The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-04-02
YICARIOUS SACRIFICE.
DR.. Talmage Illustrates the Chris
tian Plan of Salvation.
The YicarIOus Sacrifice OF Christ for the
Remission of Sins One of the Corner
Stones and Cardinal Doc
trines of Christianity.

The following discourse by Rev. T
Dewitt Talmage is illustrative of vi
carious sacrifice as one of the cardinal
doctrines of the Christian religion. II
is based on the text:
Without shedding OF blood is no remission
Hebrews tx, -
John G.. Whittier, the last of the great
school of American poets that made the
last quarter of a century brilliant,
asked me in the White mountains, one
morning after prayers, in which l had
given out Cowper's famous hymn about
''The Fountain Filled with Blood, y
''Do you really believe there is a literal
application of the blood of Christ to
the soul?" My negative reply then is
my negative reply now. The Bible
statement agrees with all physicians,
and all Psychologists, and all scientists,
in saying that the blood is the life, and
in the Christian religion it means
simply that Christ's life was given
for our life. Hence all this talk
of men who say the Bible story
of blood is disgusting, and that they
don't want what they call a slaughter
house religion" only shows their inca
pacity or unwilliugness to look through
the figure of speech toward the thing
signified. The blood that, on the dark
est Friday the world ever saw, Oozed,
or trickled, or poured from the brow,
and the side, and the hands, and the
feet of the illustrious sufferer, back of
Jerusalem, in a few hours coagulated
and dried up, and forever disappeared;
and if man had depended on the appli-
cation of the literal blood of Christ,
there would not have been a soul saved
for the last eighteen centuries.
In order to understand this red word
of my text, we only have to exercise as
much common sense in religion as we
do in everything else. Pang for pang.
hunger for hunger, fatigue for fatigue,
tear for tear, blood for blood, life for
life, we see every day illustrated. The
act of substitution is no novelty, al
though hear men talk as though the
idea of Christ's suffering substituted
for our suffering were something alb
normal, something distressingly odd,
something wildly eccentric, a solitary
episode in the worlds history; when
could take you out into this city, and
before shutdown point you to 500 cases
of substitution and voluntary suffering
of one in behalf of another.
At two o'clock tomorrow afternoon
go among the places of business or toll.
1t will be no difficult thing for you to
find men who, by their looks, show you
that they are Overworbed. They are
prematurely old. The are fastening
rapidly toward their disease. They
have gone through crises in business
that shattered their nervous system
and pulled on the brain. They have a
shOrtness of breath and a pain in the
back of the head, and at night an in
somnia that alarms them. Why are
they drudging at business early and
late? For fun? No; it would be difficult
to extract any amusement out of that
exhaustion. Because they are avart-
cious? In many cases no. Because
their own personal expenses are Law
ish? No; a few hundred dollars would
meet all their wants. The simple fact
is, the man is enduring all that fatigue
and evaporation, and wear and tear,
to keep his home prosperous. There is
an invisible line reaching from that
store, from that bank, from that shop.
from that scatfOlding, to a quiet scene
few blocks away, a few miles away,
and there is the secret of that business
endurance. He is simply the champion
of a homestead, for which he wins
bread, and wardrobe, and education,
and prosperity, and in such battle TO-
600 men fall. OF ten business men
whom bury, nine die of over work for
L. 1 i
them with no power of resistance, and
they are gone. Life for life. Blood
for blood. Substitution!
At one o'clock tomorrow morning,
the hour when slumber is most unin-
terrupted and most profound, walk
amid the dwelling houses of the city.
Here and there you will find dim
light, because it is the household Gus
tom to keep a subdued light burning;
but most of the houses from base to
top are as dark as though uninhabited.
A merciful God has sent forth the
archangel of sleep, and he puts his
wings over the city. But yOnder is
clear light burning, and outside on the
window easement is glass or pitcher
containing food for sick child; the
food is set in the fresh air. This is the
sixth night that mother has sat up
with that sufferer. She has to the last
point obeyed the physicians prescrip-
ton, not giving a drop too much or
too little, or a moment too soon or too
late. She is very anxious, for she has
buried three children with the same
disease, and she prays and weeps, each
prayer and sob ending with kiss of
the pale cheek. By dint of kindness
she gets the little one through the or
deal. After it is all over, the mother
is taken down. Brain or nervous fever
sets in, and one day she leaves the con-
valescent child with a mothers bless
ing and goes up to join the three in the
Kingdom of Heaven. Life for life.
Substitution. Yhe fact is that there
are an uncounted number of mothers
who. after they have navigated a large
family of children through all the dis
eases of infancy, and got them fairly
started up the fowery slope of boy
hood and girlhood, have only strength
enough left to die. They fade away.
Some call it consumption, some call it
nervous prostration; some call it inter
mittent or malarial indisposition; but
1 call it martyrdom of the domestic
circle. Life for life. Blood for blood.
Substitution!
Or perhaps the mother fingers long
enough to see a son get on the wrong
road, and his former kindness becomes
rough reply when she expresses anxiety
about him. But she goes right on,
looking carefully after his apparel, re-
membering his every birthday with
some mement5, and when he is brought
home worn out with dissipation, nurses
him till he gets well, and starts him
again, and hopes, and expects, and