St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1897-02-20
.TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A0reeting to the Congress Assem-.
- bled at the Capital

0AOA 1L LA0 NhplI04
No Power So Great ms the Will Of the Al.
Mighty-AM Elements Are As
Nothing Compared with
OmniPosencc.
! Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage took for the
subject of q recent sermon before his
Washington congregations: ''Storming
the Heig hts" basing it on the text:
Who art thou. o great mountain: Before Ze-
rubbahel thou shalt become a plain.-Zecha-
fiah. iy.. Z.
Zerubbabell Who owned that diff
cult name, in which three times the
letter "b' occurs. disposing most peo-
pie to stammer in the pronunciation?
Zerubbabel was the splendid man
call to rebuild the destroyed temple of
Jerusalem. Stone for the building
had been Quarried, and the trowel had
rung at the laying of the cornerstone,
and all went well, when the Cuthaeans
offered to help in the work. They
were bad lot of people, and Zerub-
babel declined their help, and then
prejudiced the secretary of the treas
ury against Zerubbabel, SO that the
wages of the carpenters and masons
could not be paid, and the heavy
cedar timbers which had been
dragged from Mount Lebanon to the
Mediterranean and fioated IN RATS
from Beyrout to Joppa. and were to
be drawn by OK team from Joppa to
Jerusalem, had halted and as a result
of the work of those jealous Cuthaeans
for l6 years the building of the temple
was stopped. But after l6 years, Ze-
rubbabel. the mighty soul. got a new
call from God to go ahead with the
temple building, and the angel of the
Lord in substance said: They have
piled up obstacles in the way of Ze-
rubbabel until they have become as
mountain, height above height, crag
above crag; hut it shall all be thun-
dered down and made Fat and smooth
rs the floor of a house. ''Who art thou.
o great mountain? before Zerubbabel
thou shall become a plain. #
Well. the Cuthaeans are not all dead
yet. They are busy in every neigh
borhood and every city and every ma
tion Of every age, heaping obstacles in
the way of the cause Of God. They
have piled up hindrances above hind
RANGES until they have become hill.
and the mountain has become an Alp.
and there it stands, right in the way
of all movements for the worlds saliva
tion. Some people are SO discouraged
about the height and breadth of this
mountain in front of them that they
have done nothing for l6 years, and
many of those who are at work
trying to DO something toward
removing the mountain toll in such a
way that Fcan see they have not much
faith that the mountain of hindrances
will ever be removed. They feel they
must do their duty, but they feel all
the time-I can hear it in my prayers
and exhortations-thatt they are strik-
ing their pickaxes and shoveis into the
side of the Rocky mountains. If the
good Lord will help me while preach
] will give you the names of some of
the high mountains which are really
In the way, and then show you that
those mountains are to be prostrated,
torn down, ground up, leveled, put out
of sight forever. .'Who art thou, o
great mountain? before Zerubbabel
thou shalt become plain"
First. there is the Mountain of Pref
udice, as long as a range of the Pyre-
nees. Prejudice against the Bible as
. l,,l1 I,<ol- m ,noone;s%opk hooL a
cruel book, an unclcan book, and in
every way an unit book. The most
Of them have never read it. They
think the strata of the rocks contra
dict the account in Genesis. The poor
souls do not know that the Mosaic ac-
count agrees exactly with the gcolog-
ical account NJ violin or flute ever
were in better accord. BY crowbar
and pickax and shovel and blasting
powder the geologist goes down in the
earth and says: .'The first thing
created in the furnishing of the
earth was the plants" Moses says:
''Ay! l told you that in the book
of Genesis: The earth brought forth
grass and herb, yielding seed after his
kind, and the tree yielding fruit"
The geologist says: 1.-THE next thing
In the furnishing of the earth was the
making of the creatures of the sea-"
Moses says: ''Ay! told you that was
next in the book of Genesis: God
said: Let the waters bring forth
abundantly the moving creatures that
have life; and God created great
whales" The geologist goes on
digging and says: THE next
thing in the furnishing. of the
earth was the creation Of the cattle
ann the reptiles and the beasts OF the
field Ayr says Moses: Al told
you that was next ~ ,the first chapters
Of Genesis: And God said. let the
earth bring forth the living creature
after his kind, cattle, and creeping
thing, and beast of the earth after his
kind The geologist goes on dig
ging in the earth and says" "1he
next creature was the human family"
Ayr says Moses, II told you that was
next in tine book of Genesis: $50 Eod
created man in His own image, in the
imsge Of God created he him: male
and female. created lie them.
Another mountain of hindrence is
that of positive and outspoken immor-
ais. There is the Mountain of In
ebriacy. It is piled high with kegs
and demijohns and decanters and
hogsheads, on which sit the victims of
. that traffic whose one business is to
rob earth and Heaven of the most gen.
erors and large-hearted and splendid
Of the human race. Il their business
was to take only the mean and stingy
and contemplate and useless, we
would not not say much against the
work, for there are tens Of thousands
OF men and women who are . nuisance