The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-04-14
TALMAGE ON THE RESURRECTED
BODY,

Talmage told his church all about
heaven last Sunday, and about the queer
ways in which its deRizens pass their
time, and about the ensanguined stories
they spin while sitting under the trees.
We should think that the serious, pious
and reverent-minded people who heard
his sermon must have been shocked by
the fantastic and frivolous sketches of
the heavenly estate which he presented.
Besides these sketches, he gave yet Others
not less intolerable, including sketch of
the physical framework aud bodily
strength of those denizens. They are
stronger than Samson; they have prodig-
ious endurance:
81 go farther and say in regard to the
body which you are to get in the resur-
rection, that it will be powerful. We
here walk eight or ten miles and are
fatigued; lift few hundred pounds and
are exhausted; toll eight or ten hours
and are weary; but in the resurrection
we are to have body that never gets
tired"
Talmage brought his description of
these peculiar bodies to an end without
telling of their girths, weight or height;
without telling upon what food they feed;
without answering other questions of
not less interest which must have arisen
in the minds of the men and women
whose curiosity he stirred up by present
ing a few details all too meagre.
If Talmage will not of his own accord
"'stop fooling' with sacred and solemn
themes, those Divine mysteries which
may not be revealed to man, and over
which an imPenetrable veil is drawn, he
should be disciplined by the Presbytery
90 ,,1,iol hn halnnnS IIic n1tVrph . T.
be held responsible for his splurgtng, for
tolerating his fantastical and irreverent
bombast.-New York Sun.
That the public is sick of this sort of
sensationalism is pretty well demon
strated by the financial embarrassments
in which the Talmagian Tabernacle is
fonndering. Talmage speaks in the ex-
.cerpt made as though he were familiar
with all the mysteries beyond the pale
of death, and could give diagnosis of
the bodies to be worn after the resurrec-
ton. To devouG church members, dc
customed to treat the subject so f1ippant-
lS handled by Talmage as sacred mySter-
les, his assumptions must indeed seem
like blasphemy.
The eXpedients of sensationalism have
never been more successfully employed
in the pulpit than by DR.. Talmage. He
achieved great celebrity and his sermons
wonderful publicity. Multitudes came to
hear him for years, until it began to look
as though his theatric methods would be
permanently profitable. But the tide
has turned, and the financial scandals as
ISOLATED with the rebuilding of the Tab
ernacle prove that Talmages hold upon
the public has greatly lessened. When
in the zenith of his popularity, the funds
required to have paid for the new church
structure would have been quickly forth
coming. Now it has been long, hard
struggle to keep it out of the hands of
creditors, and heavy incubus of debt
still rests upon it.
The lessons involved in the passing of
Talmage should not be lost upon clergy
men who may be tempted to abandon So
Der standards and plunge into sensation
alism as a shortcut to fame and wealth.
Such a course is unbecoming in clergy
man, and in the end it almost inevitably
fails. Hard work on legitimate
lines almost always bears the most abun-
dant fruitage in the long run. Dalmage
has rare dramatic powers, or he could
not sustain himseld SO long.
We think the sober, steady -going
church people of the land will pretty
generally agree with the Suns structures
on the bombastic Brooklyn clergym an.
The TrJy Press,