The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1893-09-09
WEEKDAY RELIGION.
DR.. Talmage Deals Forcibly with
Sunday Christians
More Religion Needed In Every bay Life
Religion In Conversation and In Or
binary EmpIoyments-
Plain Talk.


Plain Talk.
In a sermon lately delivered at Brook
lyn Rev. II. Dewitt Talmage chose u
topic of practical value to all classes,
viz: Weekday Religion" The text
was from Proverbs iii. 6: '.In all thy ways
acknowledge him." lie said:
There has been u tendency in all lands
and ages to set apart certain days,
places and occasions for especial re-
ligious service, and to think hat they
formed the realm i'm which religion was
chiefly to act. Now, while holy days
and holy places have their use, they
can never be u substitute for continu-
GUS exercise of faith and prayer. In
other words, "a man cannot be SO good
n Christian on Sabbath that he can af-
ford to be a wording all the week.
Genuine religion is not spasmodic,
does not go by fits and starts, is not an
attack of chills and fever-now cold
until your teeth chatter, now hot until
your bones ache. Genuine religion
marches steadily, up steep hills, and
along dangerous declivities, its eye ever
on the everlasting hills crowned with
the castles of the blessed.
And in the first place / remark: We
ought to bring religion into our ordi-
nary conversation. A dam breaks and
two or three villages are submerged, a
South American earthquake swallows a
city, and people begin to talk about the
uncertainty of human life, and in that
conversation think they are engaging
in religious service, when there may be
no religion at all. l have noticed hat
in proportion as Christian experience is
shallow men talk about funerals and
~death-beds, and hearses, and tomb
stones and %epitaphs. If a man have the
religion of the gospel in it's full power
in his soul he will talk chiefly about
this world and the eternal world,
and very little comparatively about
the insignificant pass between
this and that. Yet how seldom it is
that the religion of Christ is a welcome
theme! If a man full of the gospel Of
Christ goes into a religious circle, and
begins to talk about sacred things, all
the conversation is hushed and things
become exceedingly awkward. The
trouble is that men processing the faith
of the gospel are often so inconsistent
that they are afraid their conversation
will not harmonic with their life. We
cannot talk the gospel unless we live
the gospel. You will often find n man
whose entire life is full of Inconsistent
cies filling his conversation with such
expressions as I'VE are miserable sin
ners,' ''the Lord help u.s. 1.-The Lord
bless you," interlarding their CONVERSE
ton with such phrases. which are mere
canting, and canting is the worst kind
of hypocrisy. If a man have the grace
of God in his heart dominant, he can
talk religion and it will seem natural,
and men, instead of being ~repulsed by
it, will be attracted by it. .
But / remark again. We ought to
bring the religion of Jesus Christ into
our ordinary employments. "Oh!" you
say, 'that's a very good theory for a
man who manages a large business,
who has a great traffic, who holds a
great estate; it is a grand thing for
bankers and for shippers, but in my
thread and needle store, in my trim
ming establishment, in my insignificant
work of life you cannot apply those
grand gospel principles" Who told
you that? Do you not know That a
faded leaf on a brooks surface attracts
Gods attention as certainly as the path
of a blazing sun, and that the most in
significant thing in your life is of
enough Importance to attract the at
tention of the Lord God Almighty?
By brother, you cannot be called to
do anything SO insignificant but God
will help you in it. If you are a fisher
man, Christ will stand by you as He
did by Simon when he dragged Gen
~nesaret. Are you a drawer of water?
He will be with you as al the well curb,
when talking with the Samaritan
woman. Are you a custom house of
fcer? Christ will call you as He did
Matthew at the receipt of custom. The
man who has only a days wages in his
pocket as certainly needs religion as he
who rattles the keys of a bank and
could abscond with a hundred thousand
hard dollars. And yet there are men
who profess the religion of Jesus Christ
who do not bring the religion of the
gospel into their ordinary occupa-
lions and employments. There are
in the churches of this day men
who seem very devout on the
Sabbath who are far from that
during the week. A country merchant
arrives in this city, and he goes into
the store to buy goods of a man who
processes religion, but has no grace in
his heart. The country merchant is
swindled. He is too exhausted to go
home that week; he tarries in town.
On Sabbath he goes to some church for
consolation, and what is his amaze
ment to find that the nan who carries
around the poor box is the very one
who swindled him. But never mind
the deacon has his black coat on now
and looks solemn, and goes home talk
ing about hat blessed sermon! Chris
tians on Sunday. Workings during
the week.
That man does not realize that God
knows every dishonest dollar he has in
his pocket, that God is looking right
through the iron wall of his money
safe, and that the day of judgment is
coming, and that "as the partridge sit
teth on eggs and hatcheth them not,
so he that getteth riches and not by
right, shall leave them in the midst of
his days, and at his end shall be a fool"
But how many there are who do not
bring the religion of Christ into their
Everyday occupation! They think re-
ligion is for Sundays.
Suppose you were to go out TO fight
for your country in some great contest,
would you go TO do the battling at Troy
or at Springfield? No, you would go
there to get your swords and muskets.
Then you would GO out in the face of
the enemy and contend for your II
Try. Now, l take the Sabbath day ant
the church to be only the armory
where we are to get equipped for the
great battle of life, and that battlefield
is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday and Saturday. "An-
tioch," and "St. Martins" and sold
Hundred are not worth much if we
do not sing all the week. A sermon is
of little account if we cannot carry it
behind the counter and behind the
pillow. The Sabbath day is of no value
if it lasts only twenty-four hours.
"Oh!" says some one, 'if l had q
great sphere l would do that; if l could
have lived in the time of Martin
Luther, if l could have been Paul's
travelling companion, if L had some
great and resounding work to do-then
should put into application all that
you say" ! must admit that the