Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1894-05-25
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
Tho Eminent Brooklyn DivineS Sun-
day Sermon.
Subject: "a Cheerful Chu, CHI"

"Higher criticism says that this book Of
FO'OmOns song is q love scene, n fOrlorn
maiden signing for her beau. If SO. it is an
unclean and debauched utterance inserted
in the pure word of God and is not fit for
common reading. My opinion is that it isan
inspired ode setting forth tho feeling OF
Christ toward the church and Of the chur ,h
toward Christ. Christ is the bridegroom.
and the church is the bride. The sama
words we can utterto-day truthfuly, whether
in regard TO the church of God in general OF
this church in particular, "Behold, thou art
fair, my love-"
The past week has been one Of prolonged
congratulaton for that we have for twenty
five years been permitted to associate with
each other in the relation Of pastor and peo-
pie. When came to Brooklyn, I found a
small band of Christian disciples who from
various causes bad become less and less until
they stood upon the very verge of extinction
rs church, and the question was being
agitated from time to time whether ii would
he possible TO maintain a church life longer.
Indeed. had not those men and women been
cOnsecrated and earnest, they would have
surrendered 10 the adverse circumstances.
They marshaled congregational meeting,
and gathering up all the forces possible they
cast nineteen votes for pastor, all Of which
am happy to have received.
1t was not through any spirit of personal
courage or reckless adventure that was led
from one OF the warmest and most congenial
pastorates in Philadelphia that q man ever
enjoyed TO this then most unlnViting field.
but it was the feeling that God had Gale mo
TO the work. and was sure He would SEQ me
through
have thought that it might be profitable
TO us to state briefly what kind of a church
we have been trying to establish.
in the first place, remark that we have
been trying to build here a Christian church
--distlnctively such--in other words,
church where we should preach the Lord
Jesus Christ and Him cluciled. My theology
is all gone into five letters-Jesus. Jesus,
the pardon of all offenses. Jesus, tho
foundation for all structures. Jesus, tho
balm for all wounds. Jesus, the eye salve
for all blindness. Jesus, the guide through
all perplexities. Jesus, the hope for all dis
couragements. Jesus, the reform for all
wrongs.
l have faith to believe that there is more
power in one drop of the blood of Jesus
Christ to cure the woes OF the world than
in an ocean full of human quackery. Jesus
is the grandest note in any minstrelsy. He
Is the brightest gem in any crown height
overlapping all height the centre Of every
circumference the circumference to every
centre; the pacj1er of all turbulence the
umpire Of all disputes. Jesus, Jesus. At
His table all nations are to sit. Around His
throne all worlds are to revolve He is to
be the irradiaton of the universe. Jesus,
Jesus! 1t is that truth that we have tried
to preach in this Tabernacle.
Do you ask more minute ely what we be-
leve2 l can tell you. We have no dry,
wthered, juiceless theology. We believe In
God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven
and aarth tha dplivprar Of tho dicfraSc al
the home Tor the homeless, the friend for the
friendless. We believe in Jesus Christ, able
TO SAVE TO the uttermost, pardonng the
guilty, imputing His righteousness to the
believer. We believe in tho Holy Ghost,
the comforter, the sanctifier, cheering up
the heart in LIES ills and kndling bright
lights in every dark landing place. We be-
lieve that the whole race is so sunken in sin
that nothing but the omnipotent arm of God
can ever lift it out. We believe in grace,
free grace, sovereign grace, triumphant
grace, eternal grace. We believe in q Bibs
authentic in its statements, immaculate
N its teachings, glorious in its promises.
| We believe in heaven, the abode of the
righteous, and in hell, the residence Of those
who are soul suicides-of their own free
choice refusing the divine mercy. We be-
lieve in the salvation of all men who accept
! Christ by faith, be they sprinkled or i'm
mersed, worship they in cathedral or in log
cabin, believe they in Presbyteranism or
| Episcopacy. dwell they under Italian skies
! or in Siberian snowstOrms, be they Ethiopian
or American. All one in Christ One Lord,
one faith, one baptism, on the way TO heaven.
] We built this Tabernacle for the purpose OF
setting forth these great theories of the gos-
! pei of the Son OF God. Would that we had
been more faithful in the pulpit Would
! that we had been more faithful in the pew
| remark. further, that we have tried here
! to build church distinctively unconven-
tional. Instead OF asking, as some people
J are disposed to do, how other people DO it,
W. have asked the question how people do
not do it. Imperious custom has decided
that churches shall be angular, cherries,
| gloomy, unsympathetic forgetting that what
men call pious gloom is impious, and that
that church has the best architecture where
the people are the most comfortable, and
/ that that is the most efficient Christian SER
vice where the people are made most sick OF
sin and most anxious after Christ and heaven.
And so we called the architects together for
our first church building and said "Give us
an amphitheater' that is, a large family
circle, gathered around a fireplace.
For many years we hal felt that an amPhi-
theater was the only proper shape for an
audience room. The prominent architects
ofthe country said: "It cannot be done.
You need church building" And SO We
had plan after plan Of churchy buildings
! presented, but in due time God sent a man
who grasped our idea ana executed it. So
far from Ieing failure, it satisfied our want,
| md all our three churches were butt on the
amphitheatrical plan. AMI scores OF churches
MI over the country have adopted the same
plan.
And, my brethren and sisters, we fail in
try IN ha
| like other churches. We believe that God ill.,
tended every church, like every man, 10 be
individual, gathering up all its peculiarlties
and idiosyncracies and hurting them all to-
ward some good and grand object. In other
words, no two churches ought ever TO be Just
alike. Here is church. for instance, whose
object is to prepare philosophers and artists
and critics for heaven. God speed them IN
the difficult work Here Is a church, on the
other hand, that proposes to bring only the
poor into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, look
ing not after the rich. God speed such a
church in its undertaking But there is Il
larger idea that church may ake-bringing
in the rich and the poor, the wise and the
ignorant, the high and the low, that kneel'
ing beside each othersha be the man iaring
sumptuously every day and the man VINO
couid not get his breakfast. God speed such
a church
Oh, my friends, we need to break away
from slavery to ecclesiastical custom. We
dare not sing if anybody hears us. We dare
not preach unless we have rounded of Ou
sentences 10 suit the criticism OF the world
We dare not dress for church until we have
examined the fashion plates and would rather
STAY at home than appear with coat or
hat not sanctioned by custom. When VIII
the day Of deliverance come to the church OF
God. when, instead of dead religion lald