The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-07-06
TALMAGE's SERMON.
Necessity OF Guarding the Chris
tian Sabbath Against Invasion.
kt n Gods Day and should be Held
Eacrrd-Thc Partisan Compared with
the American Sunday-Spirit-
nal Welfare at Stake.


Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage placed the
following sermon ON the calendar for
his reading congregation this week.
The subject is THE Christian Sab
bath. - and the text:
Verify my Sabbath We shall keep.-E1odus,
XXI. r.
The wisdom of cessation from hard
labor one day out Of seven is almost
universally acknowledged The world
has found out that il can do less work in
seven days than i'm six, and that fifty
two days of the year devoted to rest
are an addition rather than a substrac-
ton Experiments have been made in
all departments. The great Lord
Castlereagh thought he could work his
brains three hundred and sixty-five
days in the year, but after awhile
broke down and committed suicide;
and Wilberforce said Of him: Poor
Castlereaghl This is the result of
the non-observance Of the Sabbath"
"A celebrated merchant declared: 81
should have been a maniac long ago,
but for the Sabbath" The nerves, the
brain, the muscles, the bones, the en-
tire physical, intellectual and moral
nature cry out for the Sabbatic rest.
What is true of man is, for the most
part, true of the brute Travellers
have found out that they come to their
places of destination sooner when they
let their horses rest by the way on the
Sabbath What is the matter with
those forlorn creatures harnessed to
some of the city cars? Why do they
stumble and stagger and fall? It is
for the lack Of the Sabbatic rest.
In other days, when the herdsmen
drove their sheep and cattle from the
far west down to the seaboarCl, it was
found out by experiment that those
herdsmen and drivers who halted over
the seventh day got down sooner to the
seaboard than those who passed on
without the observance Of the holy
Sabbath. The fishermen off the coast
of Newfoundland declare that those
men during the year catch the most
fish who stop during the Lords day.
When asked the Rocky mountain
locomotive engineer why he changed
locomotives when it seemed to be
straight route, he said: 1--WE have 20
let the locomotive stop and cool off or
the machinery would soon break down."
Men who made large quantities of salt
were told that if they allowed their
kettles to cool over Sunday they would
submit themselves to great deal of
damage. The experiment was made,
some observing the Sabbath and some
not observing the Sabbath. Those
who allowed the fires to go down and
the kettles to cool once a week were
compelled to spend only few pennies
i'm the way of repairs, while in the
cases where no Sabbath was observed,
many dollars were demanded for re-
pairs
In other words. intelligent man,
dumb beast and dead machinery cry
out for the Lords day. But while the
attempt to kill the Sabbath by the
stroke of ak and fail and yardstick has
beautifully failed, it is proposed in our
day to drown the Sabbath by flooding
it with secular amusements. They
would bury it very decently under the
wreath of the target company and to
the music of all brazen instruments.
There are to-day, in the different
cities, ten thousand hands and ten
thousand pens busy in ate mpting to cut
out the of heart our Christian Sabbath,
and leave it a bleeding skeleton of
what IL once was. The effort is or
gained and tremendous, and unless
the friends of Christ and the lovers of
good order shall rouse up right speed
lily, their sermons and protests will be
uttered after the castle is taken. There
are cities in the land where the Sab
bath has almost persisted, and it is be-
coming a practical question whether
we who received pure Sabbath from
the hands of our fathers shall have
piety and pluck enough to give our
children the same blessed Inheritance.
The eternal God helping us, we will
] protest against this invasion of the
holy Sabbath, in the first place, because
it is war on Divine enactment. God
says in Isaiah: "If thou turn away thy
foot from doing thy pleasure on Ny
holy day, thou shalt walk upon the
high places" What did He mean by
doing thy pleasure?" He referred to
secular and worldly amusements. A
man told me he was never so much
frightened as in the midst of an earth
quake, when the beasts of the field bel
fowls screamed in terror. Well, it was
when the earth was shaking and the
sky was all full of fire that God made
the great announcement: Remember
the Sabbath day to keep it holy"
Go through the streets where the
theaters are open on Sabbath night;
90 up ON the steps; enter the boxes of
those places of entertainment, and tell
me If that Is keeping the Sabbath holy
sc" says some one, God won't be dis
pleased with a grand sacred concert
A gentleman who was present at a
grand sacred concert" one Sabbath
night in one of the theaters of our
great cities. said that during the exer-
cises there were comic and sentimental
songs, interspersed with coarse jokes;
and there were dances, and farce,
and tight rope walking, and a trapeze
performance. / suppose it was a holy
dance and a consecrated tight rope
This is what they call grand sacred
concert"
We hear a great deal of talk about
''the rights of the people TO have just
such amusements on Sunday as they
want to have. I wonder if the Lord
has any rights. You rule your family,
the governor rules the state, the presi-
1ent rules the whole land; wonder if
the Lord has a right to rule the ma
tons and make the enactment. RE
member the Sabbath day to keep il
holy," and if there is any appeal
TO a high court from that deci-
sion; and if the men who are warning