The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1893-11-11
TALMAGE's SERMON.
Means by Which the Faith of the
Christian May Be Augmented.
The Bible Should BE Daily Companion
Testimony rs to the Divinity OF
the Book-yalue and Eff
hcacy of Prayer.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage delivered
The following sermon in the Brooklyn
tabernacle, taking for his text:
| Lord. increase our faith.-Luke xvii. ).
''What pity he is going there" said
my friend, most distinguished gen.
eral of the army, when he was told
that the reason for my not being pres
ent on certain celebrated day in
Brooklyn was that on that day had
sailed for the Holy Land. ''Wny do
you say that?" inquired some one. My
military friend replied: ''Oh, he will
be disillusioned when he gets amid the
squalor and commonplace scenes of
Palestine, and his faith will be shaken
in Christianity" The great general
misjudged the case. went to the Holy
Land for the one purpose of having my
faith strengthened, and that was the re-
suit which came of it. In all our Jour-
neyings, in all our readings, in all our
| associations, in all our plans. augmen-
tation, rather than the depletion of our
faith, should be our chief desire. 1t is
easy enough to have our faith de-
stroyed. can give you recipe for
ttc OoliOCI abiOhs nCa0 luuucl DOOhSs
have long and frequent conversations
with slseptics, attend the lectures of
those antagonistic to religion, give
full swing to some bad habit, and your
faith will be SO completely gone that
you will laugh at the idea that you
ever had any. If you want to ruin
your faith, you can do it more easily
than you can do anything else. After
believing the Bible all my life, can
see plain way by which. in six weeks,
l could enlist my voice and pen and
heart and head and entire nature in
the bombardment of the Scriptures
and the church and all I now hold
scacred. That it is easy to Danish
soon and forever all respect for
the Bible, l prove by the fact
that so many have done it. They
were not particularly brainy, nor had
especial force of will. but they SO thor
oughly accomplished the overthrow of
their faith that they have no more idea,
that the Bible is true, or that Christi
anity amounts to anything, than they
have in the truth of the Arabian
Nights Entertainments" or the exist
ence of Don Quixote's 'windmills.,
They have destroyed their faith SO
thoroughly that they never will have
return of it. Fifty revivals of reli-
gion may sweep over the city. the town,
the neighborhood where they live, and
they will feel nothing but a silent or
expressed disgust. There are persons
in this house to-day who twenty years
ago gave up their faith and they will
never resume it. The black and deem
toned bell of doom hangs over their |
head, and l take the hammer of that
bell, and ! strike it three times with |
all my might. and it sounds, Woe! |
Woe! Woe! But my wish, and the
wish of most of you, is the prayer ex-
pressed by the disciples of Jesus Christ,
in the words of my text: Lord, i'm
crease our faith"
The first mode of accomplishing this |
is to study the Bible itself. / do not |
believe there is an infidel now alive
who has read the Bible through. But
as so important document needs to be
read at least twice through in order
that it may be thoroughly understood,
and read in course, l now offer one
hundred dollars reward to any infidel |
who has read the Bible through twice
and read it in course. But can not |
take such mans word for it, for there
is no foundation for integrity, except |
the Bible, and the man who rejects the
source of truth, how can / accept his
So must have another
witness in the case before / give the
| must have the testimony of
some one who has seen him read it all
through twice. Infidels fish in this
Bible for incoherences and contradic-
lions and absurdities, and if you find
heir Bible, you will see interlineations
n the Book of Jonah an some of the
chapters OF that unfortunate prophet
nearly worn out by much use, and
'ome parts of Second Samuel or First
Kings you will find him with finger
marks, but the pages which contain
he ten commandments and the psalms
If David and the Sermon on the Mount
md the Book of John, the Evangelist.
will not have single lead-pencil
troke in the margin, nor any finger
marks showing frequent perusal. The
ather of one of the presidents of the
United States was a pronounced in
idel. knew it when many years ago
accepted his invitation to spend the
light in his home. Just before retir-
ng at night he said, in jocose way:
i suppose you are accustomed to read
he Bible before going to bed, and here
5 my Bible from which to read" He /,
hen told me what portions he would I
ike to have me read, and he only I
'sked for those portions on which he
ould easily be facetious. II
You know you can make fun about ,
ny thing. ] suppose you could take [
he last letter your father or mother
yer wrote and find something in the
rammar, or the spelling, or the
remor of the penmanship about which
0 be derisively critical. The internal 4
violence of the truthfulness of the !
'ible is so mighty that no one man !
Mt of the billion six hundred millions ,
the worlds present population, or s
he vaster millions of the past, ever I
cad the Bible in course, and read it I
rayerfully and carefully, but was led 1
D believe it. John Murray, the ia It
,ous book publisher of Edinburgh. /
nd the intimate friend of Southey. /
oleridge, Walter Scott, Canning and ]
Washington Irving, bought of Moore, {
ne poet, the Memoirs of Lord Byron, {