Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-07-09
GODS SAVING GRACE.
LIKE SALT IN ITS PRESEEVATIVE
QUALITY.

DR.. TaInIaGe Draws Inspiration From
CrystaI-Re Iigion II Purifier of
Body and SouI-No Sinner Beyond
Its influence.
WASHINGTON, July S.-Dr. Talmage
is now travelling in Norway, where he
has been deeply interested in the nat
. ural phenomena and the quaint social
life of that wonderful land. In his dis
course this week he argues, contrary
TO the opinion of many, that religion is
an active principle which works con-
stantly for the welfare of body and
mind and soul. His text is Luke xiv,
"a, salt is good"
The Bible is a dictionary of the fin
est SMILES. 1t employs, among liV-
ing creatures, StOrkS and eagles and
doves and uniforms and sheep and cat
tie; among trees, sycamOres and tere-
binths and pomegranates and almonds
and apples; among jewels, pearls and
amethysts and jacinths and chryso-
praseS- Christ uses no stale illustra-
tons. The lilies that he plucks in his
discourse are dewy fresh; the ravens in
his discourses are not stuffed Speci-
mems of birds, but warm with life
from wing tip to wing tip; the fish he
points to are not dull about the gills, as
though long captured, but a-sQuirm in
the wet net just brought up on the
beach of Liberals. In my text, which
is the peroration of one of his sermons,
he picks up crystal and holds it be-
fore his congregation as an illustration
of divine grace in the heart when he
says what we all know by experiment,
"Salt is good"
Beauties of Salt.
I 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 it's
beauty. In Galicia there are mines of
salt with excavations and underground
passages reaching, L am told. go miles.
Far underground there are chapels and
halls of reception, the columns, the al
tarS and the pulpits of salt. When the
king and the princes come to visit
these mines, the whole place is fllumi-
mated, 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
you need not go so far as that to find
the beauty of salt. You live in q land
which produces millions of bushels of
it in a 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 water foam, with durability added.
1t is beautiful to the naked eye. but
under the glass you see the stars, and
the diamonds, 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 crystals of salt than human
ingenuity has ever demonstrated in an
Alhambra CT st. Peters.
1t would take all time. with an in
fringement upon eternity, fer an angel
of God to tell one-half the gIories in a
salt crystal. SO with the grace Of God;
it is perfectly beautiful. l have seen
it smooth out wrinkles Of care from the
brow; 1 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
discovered its therapeutic qualities
when he said, ''It 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 in
stead Of TyndG!rs prayer test Of 20
years ago, putting 4 man in q philo-
sophical hospital to be experimental
upon by prayer, it keeps him so well
that he does not need to be prayed for
as an invalid. l am speaking now of a
healthy religion-not of that morbid
gravestone reading Hervey's "Medita-
tons Among the TOmbS"-a religion
that prospers best in bad state Of the
Iyeri l speak of the religion that
Christ preached. l suppose, when that
religion has conquered the world. that
disease will be banished and that a
man 100 years Of age will come in
from business and say, 81 am tired; I
think it must be time for me to co.,
and without one physical pang heaven
will have him.
But the chief beauty Of grace is in
the soul. 1t takes that which was hard
and cold and repulSive and makes it
all over again. 1t pours upon ones ma
ture what David calls 'the beauty Of
"oliness." 1t extirpates everything
that is hateful and unclean. If jeal-
ousy and pride and lust and worldli-
ness Turk about, they are chained and
have very small sweep. Jesus throws
upon the soul the fragrance of a sum-
mer garden as he comes in, saying, 81
am the Rose of Sharon" and he sub
merges it with the glory of spring
morning as he says, ST am the light"
Oh, how much that grace did for the
three Johns! 1t took John Bunyan,