around deathbedsi Through the darkness that lowers into the sepulcher, what flashes of resurrection mornl
 Besides that, this religion has made so many heroes. It brought Summerfeld, the Methodist, across the Atlantic ocean with his silver trumpet to blow the ac- ceptable year of the Lord, until it seemed as if all our American cities would take the kingdom of heaven by violence. It sent Jehudi Ashman into Africa alone, in 8 continent of naked barbarians, to lift the standard of civilization and Christianity. It made John Milton among poets, Raphael among painters, Christopher Wren among architects, Thorwaldsen among sculptors, Handel among musicians, Dupont among mili- tary commanders; and to give new wings to the imagination, and better balance to the judgment, and more determina- tion to the will, and greater usefulness to the life, and grander nobility to the soul, there is nothing in all the earth like our Christian religion.
 Nothing in religionl Why, then, all those Christians were deceived when in their dying moment they thought they saw the castles of the blessed; and your child, that with unutterable agony you put away into the grave-you will never see him again, nor hear his sweet voice, nor feel the throb of his young heart? There is nothing in religion! Sickness will come upon you. Roll and turn on your pillow. No relief. The medicine may be bitter, the night may be dark, the pain may be sharp. No relief Christ never comes to the sick room. Let the pain stab. LeS the fever burn. Curse it and die. There is nothing in religion After awhile death will come. You will hear the paving of the pale horse on the threshold The spirit will be breaking away from the body, and it will take fght-whither, whither? There is no God, no ministering angels to conduct, no Christ, no heaven, no home. Meth ing in religionl Oh, you are not willing to adopt such dismal theory. And yet the world is full of skeptics. And let me say there is no class of people for whom have warmer sympathy than for skeptics. We do not know how to treat them. We deride them, we cari- cature them. We, instead of taking them by the soft hand of Christian love, clutch them with the iron pincers of ecclesias- ticism. Oh, if you knew how those men had fallen away from Christianity and become skeptics you would not be so rough on them. Some were brought up in homes where religion was overdone. The most wretched day in the week was Sunday. Religion was driven into them with triphammer. They had surfeit of prayer meetings. They were stuffed and choked with catechisms. They were told by their parents that they were the worst children that ever lived because they liked to ride down hill better than to read Pilgrims Progress" They never heard their parents talk of religion but with the corners of their mouths drawn down and the eyes rolled up.