Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1900-08-17
RELIGION OF CHRIST.
DR.. Talmage Says It Is a Proven
tive of This Worlds Ills.
An Active Principle which Constants
Iy Works for the Welfare of
Body, Mind and SOul-A
Mighty Antiseptic.
copyright, 1900. by Louis Klopsch.l

DIR. Talmage is now travelling in Nor
way, where he has been deeply inter
ested in the natural phenomena and
the quaint social life of that wonder
full land. In his discourse this week
he argues, contrary to the opinion of
many, that religion is an active princi-
pie which works constantly for the
welfare of body, mind and soul. His
text is Luke 14:34: salt is good"
The Bible is dictionary of the finest
SMILES. 1t employs, among living crea-
lures, storks and eagles and doves and
uniforms and sheep and cattle; among
trees, sycamore and terebinths and
pomegranates and almonds and APP
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 about 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"
/ 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,
ESQ 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 1t.
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 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 durability 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
a salt crystal. So with the grace OF
God. 1t is perfectly beautiful. l have
SCENT smooth out wrinkles of care from
the brow. have seen it make an aged
man feel almost young again. l have
seen it lift the STOPPING shoulders and
put sparkle into the dull eye. Solomon
discovered its Observation-Disclosures
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-
dal's prayer test of 20 years ago, put
ting man in philosophical hospital
to be experimental upon by prayer, il
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 a gravestone read,
ing Harvey's "Meditations Among the
Tombs"-a religion that prospers best
in bad state of the liver speak OF
the religion that Christ preached.
suppose when that religion has con
uuered the world that disease will be
banished and that a man hundred
years of age will come in from business
and say: 81 feel tired. 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 nature what David calls
"the beauty of holiness" 1t extir
pates everything that is hateful ant
unclean. If jealousy and pride and
lust and worldliness Turk about, they
are chained and have very small
sweep. Jesus throws upon the sou
the fragrance of summer garden a!
He comes in, saying, 81 am the rose O.
Sharon" and He submerges it will
the glory of spring morning as HI
says: 81 am the light" Oh, how
much that grace did for the three
Johns! 1t took John Bunyan, thu
foul mouthed, and made him Johr
Bunyan, the immortal dreamer. L
took John Newton, the lnfdel sailor
end in the midst of the hurricane
made him cry out: "My mothers
God, have mercy upon mel" 1t tool
John Summerfield from life OF sil
and, by the hand of Christian makel
of edge tools, led him into the pulpi
that burns still with the light of tina
Christian eloquence which charmed
thousands to the Jesus whom he onc'
despised. All, you may search all tn
earth over for anything SO beautiful
or identifying as the grace OF God
Go all through the deep mine pas
sages of Wieliczka and amid the un
derground Kingdoms of salt in Hall
stadt, and show me anything SO ex
quisite, so transcendently beautiful a
this grace of God fashioned and hum
in eternal crystals.