The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-03-14
AMERICA FOR GOD.
DR.. Talmage on the Advance Of
Christianity.
America the Favored Land for the Spread
% she Gospel-Sin Being Gradually
Suppressed In This Favored
Country.

America the Favored Land for the Spread
OF she GospeI-Sin Being Gradually
Suppressed In This Favored
Country.
IN q late sermon at Washington Rev
IT. d Witt Talmage discoursed on a
subject of national Importance. His
text was from Revelations xiii:11:
sand 1 beheld another beast coming
MP out of the earth; and he had two
horns like u lamb and he spake as a
dragon" DIR. Talmage said:
Is America mentioned in the Bible?
Learned and c~onsecrated men who
have studied the inspired books of
Daniel and Revelation more than 1
nave and understood them better,
agree in saying that the leopard mem
toned in the Bible meant Grecia, and
the bear meant M~edo-Persia, and the
lion meant Babylon, and the beast of
the text, coming up out of the earth
with two horns like a lamb and the
voice of a dragon. means our country,
because among other reasons it seemed
to come up out of the earth when
Columbus discovered it, and it has
been for the most part at peace like a
lamb, unless assaulted by foreign foe,
in which case it had two horns, strong
and sharp, and the voice of a dragon
loud enough to make all nations hear
the roar of its Indignation. Is it rea-
sonable to suppose tina God would
leave out from the prophesies of His
book this whole western hemisphere?
No, no ~ beheld another beast COM
ing up out of the earth, and he had
two horns like a lamb, and he spake as
a dragon"
Germany for scholarship. England
for manufactures France for man
ners. Egypt for antiquities. italy for
pictures. But America for God.
1 start with the cheering thought
that the most popular book on earth
to-day is the Bible, the most popular
institution on earth to-day is the
church, and the most popular name On
earth to-day is Jesus. Right from this
audience hundreds of men and women
would, IL need be, march out and die
for Him.
Am 1 too confident In saying Amer
lea for GodP' If the Lord will help
me / will show the strength and extent
of the long line of fortresses to be
taken, and give you my reasons for
saying it can be done. Let rs decide,
In this battle for God, whether we are
at Bull Run or at Gettysburg. There
is a Fourth of Julyish way of Dragging
about this country, and the most
tired and plucked bird tina ever
few through the heavens is the Amer
lean eagle, SO much SO that Mr.. Glad
stone said to me facetiously at Hawar-
den: 81 hear that the fish in your
American lakes are so large that when
one of them is taken out the entire
lake is perceptibly lowered" and at a
dinner given in Paris an American Of
fered for q sentiment: Here Is to the
United States-bounded on the north
by the aurora borealis, on the south by
the procession of the equinoxes, On the
east by primeval chaos, and on h west
by the day of judgment" The effect of
such grandiloquence is to discredit the
real facts, which are SO tremendous they
need no garnishing. The worst thing
to do in any campaign, military or re-
ligious, is to underestimate an enemy,
and 1 will take no part in such at
tempt at belittlement-
This land to be taken for God, &C.
cording to Hassel, the statistician, has
IA, 2l9, OCT square miles, a width and
length thai none but the Omniscient
can appreciate. Four Europes put to-
gether, and capable of holding and
feeding, as it will hold and feed, &C.
cording to Atkinson, the statistician.
If the world continues in existence and
does not run afoul of some other world
or get consumed By the fires already
burning in the cellars Of the planet
capable, 1 say, OF holding inc feeding
more than 1000, 900, 900 of inhabitants.
For you must remember 1t must be
held for God, as well as taken for God,
and the last 500, 600, 600 inhabitants
of the first 500, 900, 900 Not much use
taking the fortress If we cannot hold
it. It must be held until the arch
angels trumpet bids living and dead
arise from this laundering planet.
You must remember it is only about
seven o'clock in the morning of our ma
tons life. Great cities are to flash
and roar among what are called the
Bad Lands" of the Dakotas and the
great columbia Plains" of Washing
ton state, and that On which we put
our schoolboy fingers on the map and
spelled out as the Great American
Desert" is, through systematic and
communicating irrigation, to bloom like
Chatsworth park, and be made more
than those regions depend
emit upon uncertain and spasmodic
rainfall. All those regions, as we'll as
those regions already cultivated, to be
That was a sublime thing
said by Henry Clay, while crossing the
Allegheny mountains, and he was
waiting for the stage horses to be rest
ed, as he stood on a rock, arms folded,
looking of into the valley, and some
n said to him: 'Mr. Clay. what are
you thinking about?" He replied: 81
am listening to the on-coming tramp
of the future generation of America"
Have you laid our home missionary
scheme on such an infinitude of scale?
If the work of bringing one
soul to God is SO great, can a
thousand million be'captured? In this
country, already planted and to be
overcome, paganism has built its altar
to Brahma, and the Chinese are already
burning incense in their temples, and
Mohammedanism, drunk in other days
with the red wine of human blood at
Lucknow and Cawnpore, and now
fresh from the diabolism in Armenia,
is trying to get a foothold here, and
from the mlnaretS OF ner mosque Will
yet humble her blasphemies, saying,
is great, and Mohammed is His
prophet" Then there are the vaster
multitudes with no religion at all.
They worship no God, they live with
no consolation, and they die with NO
hope. No star of peace points down
to the manger in which they are born,
and 40 prayer is uttered over the grave
into which they sink. Then there is
alcoholism. its piled up demijohns and
beer barrels, and hogsheads of fiery
death, a barricade high and long as
the Alleghenies and Rockies and Sierra
Nevadas, pouring fourth day and night
their ammunition of wretchedness and
woe. When a German wants to take
a drink, he takes beer. When an
Englishman wants to take a drink, he
takes ale. When a Scotchman wants
to take q drink, he takes whisky. But
when an American wants to take a
drink, he takes anything he can lay
his hands on.
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