The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1899-05-31
DR.. TALMAGES SERMON .
suNDAY's DISCOURSE Blythe NOTED
DIVINE.

Subject: "Turned to Darkness"-A Graphic
Word-Picture OF Goddess World
Deplorable Condition Into Which In
7 fidelity Would rlunge the World.
TEXT: "The sun shall be turned into dark
less. Acts H., 20.
Christianity is the rising sun OF our time,
Ind men have tried with the uprolling va
pors Of skepticism and the smoke OF their
olasphemy to turn the sun into darkness.
cor should be let loose little while and be
allowed to extinguish and destroy the sun
In the natural heavens! They would take
the oceans from other worlds and pour
!he,n on the luminary OF tho planetary sys-
tenn, and the waters go Kissing down amid
the ravines and the caverns, and there is
explosion after explosion until there are
only few peaks OF fire left In the sun, and
these are cooling down and going out un-
Ill the vast continents OF flame are reduced
to O small acreage OF FIRE, and that whitens
and cools of until there are only few
Goals left, and these are whitening and 60
ing out until there Is not spark left In all
the mountains OF ashes and the valleys OF
ashes and the chasms OF ashes. An eXtin-
guished sun! A dead sun! A buried sun!
Let all worlds wall at the ssupendous OBJ
sequies.
o; course this withdrawal OF the solar
light and heat throws our earth into uni
versal chill, md the tropics become the
temperate, and the temperate becomes the
arctic and there are frozen rivers and frozen
lakes and frozen oceans. From arctic to an
tarctic regions the Inhabitants gather in
toward the center and find the equator as
the poles. The slain forests are piled up
into n 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 bonhres
begin to lower, and the furnaces begin to
20 out, and the nations begin to die. Coto-
paxi, Vesuvius, Etna, Stromboli, California
Seysers, cease to smoke, and the ice OF
hailstorms remains uDmelted In their
crater. All the flowers have breathed their
last breath. Ships with sailors frozen at
the mast, aid helmsmen frozen at the
wheel, and passengers frozen in the cabin.
all nations dying, first at the north and
then at the south. Child frosted and dead
in the cradle. Octogenarlan frosted and
dead at the hearth. Workmen With frozen
hand on the hammer and frozen foot on the
shuttle. Winter from sea to sea. All con-
gealing winter. Perpetual winter. Globe
OF frigIdity. Hemisphere shacklei to hem
isphere by chains OF ice. Universal Nova
Zembla. The earth an Ice foe grinding
against other ice foes. The archangels OF
malice and herror have done their work,
and now they may have their thrones OF
glacier and look down upon the ruin they
have wrought. What the destruction OF
the sun in the natural heavens would be
to our physical earth the destruction OF
Christianity would be to the moral world.
The sun turned into darkness!
! Inidellty in our time Is considered
great joke. There are people who rejoice
to hear Christianity caricatured and to hear
Christ assailed with quibble and quirk and
Misrepresentation and badinage and harle-
uuinude. propose to-day to take infldel-
ity and atheism out OF the realm OF jocu-
larity into one OF tragedy and show you
what infldels propose and what, II they are
successful, they will accomplish. There
are those in all our communities who would
like to see the Christian religion over
thrown and who soy the world would be
better without 1t. I want to show you
what is the end OF this road, and what is
the terminus OF this crusade, and what this
world will be when atheism and infl6ellty
have triumphed over IL, II they can. Isay,
II they can. reiterate it, ifthey can.
In the first place, 1t will be the complete
and unutterable degradation OF woman"
hood. will prove it by facts and argu'
ments which no honest man will dispute
In all communities and cities and States
and nations where the Christian religion
has been dominant woman's condition has
been ameliorated and improved, and she is
deferred to and honored In O thousand
things, aud every gentleman takes or his
hat before her. II your associations have
been good, you know that the name OF
wife, mother, daughter, sugges. gracious
Surroundings. You know there are no bet
ter schools and seminaries In this country
than the schools and seminaries for our
young ladies. You know that while wom-
an may suffer injustice in England and the
United States, she has more Of her rights
IN Christendom than she has anywhere
else.
: Now, compare this with woman's cond;-
tion In lands where Christianity has made
little or no sadvance-in China, in Barbay,
in Dorneo, in Tartary, in:Egypt, in Hludus-
tan. The Burmese sell their wives aud
daughters as so many sheep. The Hindoo
Bible makes 1t disgraceful and an outrage
for woman to listen to music or look out
of the window In the absence OF her hus-
band and gives rs lawful ground for di-
vorce woman's beginning to en-. before
her husband has finished his meal. What
meun those white bundles on the ponds and
rivers In China In the morning? Infanticide
following infantlcide. Female children de-
stro-ed simply because they are females.
Woman harnessed to the plow as an OK.
Woman yelled and barricaded and in all
styles OF cruel seclusion. Her birth mis-
fortune. Her life II torture. Her death q
horror. The missionary OF the cross to-
day In heather lands breaches generally to
two groups-a group OF men who do as
they please and sit where they please; the
other s:onp. women hidden and care
f,Il ed =
they may hear the voice OF the preacher,
but may not ts seen. No refinement. No
liberty. No hope for this life. No hope for
the life to come. Hinged nose. Cramped
foot. Dishgured face. Embruted soul.
Now, compare those two conditions.
How far toward this latter condition that
speak Of would woman 90 II Christian in
fluences were withdrawn and Christianity
were destroyed? 1t is only a question OF
tain point and not fastened there and the
lifting power be withdrawn, how long be-
fore that object will fall down to the
point from which it started? 1t
will fall down, and it will 60
still farther than the point from which
1t started. Christianity has lifted woman
up from the very depths OF degradation
almost to the skies. II that lifting power
DO withdrawn, she falls clear back to the
depth from which she WAS resurrectca,
not going any lower, because there Is no
lower depth, and vet Notwithstanding the
fact that the salvation OF woman from
DEGRADATION and wos Is the Christian re-
ligion-and the only influence that has
ever lifted her In the social scales Is
Chrlstianity-I have read that there are
women who reject Christianity. l make
no remark IN regard to those persons. In
the silence Of your own soul make your OBJ
servations.
II lnfldelIty triumph and Christianity be
overtbrown, 1t means the decentralization
Of society. The one idea in the Bible that