The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1896-01-31
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
If You Have Received Gods Mer-
tcy Mako Tt Known.
Stop ImpersOnating tho Asylums for tho
Dumb, and I'm the Presence of
Men, Women, Angels and
Devils Say So.


his Washington congregation, taking
for his text:
Let the redeemed OF the lord say so.-
Psalms evil, 2
An overture, an antiphon, doxol
ogy Is this chapter, and in my text
David calls for an outspol1en reli gion,
and requests all who have been res
cued and blessed, no longer to hide
the splendid facts, but to recite them,
publish them, and as far as possible,
let all the world know about it. "Let
the redeemed of the Lord say So"
There is sinful reticence W hich has
been almost canonized. The people
are quite as outspol1en as they ought
to be on all subjects of politics, and
are fluent and voluble on the Vene-
zuelan question, and bimetalism, and
tariffs, high and low and remodeled i,
and female suffrage, and you have to
skillfully watch your chance if you
want to put into the active con-
versation a modest suggestion of
your own; but on the subject
of divine goodness, religious expe-
rience, and eternal blessedness they are
not only silent, but boastful of their
reticence. Now, If you have been re-
deemed of the Lord, why do you not
say so? If you have in your heart the
pearl of great price, worth more than
thu Koh-i-nOor among Victorian jew
els, why not let others see it? If you
got off the wreck in the breakers, why
not tell of the crew and the stout life
boat that safely landed you? If from
the fourth story you are rescued
in time of conflagration, why not tell
of the fireman and the ladder down
which he carried you? If you have a
mansion in Heaven awaiting you, why
not show the deed to those who may
by the same process get an emerald
castle on the same boulevard? BY the
last two words of my text David calls
upon all of us who have received any
mercy at the hand of God to stop i'm
personating the asylums for the dumb,
and in the presence of men, women, an
gels, devils, and all worlds, fsay so"
In these January days thousands of
ministers and private Christians are
wondering about the best ways of
starting revival of religion. / can
tell you of starting a revival, conti-
mental, hemisphere, and worldwide.
You say a revival starts in Heaven.
Well, 1t starts in Heaven just as pros
porous harvest starts in Heaven. The
sun must shine and the rains must de-
scend, but unless you plow 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 conver-
sion. Let ten men and women get up
next week in your prayer meeting
and, not in a conventional or canting
or doleful way, but in the same
tone they employ in the family
or place of business, and 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 converted that we want
to hear all kinds, so that our own case
may be helped. 1t always puts me
back to hear only one kind of expert
ence, such as a man gives when he
tells of his Pauline conversion-how
he was knocked senseless, and then
had a vision and heard voices, and
after a certain number of days of hor-
ror got up and shouted for JOY. All
that discourages me, for / was never
knocked senseless, and / never had
such a sudden burst of religious rap
ture that lost my equilibrium.
But after awhile a Christian man got
up in some meeting and told us how
he was brought up by a devout parent
age, 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 between mo-
ment and moment-but after awhile
all perturbation settled down into
hope that had consoled and strength
ened him during all the vicissitudes of
a lifetime. / said: ''That is exhila-
rating; that was my experience" and
so / was strengthened. In another
prayer meeting a man got up and told
us how he once hated God, and went
through 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 pow
er hurled fat, and then got up Chris
tian, and had ever since been going
around with a Baxter Bible with large
flaps under his arm, a floating evan
gelist. 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: Il
have nothing extraordinary to tell;
yet ! think the cares of life, the
anxieties about my children, and
two graves opened in our family
plot, made me feel the need Of God,
and weak and helpless and heart
broken, flung myself on His mercy,
and / feel what the Bible calls the
peace of God which passeth all under
standing and ask your prayers that
/ may live nearer to the Christ who
has done SO much for me-" / declare
that before that woman got through
we were all crying, not bitter tears,
but tears of joyful emotion, and in
three days, in that neighborhood, all
the ice had gone out of the river in
a springtime freshet of salvation.
LET the redeemed of the Lord say so.n
/ have but little interest In what
people say about religion as an alb
stracticn, but I have illimitable inter |
est ln what people say about what |