The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-04-28
OUT OF THE FOLD.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage and the
No-Religionists.
a Talk on the Apologies Men Make for
Their TatIdre to Embrace the
HAiigI1B OF Jesus-Many Very
Lame Excuses.

The following discourse was deliv-
cred by Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage in the
Brooklyn tabernacle from the text:
And they all with one consent began TO make
excuse.-Luke xiv, IS.
After the invitations 10 a levee are
sent out, the regrets come in. One
man apologies for non-attendance on
one ground, another on another
ground. The most of the regrets are
founded on prior engagements. So in
my text a great banquet was spread,
the invitations were circulated, and
now the regrets come in. The one
gives an agricultural reason, the other
a stock-dealer's reason, the other do
mestic reason. All poor reasons The
agricultural reason being that the man
had bought farm and wanted to see
it Could he not see it the next day?
The stockholders 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, n man who can own
| five yoke of oxen can command his own
time. Besides that, he might have
| yoled two of them together and driven
them on the way to the banquet, for
locOmotion 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 excuse" So now God spreads
har A. iu Al foo - q,
table reaches across the hemispheres;
and the invitations go ont and multi
tudes come and sit down and drink out
Of the chalices of Gods love, while
other multitudes decline coming-the
one giving this apology and the other
giving that apology; land they all
with one consent begin to make ex-
cuse." propose this morning, so far
as God will help me, to examine the
| apologies which men make for not en-
tering the Christian life
Apology the first: am not sure there
is anything valuable in the Christian
religion. 1t 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 a
hollow inside; there is so much quack-
cry in physics, in ethics, in politics,
that men come to the habit of incredu-
lity, and after awhile they allow that
in credulity to collide with oar holy re-
ligion.
But, my friends, think religion has
made a pretty good record in the
world. How many wounds it has
salved, how many pillars of fire it has
lifted in the midnight wilderness, how
many simoon-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 mamma whittier than
coriander seed it hath dropped all
around the camp of hardly-bestead pill
grims; what promises it hath sent out
ike holy watchers to keep the lamps
burning around death-beds; through
the darkness that lowers into the sePul-
cher, what flashes of resurrection morn!
Besides that, this religion has made
80 many heroes. 1t brought Summer
field, the Methodist, across the Atlantic
ocean with his silver trumpet to blow
the acceptable year of the Lord, until
1t seemed as If all our American cities
would take the kingdom of Heaven by
violence. 1t sent Jehudi Ashman into
Africa alone, in a continent of naked
barbarians, to lift the standard of civ
ilization and Christianity. 1t made
John Milton among poets, Raphael
among painters, Christopher Wren
among architects, Thorwaldsen among
sculptors, Handel among musicians,
Dupont among military commanders,
and to give new wings to the imagina-
tion, and better balance to the judg
ment, and more determination 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 religioni Why, then, all
those Christians were deceived when in
their dying moments 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 re-
lief. 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
Let 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
fight-whither? whittier? There isl
| God, no ministering angels to conduct,
no Christ, no Heaven, no home Nothing
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 a warmer sympathy than
for slxeptics. We do not know how to
treat them. We deride them. We
| caricature them. We, instead of talk
ing them by the soft hand of Christian
love, clutch them with the iron pincers
of ecclesiasticism 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
n trip-hammer. They had surfeit of
prayer meetings. They were stuffed
and cholxed with catechisms- They
were told by their parents that they
were the worst children that ever
! lived. because they liked TO ride down