The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1896-01-24
SAY so.
DR.. Talmage Tells of the Power of
Prayer.
Every suppIicant should Acknowledge It's
Force-How tn Stir Up Christians
and Forward the Great
lauSe.

In late sermon at Washington Rev.
T. Dewitt Talmage discoursed on a
subject composed of two words, ''Sav
So" the text being from Psalms 1912:
Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say
So" DIR. Talmage said:
An overture, an antiphon, a doxology
Is this chapter, and in my text David
calls for an outspoken religion, and re-
| quests all who have been rescued and
blessed no longer to hide the splendid
facts, but to recite them, publish
world know about Il. LET the re-
deemed of the Lord say So" There is
a sinful reticence which has been
almost canonized. The people are
| quite as outspoken as they ought
to be on all subjects of politics.
and are fluent and voluble on the Ven
ezuelan question, and bimetallism, the
tariffs, high and low and remodeled,
and female suffrage, and you have to
skillfully watch your chance if you
want to put into the active conversa-
tion modest suggestion of your own;
but on the subject of divine goodness,
religious experience, and eternal bless
edness they are not only silent, but
boastful of their reticence. Now, if
you have been redeemed of the Lord,
why do you not say so? If you
have in your heart the pearl Of
great price, worth more than the
KOh-i-noor among Victorian jewels,
why not let others see them?
In these January days thousands Of
ministers and private Christians are
wondering about the best way of start.
ing a revival of religion. can
tell you a way of starting
revival, continental, hemisphere,
and worldwide. You say a revival
starts in Heaven. Well, it starts in
Heaven just as a prosperous harvest
starts in Heaven. The sun must shine
and the rains must descend. but unless
you pillow and sow and cultivate the
earth you will not raise a bushel of
wheat or a peck of corn between now
and the end of the world. How,
then, shall a universal revival
start? BY all Christian people
telling the story of their own
get up next week in your prayer meet
ing and, not in a conventional or can't
ing or doleful way, but in the same
tone they employ in the family or
place of business, tell how they crossed
the line, and the revival will begin
then and there, if the prayer meeting
has not been so dull as to drive out all
except those concerning whom it was
foreordained from all eternity that
they should be there. There are so
many different ways of being convert
ed thatwe want to hear all kinds, so
that our own case may be helped. 1t
always puts me back to hear only one
kind of experience, such as man gives
when he tells of his Pauline CONVEX
sion-hOw he was knocked senseless
and then had vision and heard
voices, and after a certain number of
days of horror got up and shouted for
joy. All that discourages me, for
was never knocked senseless, and |
never had such a sudden burst of re-
ligious rapture that l lost my equili-
brium. But after awhile a Christian
man got up in some meeting and told
us how he was brought up by devout
parentage, and had always been
thoughtful about religious things, and
gradually the peace of the gospel came
into his soul like the dawn of the
morning-no perceptible difference be-
tween moment and moment-but after
awhile all perturbation settled down
into a hope that had consoled
and strengthened him during all
the vicissitudes of lifetime.
l said: THAT is eXhilarating
that was my experience" and
so l was strengthened. In another
prayer meeting man got up and told
us how he once hated God, and went |
all the round of iniquity, until |
we were all on nettles lest he should go |
too much into the particulars, but one |
day he was by some religious power |
hurled fiat, and then got up Christian, |
and had ever since been going around |
with Baxter Bible with large flaps I'M
der his arm, floating evangelist. Well, |
under this story many are not helped |
at all, for they know they never hated |
God, and they were never dissolute. |
But after awhile some Christian woman
arises and says: 81 have nothing extra
ordinary to tell; yet 1 think the cares
Of life, the anxieties about my chill
iren, and two graves opened in our
family plot, made me feel the need of
God, and weak and helpless and heart
broken, flung myself upon His mercy,
md feel what the Bible calls the
peace of God which passeth all under
and ask your prayers that
may live nearer to the Christ who
has done so much for me-" 1 declare
hat before that woman got through
We were all crying, not bitter tears,
put tears of joyful emotion, and in
.hree days, in that neighborhood, all
he ice had gone out of the river in a
'pringtime freshet of salvation. Let
he redeemed of the Lord say So"
1 have but little interest in what
people say about religion as an alb
,traction, but l have illimitable in
crest in what people say about what
hey have personally felt of religion.
L was an expression of his own graft
ude for personal salvation which led
Charles Wesley, after a season of