The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1900-07-14
RELIGION OF CHRIST.
DR.. Talmage Says 1t Is a Proven
tive of This Worlds Ills.
An Active Principle which Constant
~ Works for the welfare of
Body, Mind and sOul-A
Mighty Antiseptic.
copyright, 1900. by Louis Klopsch.l
WaahinRton

/
J many, that religion is an active princi
I pie which works constantly for tn
welfare of body, mind and soul. Hi
: text is Luke 14:34: salt is good"
The Bible is dictionary of the fines
SMILES 1t employs, among living crea
lures, storks and eagles and doves anC
unicorns and sheep and cattle; among
trees, sycamore and terebinths and
I pomegranates and almonds and ap
| pies; among jewels, pearls and anne
thysts and jacinths and chrysoprases
Christ uses no stale illustrations. The
lilies that He plucks for His sermons are
dewy fresh; the ravens in His dis
courses are not stuffed specimens of
birds, but warm with life from wing
tipto wing tip; the fish He points to are
not dull bout the gills, as though long
captured, but a-squirm in the wet net
just brought up on the beach of Tiberi-
as. In my text, which is the perora-
ton of one of His rermons, He picks up
acrystal and holds it before His congre-
cation as an illustration of divine
grace in the heart, when He says what
we all know by experiment: salt is
good"
1 shall try to carry out the Saviour's
idea in this text and in the first place
say to you that grace is like salt in its
beauty. In Galicia there are mines of
salt, with excavations and under
ground passages reaching, l am told,
$50 miles. Far under ground there are
chapels and halls of reception, the col
umns, the affairs and the pulpits of salt.
When the king and the princes come
to visit these mines, the whole place is
illuminated, and the glory of crystal
| walls and crystal ceilings and crystal
| floors and crystal columns, under the
glare of the torches and the lamps, |
needs words of crystal to describe it.
But you need not go so far as that to |
find the beauty of it. You live in a |
land which produces millions of bush
els of it in year, and you can take the
morning rail train and in a few hours
get to the salt mines and salt springs.
And you have this article morning.
noon and night on your table. Salt has
all the beauty of the snowflake and wa
ter foam with durab ility added. 1t is
beautiful to the naked eye, but under
the glass you see the stars and dia-
monds and the white tree branches and
the splinters and the bridges of fire as
the sun glints them. There is more
architectural skill in one of these crys-
tails of salt than human ingenuity has
ever demonstrated in an Alhambra or
St. Peters.
1t would take all time, with an in
fringement upon eternity, for an an
gel of God to tell one-half the glories in
salt crystal. So with the grace of
God 1t is perfectly beautiful. have
SCENT smooth out wrinkles of care from
the brow have seen it make an aged
man feel almost young again. have
seen it lift the STOPPING shoulders and :
put sparkle into the dull eye. Solomon !
its therapeutic qualitieswhen :
he said: ut is marrow to the bones" =
1t helps to digest the food and to purify !
the blood and to calm the pulses and
quiet the spleen, and instead of Tyn- ,
daFs prayer test of 20 years ago, put :
ting man in philosophical hospital +
to be experimental upon by prayer, it q
keeps him so well that he does not need
to be prayed for as an invalid. l am !
speaking now of healthy religion +
not of that morbid religion that sits +
for three hours on gravestone read {
ing Harvey's "Meditations Among the r
Tombs"-a religion that prospers best a
n bad state of the liver! l speak of o
The religion that Christ preached. I +
luered the world that disease will be ",
and that a man hundred E,
1ears of age will come in from business :,
md say: II feel tired. think it must II
>e time for me to CO." and without one g,
physical pang Heaven will have him. T
But the chief beauty of grace is in al
he soul 1t takes that which was p
lard and cold and repulsive and lie
makes it all over again. 1t pours So
pon ones nature what David calls IL
the beauty of holiness" 1t extir- s.
ates everything that is hateful and pl
mclean. If jealousy and pride and fl
1st and worldliness Turk about, they nj
re chained and have very small T
weep. Jesus throws upon the soul fu
he fragrance of a summer garden as st
lie comes in, saying, 81 am tine rose of n,
haron," and He submerges it with lii
he glory of spring morning as He
avs: 81 am the light" Oh, how to
luch that grace did for the three in
ohns! 1t took John Bunyan, the fit
oul mouthed, and made him John or
unyan, the immortal dreamer. 1t ga
ook John Newton, the 1nfidel sailor, wi
nd in the midst of the hurricane til
lade him cry out: 'My mothers co
cd, have mercy upon mel" 1t took bl
ohm Summerfield from life of sin sv
nd, by the hand of Christian maker tn
edge tools, led him into the pulpit on
lat burns still with the light of that ba
hristian eloquence which charmed
to the Jesus whom he once Or
espised. All, you may search all the mn
arth over for anything SO beautiful til
r identifying as the grace of God. fin
o all through the deep mine pas tb
lges of Wieliczka and amid the I'M orr
kingdoms of salt in Hall FL
adj, and show me anything SO ex- ba
lisite. so transcendently beautiful as tie
lis grace of God fashioned and hung lol
eternal crystals. wi
Again, grace is like salt in the fact tn.
lat it is a necessity of life. Man go
nd beast perish without salt. What ca
re those paths across the western ca.
-airies? Why, they were made there on
: deer and buffalo going to and COM ito
e away from the salt clicks" Chem a {
is and physicians all the world over gri
II us that salt is a necessity of life. thi
Id so with the grace of God; you thi
nst have it or die. 1 know a great gre
any speak of it as mere adorn- and
mt, a sort of shoulder strap adorn- is,