The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-03-01
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Tho Gospel tho Greatest Novelty
OF Our Timo.
Had 1t Been Given Opportunity There
Would Have Been No Need of Pull
pit or Sermoni It Would Have
Spoken For Itself.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage delivered
the following discourse in the Acad-
emy of music, New York city, on the
subject: "The Glorious Gospel" bas-
ing it on the text;
According TO the glorious gospel Of the
blessed God. which was committed TO my
trust-L Timothy, T., II.
The greatest novelty of our time is
the Gospel. 1t is SO old that it In new.
As potters and artists are now at
tempting to fashion pitchers and cups,
and curious ware like those of nine
teen hundred years ago recently
brought up from buried Pompeii, and
such cups and pitchers and curious
ware are universally admired, so any
one who can unshovel the real Gospel
from the mountains of stuff under
which il has been buried, will be able
to present something that will attract
the gaze, and admiration, and adoption
of all the people. 1t is amazing what
substitutes have been presented for
what my text calls "The Glorious
Gospel" There has been an EeTais-
pheric apostasy. There are many peo-
pie in this and all other large assem-
blages who have no more idea of what
the Gospel really is than they have of
what is contained in the fourteenth
chapter of Zend-Avesta, the Bible of
the Hindoo, the first copy of which l
ever saw l purchased in Calcutta, In
dia, last September. The old Gospel
is fifty feet under, and the work has
been done by the shovcls of those who
have been trying to contrive the
philosophy of religion. There is no
philosophy about it. 1t is plain mat
ter of Bible statement and of childlil1e
faith. Some of the theological sem
inaries have been hotbeds of infdelity,
because they have tried to teach the
philosophy of Religion" BY the
time that many young theological
student gets half through his prepara-
tory course he is SO filled with doubts
about plenary inspiration, and the Di-
vinity of Christ, and questions of
eternal destiny, that he is more fit for
the lowest bench in the infant class of
q Sunday-school than to become a
teacher and leader of the people. The
ablest theological professor is a Chris
tian mother, who out of her own ex-
perience can tell the four-year-old how
beautiful Christ was on earth, and
how beautiful He is in Heaven, and
how dearly He loves little folks, and
then she kneels down and puts one
arm around the boy, and with her
somewhat faded cheek against the
roseate cheek of the little one, conse-
crates him for time and eternity to
Him who said: "Suffer them to come
unto Me-" What an awful work Paul
made with the ID. DIS, and the LII. DIS,
and the Il. r. SIS, when he cleared the
decks of the old Gospel ship by saying:
Not many wise men, not many noble,
are called, but God hath chosen the
weak things of the world to confound
the mighty"
There sits the dear old theologian
with his table piled up with the great
books on Inspiration, and EXegeSis,
and Apologctics for the Almighty, and
writing out his own elaborate work on
the Philosophy of Religion, and his lit
tie grandchild coming up to him for
goodnight kiss, he accidentally
knocks off the biggest book from the
table, and it falls on the head of the
child, of whom Christ himself said:
lings thou hast perfected praise" All,
my friends, the Bible wants no apollo
getics. The throne of the last judg
ment wants no apologetics. Eter
nifty wants no apologetics. Scien-
fists may tell us that natural
light is the propagation of un-
dulations in an elastic medium,
and thus set in Vibratory motion by
the action of luminous bodies" But
no one knows wnat Gospel light is un-
til his own blind eyes by the touch of
the Divine Spirit have opened to see
the noonday of pardon and peace. Sci
entists may tell us that natural sound
is 1.-The effect of an impression made
ON the organs of hearing by an inn
pulse of the air, caused by a collision
of bodies, or by other means" But
those only know what the Gospel
sound is who have heard the voice of
Christ directly, saying: Thy sins are
forgiven thee; go in peace" The the
illogical dude unrOlls upon the plush
of the exquisitely-carved pulpit a
learned discourse showing that the
Garden of Eden was an allegory,
and Solomon's song a rather in
delicate love ditty, and the
Book of Job drama in which satan
was the star actor, and that Renan
was three-quarters right about the
miracles of Jesus, and that the Bible
was gradually evoluted. Lord of
Heaven and earth, get us out of the
London fog of higher criticism! The
night is dark and the way is rough,
and we have n lantern which God has
put in our hands, but instead of en-
ploying that lantern to show ourselves
and others the right way we are dis
cussing lanterns, their shape, their
size, their material, and which is the
better light-kerosene, lamp oil or
candle; and while we discuss it
we stand all around the lantern,
so that we shut out the light from
the multitudes who are stumbling on
the dark mountains of sin and death.
Twelve hundred dead birds were found
one morning around BartholdTs statue
in New York harbor. They had dashed
their life out against the light house
the night before. Poor thingsl And
the great light house of the Gospel
how many high-soaring thinkers have
beaten all their religious life out
against il, while it was intended for
only one thing, and that to show
all nations the way into the harbor
of Gods mercy. and to the crystal
line wharves of the heavenly city,
where immortGls are waiting for new
arrivals. Dead skylarlCs, when they
might have been flying seranhs.