The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1893-04-22
THE GOSPEL A
DR.. Talmage on Mems Excuses For
Not Becoming Christians.
What There Is In Religion - Inconsisten.
cies of PROGRESSED Christians -Those
Who Lack TIme-The Pro-
Crastinators.

Who Lack Time-The Pro-
crastinators.
In a late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. II.
Dewitt Talmage discourSed upon the
beauty and attractiveness of the gospel
feast, the text chosen being from Luke
xiv. Is: And they all with one con
sent began to make excuse" The
preacher said:
After the invitations to a levee are
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 invita-
tions We're circulated, and now the re-
grets come in. The one gives an agri-
cultural reason, the other q stock deal
er's reason, the other II domestic reason.
All poor reasons. The agricultural
reason being hat the man had bought
u farm and wanted to see it. Could he
not see it the mex day? The stock
dealers reason being that he had
bought five yoke of oxen, and he wanted
to6oaih'i lloNC ilIClIi. Ilt liGN Nv
to buy them until he knew what they
were. Besides that, II man who a
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
locomotion was not as rapid then as
now. The man who gave the domestic
reason said he had got married. lie
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
a banquet; it is the gospel feast, and
the table reaches cross the hemi-
spheres; and the invitations go out and
multitudes 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; and they
all with n 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: I 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 incredulity,
and after awhile they allow that in
credulity to collide with our 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 simeon
struck Saharas il hath turned in
to 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 Ish-
mael; what n whittier than corian-
der seed it hath dropped all around the
camp of hardly-bestead pilgrims; what
promises it hath sent out like holy
watchers to keep the lamps burning
around death-beds; through the dark
ness hat lowers into the sepulcher,
what flashes of resurrection morn!
Besides that, this religion has made
so 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 it
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 civil
ization and Christianity. 1t made John
Milton among poets, Raphael among
painters, Christopher Wren among
architects, Thorwaldsen among sculp-
tors, Handel among musicians, Dupont
among military commanders, and to
give new wings to the imagination,
and better balance to the Judgment,
and more determination to the will
and greater usefulness to the life, and
grander nobility to the soul, there i.
nothing in all the earth like our Chris
tian religion.
Nothing in religion! Why, then, al
those Christians were deceived when in
their dying moments they thought they
saw the castles of the blessed; and YOU
child, with u~nutterable agony you pu
away in the grave, you will never SEE
him again, nor near his sweet voice, no
feel the throb of his young heart
There is nothing in religion! Sickness
will come upon you. Roll and turn OF
your pillow. No relief. The medicin,
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 IL
religion! After awhile death will come
You will hear the paving of the pal
horse on the threshold. The spirit will
be breaking away from the body, ant
1t will take fiight-whither? whittier
There is no God, no ministering angel
to conduct, no Christ, no Heaven
no home. Nothing in religion! Oh
you are not willing to adopt such a dis
NAL theory. And yet the world is full
of skeptics. And let me say there is n
class of people for whom / have
warmer sympathy than for skeptics
We do not know how to treat then
We deride them. We caricature then
We, instead of taking them by the sol
hand of Christian love, clutch theI
with the iron pincers of ecclesiasticisn
Oh! If you knew how those men ha
fallen away from Christianity and bt
come skeptics, you, would not be S
rough on them. Some were brought IL
in homes where religion was overdont
The most wretched day in the wee
was Sunday. Religion was driven int
them with a trip-hammer. They had
surfeit of prayer meetings. They WEI
stuffed and choked with catechism
They were told by their parents tbs
they were the worst children hat eve
lived, because they liked to ride dow
hill better than to read Pilgrim
Progress" They never heard thei
parents talk of religion but with tn
of their mouths drawn dow
and the eyes rolled up.
Others went into slzepticism throug.
m~altreatment on the part of some VIII
professed religion. There is a ma
who says: my partner in bushes
was voluble In prayer-meeting, and II
was officious in all religious circles, bu
he cheated me out of s., 900, and | don
want any of that religion"
There are others who got into skept
cism nv n natural nerSistence i'm aSkin