The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1901-11-15
DIR, TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subjects The Sweet Influences - we Are
Aneotod For Good or Evil By Forces
That We seldom Hecog~ize-Import-
anco Of Good Actions.

AHoetoh hof 5000 or Evil by Forces
That we seldom RecogNizs-Import-
ance OF Good Actions.
Copyright isu.l
WASHINGTON, ID. C.-ln this discourse
DR.. Ialmage demonstrates that we are
affected by forces that we seldom recog-
nize and enlarges upon human accounta-
bllity. The text is Job xxsyin. 81,
Canst thou bind the sweet influences OF
PleiadesW
What is the meaning Of that question
which God put TO Job? Have we all our
lives been reading H., and are most of as
ignorant of its beauty and power and
practical suggestiveness? A meaningless
passage Of Scripture many thought 1t TO
be, but the telescopes were busy age after
age, and Astronomical observations kept
on questioning the skies until the mean
ing OF my text comes out lustrously. The
Plelades is q constellation of seven stars
appearing to the naked eye, but scien.
tine instruments reveal more than 400
properly belonging to the group. Alcyone
Is the name Of the brightest star Of that
group called the Pleiades A Russian as
tronomer observed that Alcyone is the
centre of gravltatlon of our solar system
Hugh Macmillan says that the sun and its
planets wheel around that centre at the
rate OF $4,000 miles a day in an orDit
which 1t will take 10000 900 years to com
piete. The Pieiades appear in the spring
time and are associated with flowers and
genial warmth and good weather. The
navigation of the Mediterranean was
from May to November, the rising and
the setting of the Pleiades. The priests
OF Belus noticed that rising and setting
2O00 years before Christ.
Now, the glorious meaning Of my text
IL Main a1 tfsall ns It,,k I'll
the beautiful grace of humility God asked
him, "Canst thou bind the sweet inhu-
ences of the Pleiades" Have you any
power over the laws Of gravitation? Can
you modify or change an influence welded
by a star more than 100000 miles away ?
Can you control the winds OF the spring
time? Can you call out the flowers? How
little You know compared with omnis-
eience? How little you can do compared
with omnipotence!
The probability is that job had been
tempted to arrogance by his vast attain
ments. He was metalurgist, a zoolog-
list, a poet. and shows by his writings he
had knowledge of hunting of music, of
husbandry, of medicine, of mining, Of
astronomy and perhaps was so far ahead
of the scholars and scientists of his time
that he may have been somewhat pulled
up; hence this interrogation Of my text
And there is nothing that so soon takes
down human pride as an interrogation
point rightly thrust. Christ used it
nightly Paul mounted the parapet Of
his great arguments with such battery.
Men of the world understand it. Demos
themes began his speech to the crown and
Cicero his grafton against Catiline and
Lord Chatham his most famous orations
with a question. The empire of ignor-
ance is so much vaster than the empire
Of knowledge that after the most learned
and elaborate disquisition upon any sub
ject of sociology or theology the plainest
man may ask question that will make
the wisest speechless. After the pro7
fouhdest assault upon Christianity the
humbiest disciple may make an inquiry
that would silence a Votaire.
Called upon. as we all are at times, to
defend our holy religion instead of argu-
ment that can ALWAYS be answered by
argument let US try the power of inUerro-
cation. We ought to be loaded with at
least half a dozen questions and always
ready, and when Christianity is assailed,
and we are told there is nothing in it and
there is no God and there never was a
miracle and that the Scriptures are I'M
reasonable and cruel and that there new
er will be a judgment day, take out of
your portable armory of interrogation
something like this: What makes the
condition of woman in Christian lands
better than in heather lands? Do you
think it would be kind in God to turn
the human race into world without any
written revelation to explain and en-
courage and elevate and save? And if a
revelation was made, which do you pre-
fertile Zeuda-Festa of the Persian or
the Confucian writings of the Chinese
or the Koran of Mohammed or our Bible?
If Christ is not divine being what
did He mean when He said. Before
Abram was, l am" If the Bible is q
bad book, what are the evil results Of
reading it? Did you see any degrading
influence of the book in your father OF
mother or sister who used to read it?
Do you not think that judgment day
is necessary in order to explain and fix
up things that were never explained or
fixed up? If our religion is illogical and
an imposition upon human credulitv. why
were Herschel and Washington and Glad
stone and William Mckinley its advo.
Gates?
How did it happen that our religion
furnished the theme for the greatest
to the painters their greatest themes in
the Alteration of the MaJ," 'The
! TRANSPORTATION" 'The Last Supper. y
"The Crucifxion," ""The Entombment,'
''The Last Judgment" and that all the
schools of painting put forth their utmost
genius in presenting "The Madonna"
Why was it that William Shakespeare
after amazing the world as he win amaze
the centuries with the splendor and pow
er Of ''The Merchant of Venice" and
"Coriolanus," and Richard ILL.," and
'rKing Lear" and "Othello," and MAC
beth" and Hamlet" wrote with his own
| hand his last will and testament bepin-
os God, amenl I, William Shakespeare
of Stratford-on-Avon, in the County Of
Warwick, in perfect health and memory
(God be praised!) do make and ordair
this my last will and testament, through
the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saw
] innr to be made nartaker of life ever