The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1899-09-13
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON,
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE

monished Not to Leave Religion Be-
hind-Teln ptatlons at Watering Places.
Copyright. Louis Klorseh. 1891
WASHINGTON, D. Cat this season OF
the year, when all who can get vacation
are taking 1t, this discourse OF Dr.. Tai.
mage Is suggestive and appropriate. The
text Is John ". 2, 8: "a pool, which Is
called In the Hebrew tongue Bethesda,
having fve porches. In these lay great
multitude OF impotent folk, OF blind, halt,
withered, waiting for the moving OF the
water"
Outside the city Of Jerusalem there was
sanative watering place, the popular re-
sort for tnvallds. To this day there ls.a
dry basin OF rock which shows that there
may have been pool there $50 feet long,
130 feet wide and seventy-fve feet deep.
This pool was surrounded by five piazzas,
or porches, or bathing houses, where the
patients tnrrled until the time when they
were to step into the water. SO far as re-
invigoration was concerned 1t must have
been Saratoga and q Long Branch on a
small scale. Lean,ington aud Brighton
comblned-medical and therapeutic. Ira
dition says that at a certain season OF the
year there was an officer OF the govern
ment who would 20 down to that water and
pour In 1t some healing quality, and after
that the people would come and get the
medication, but I prefer the plain state
ment Of Scripture that at certain season
an angel came down and stirred up or
troubled the water, and then the people
came and got the healing. That angel OF
God that stirred up the Judaean watering
place had his counterpart In the angel OF
healing who In our day steps into the min
eral waters OF Congress, or 81 aron, or Sui
phur Springs, or into the salt sea at Cape
MAY and Nahant, where multttudes who
are worn out with commercial and probes
sional anxieties, as well as those who are
afflicted with rheumatic, neuralgia and
splenetlc Diseases, 90 and are cured by the
thousands. These blessed Bethesdas are
scattered all up and down our country.
We are at a season OF the year when rail
trains are laden with passengers and bag
gage on their way to the mountains and the
lakes and the seashore. Multltudes OF our
citizens are away for restorative alb
sence. The city heats are pursuing the
people with torch and fear OF Sunstroke.
The long, silent halls OF sumptuous hotels
are all abuzz with excited arrivals. The
antlers OF Adirondack deer rattle under
the shot OF city sportsmen. The trout make
fatal snap at the hook OF adroit sport smen,
who toss their spotted brllliance into the
game basket. The baton OF the orchestral
leader taps the music stand on the hotel
green. and American life has put on festal
array. and the rumbliDg OF tia ten-ptn
allev. and the crack OF the ivory balls on
the green baized billiard tables, and the
iolting Of the barroom goblets, and the ex-
plosive uncorklnS OF the champagne bot
Ties, and the whirl and the rustic OF the
ballroom dance, and the clattering hoofs
OF the race course and other signs OF social
DISSIPATION attest that the season for the
great American watering place is in full
play. Music! Flute and drum and coroet-
a-piston and slapping cymbals wake tie
echoes OF the mountains. Glad am that
tagged out American life for the most part
has an opportunity to rest and that nerves
racked and destroyed will nnd Bethesda.
I believe In watering places. They
recu2erate for active service many VINO
were worn out with trouble or overwork.
They are national restoratives. Let not
the commercial firm begrudge the clerk,
or the employer the journeyman, or the
patient the physician, or the church its
pastor, a season Of inoccupation. Luther
used to sport with his children; Edmund
Burke used to caress his faVorite morse;
Thomas Chalmers, In the dark hour OF the
church's disruption, played kits Tor re-
creation-so was told by Ills own daugh-
ter-and the busy Christ said to the busy
apostles, "Come ye apart awhile into the
desert and rest yourselves" And I have
observed that they who do not know how to
rest do not know how to work. But have
to declare this truth to-day that some OF
our fashionable watering places are the
temporal and eternal destruction OF "a
multitude that no man can number" and
amid the oDgratulations OF this season
and the prospect OF the departure OF many
OF you for tine country must utter warn
ing, plain, earnest and unmistakable.
The first temptation that Is apt to hover
IA; 10 ut
home. You will send the dog and cat and
canary bird to be we'll cared for somewhere
else; but the temptation will be to leave
your religion In the room with the blinds
down and the door bolted, and then you
will come bRck in the autumn to find thnt
It is starved and suffocated, lying stretched
on the rug stark dead. There Is no sur
plus OF piety at the watering places.
nev"r knew any one to grow very rapidly
or Sharon Springs, or the Falls OF Mont
morency. It is generally the case that the
Sabbath Is more Of a carousal than any
other day, and there are Sunday walks and
Sunday rides and Sunday excursions.
Elders and deacons and ministers OF relig-
ion who are entirely consistent at home,
sometimes when the Sabbath dawns on
them at Niagara Falls or the White Noun
tains, take day to themselves. Ifthey go
rade, and the discourse, instead OF being
plain talk about the soul, Is apt to be
what Is called crack sermon--thut Is,
some discourse picked out OF the effusions
OF the year as the one most adapted to eS-
cite admiration, and In those churches,
from the way the ladies hold their fans,
you know that they are not go much i'm
pressed with the heat as with the pic
turesqueness o! half disclosed features.
Four puny souls stand in the organ loft
and squail q tune that nobody knows, and
worsbipers with $4,000 worth OF diamonds
on the right hand drop q cent into the
poor box, and then the benedlctlon is pro-
nounced, and the farce Is endeh. The
toughest thing ever tried to do was to be
good at n watering place. The mir is be-
witchad with the "world, the flesh and the
devil. aAThere are Christians who In three
or four weeks In such place have had
such terrible rents made In their Chris
tian robe that they had to keep darning it
until Christmas to get 1t mended.
The health OF n great many people
makes an annual visit to some mineral
spring an absolute necessity, but take your
Bible along with you and take an hour for
secret prayer every day, though YOU be
surrounded by gulfaw and snturnalia.
Keep holy the Sabbath, though they deride
you as bieo:ed Puritan. Stand Gil from
gambling heiis and those other ius.itu-
tions which propose to initiate on this side
the water the iniquities OF Baden Baden.
Let your moral and your immortal health
keep pace with your physical recuperatlon
and remember that all the sulphur and
chalybeste springs cannot do you SO much
good as the healing, perennial flood that
breaks forth from the Rock OF Ages.
This may be your last summer. II so, make
1t a flt vestibule OF heaven.
Another temptation lowering sround
nearly all our watering places Is the horse
racing business. We all admire the horse,
but we do not think that its beauty or speed
ought to be cultured at the expense OF hu-