The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-05-26
1fURNRD TO DARKNESS.
TALMAGE,S GRAPHIC PICTURE
oF A GODDESS WORLD.

DepIora0Ie Condition Into Which Ins
fidelity would, il Ii Could, Plunge
Humanfty-A Lost Race Dis
vine Guidance.
copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1899
In this sermon DR.. Talmage gives a
glimpse of what the world would be
IL the gospel were abolished and the
human race left without divine guild
ance. The text is Acts ii, 20, 1.-THE sun
shall be turned into darkness"
Christianity is the rising sun of our
time. and men have tried with the up
rolling vapors of skepticism and the
smok of their blasphemy to turn the
sun into darkness. Suppose the archan-
gels of malice and horror should be let
loose a little while and be allowed to
extinguish n destroy the sun in the
natural heavens! They would a k the
oceans from other worlds and pour
them on the luminary. of the planetary
system, and the waters go Kissing
down amid the ravines and the cav
ems, and there is explosion after ex-
ploSion until there is only a few peaks
Of fire left in the sun, and these are
SOOALh6 dO"Al hlAo SbAAS NoN NN
vast continents of flame are reduced
to a small acreage Of fire, and that
whitens and cools off until there are
q few Goals left, and these are
WI fleming and going out until there
ie hot a spark left in all the mountains
Washes and the valleys Of ashes n
chasms of ashes An extinguished
sum A dead sun, A buried sum- Let all
worlds wall at the stupendous obse-
quies.
OF course this withdrawal of the
solar igh and neat throws our earth
into a universal chill, and the tropics
become the temperate, and the temper
ate becomes the arctic, and there are
frozen rivers and frozen lakes and fro
zen oceans. From arctic to antarctic
regions the inhabitants gather in to-
ward the centre and find the equator as
the poles. The slain forests are piled up
into a great bonfire. and around them
gather the shivering villages and cities.
The wealth of the coal mines is hastily
poured into the furnaces and stirred
into rage of combustion. but soon the
bonfires begin to lower, and the fur
naceS begin to go out, and the nations
begin to die. Cotopaxi, Vesuvius. Etna.
Stromboli, California geysers, cease to
mok and the ice of hailstormS re-
mains unmelted in their crater. All the
flowers have breathed their last breath.
Ships with sailors frozen at the mast.
and helmsmen frozen at the wheel. and
passengers frozen in the cabin. All ma
tionS lying, first at the north and then
at the south. Child frosted and dead
in the cradle. Octogenarian frosted and
dead at the hearth. Workmen will
frozen hand on the hammer and frozen
foot on the shuttle. Winter from sea
to sea. All congealing winter. Per-
petual winter. Globe of frigidity.
Hemisphere shackled to hemisphere by
chains of ice. Universal Nova Zembla.
The earth an ice foe grinding against
other ice foes. The a~rchangels of NAL
ice and horror have lone their work,
ana now they may have their thrones
Of &gacier and look down pom the ruin
tn nave wrought. What the destruc-
tloN of the sun in the natural heavens
Auld be to our physical earth the de-
Fuction of Christianity woul be to
We moral world. The sun turned into
darkness!
WHAT ATHEISM WOULD DO.
Infidelity in our time is considered q
great joke. There are people who re-
joice to hear Christianity c~aricatured
and to hear Christ assailed with quib-
Die and qu1rk and misrepresentation
n badinage and h~arlequinade. I pro.
pose today to take infidelity and athe.
ism out of the realm of POPULARITY nte
one of tragedy and show you what in.
fidelS propose and what, if they are
successful. they will accomplish. There
are tuOSe Ill all our communities WnC
would like to see the Christian religion
overthroWn and who say the world
would be better without it. I want tt
show you what is the end of this road
and What is the terminus of this cru.
SADIE. and what this world will be wher
atheism and infidelity have triumpheC
over it, if they can. 1 say, if they can
l reiterate it, if they car.
In the first place., it will be the com
plete and unutterable d~egradations O.
womanhood. I will prove it by facts
and arguments which no honest mai
will dispute. In all communities ant
cities and states and nations where tn,
Christian religion has been dominan
woman's condition has been amelioat
ed n improved, and she is deferred Il
and honored in a thousand things, ant
every gentleman takes off his hat be
fore her. If your associations have beer
good, you know hat the name Of wife
mother, daughter, suggest gracious sur
roundings. You know there are no bet
ter schools n Summaries in this ccun
IVY than the schools and seminaries 70
OK young ladies. You know that Will
waaDen may suffer injustice in Englan,
a PIE United States, she has more o
hevrights in Christendom than she ha
anywhere else.
Now, compare this with woman
condition in and where Cnristianit,
has made little or no ADVANCED
emma, an Barbary. an Borneo, in Tar
tary, in Egypt, in The Bur
mese sell their wives and daughters a.
so many sheep. The Hindob Bibl
makes it disgraceful and an outrage TO
a woman to listen to music or look on
OF the window in the absence Of he
husband and gives as a lawful groun,
for divorce a woman's beginning to ca
before her husband has finished hi
meal. What mean those white bundle
OF the ponds and rivers in China. in tn
morning? Infantcide following in
fanticide. Female children destroye
simply because they are female. WON
an harnessed to the pillow as an OF
Women yelled and barricaded and i
all styles of cruel seclusion. Her brit
a misfortune. Her life a torture. He