Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-07-12
TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY
DR.. Talmage Says the Church Of Christ
Is the Most Endearing Insiita"
ton on Earth.
Its Unsurpassed Growth So Infldelity Refuted.
Copyright 19O1.l

copyright 1901
WASHINGTON, d. G. - Although DR..
Talmage was hindered from attending the
great annual meeting of the Christian En-
deavor Society at Cincinnati, his sermon
shows him to be in sympathy with the
great movement; text, Amos TX, 10, BE
hold the days come, saith the Lord, that
| the plowman shall overtake the reaper"
Unable because of other important du-
ties to accept the invitation to take part
in the great convention of Christian En-
deavorers at Cincinnati, | preach SER
mon of congratulation for all the members
of that magnificent association, whether
now gathered in vast assemblage or busy
in their places of usefulness, transatlantic
and cisatlantc. And, as it is now harvest
time in the fields and sickles are flashing
mighty suggestiveness in my text.
1t is picture of tropical cline, with
q season so prosperous that the harvest
reaches clear over to the planting time
and the swarthy husbandman, busy cut
ting the grain, almost feels the breath of
the horses on his shoulders, the horses
hitched to the pillow preparing for a new
crop. Behold the days come, saith the
Lord, that the plowman shall oyertake
the reaper When is that? That is
now. That is this day, when hardly have
result than the plowman is getting ready
for another.
In phraseology charged with all venom
and abuse and caricature l know that in
fdels and agnostics have declared that
Christianity has collapsed; that the Bible
is an obsolete book; that the Christian
church is on the retreat. I shall answer
that wholesale charge to-day.
Between 100000 and 100000 Endeav.
orers sworn before high heaven that they
will do all they can, to take America for
God-are not the signs most cheering! Or,
to return to the agricultural figure of my
text, more than million reapers are over
taken by more than a million plowmen.
Besides this, there are more people who
believe in the Bible than at any time in
the worlds existence.
But now let us see whether tbs book is
last years almanac. Let us see whether
the church of God is Bull Run retreat,
muskets, canteens and haversacks strew-
ing all the way. The great English histor-
and great accuracy, not clergyman, but
an attorney as well as a historian, gives
this overwhelming statistic in regard to
Christianity and in regard to the number
of Christians in the different centuries:
In the first century 100000 Christians, in
the second century 100000 Christians, in
the third century 100000 Christians, in
the fourth century 100000 Christians,
in the fifth century 100000 Christians,
in the sixth century 2O,00O,0O0 Christians,
in the seventh century 24,0O0,000 Chris.
tians, in the eighth century 30,0OO,OOO
Christians, in the ninth century 40,0OO 600
Christians, in the eleventh century TO-
600 900 Christians, in the twelfth century
S0,0OO,0O0 Christians, in the thirteenth
century 100000 Christians, in the four
teenth century 80 900 100 Christians. in the
| fifteenth century 10000, 900 Christians, in
the sixteenth century l25,000,000 Chris
| tians, in the seventeenth century l55, 0O0,-
| 900 Christians, in the eighteenth century
| 20O,0O0,000 Christians-a decadence,. as you
| observe, in only one century and more
than made up in the following centuries,
while it is the usual computation that
| there were at the close of the nineteenth
! to believe that before this century is
close the millennium will have started its
boom and lifted its hosanna.
| Poor Christianity! What a pity it has
| no friends! How lonesome it must be!
Who will take it out of the poorhouse?
Poor Christianity! Four hundred mill
ions in one century.
At the beginning of the nineteenth cen
fury $50 missionaries; at the close of that
century $4,000 missionaries and native
helpers and evangelists. At the beginning
of the nineteenth century there were only
$4,000 converts now there are over l,OOO,-
600 converts from heathendom.
So Christianity is falling back and the
Bible, they say, is becoming an obsolete
book I 90 into court, and wherever
| find a Judges bench or clerks desk l
find Bible. Upon what book could there
be uttered the solemnity of an oath
What took is apt to be put in the trunk
of the young man as he leaves for city
life? The Bible. What shall find in
nine out of every ten homes in this city!
The Bible. In nine out of every ten homes
in Christendom? The Bible: Voltaire
wrote the prophecy that the Bible in the
nineteenth century would become extinct:
The century is gone, and | have to tell
| you that the room in which Voltaire
wrote that prophecy not long ago was
crowded from floor to ceiling with Bibles
from Switzerland.
Suppose the Congress of the United
States should pass law that there should
be no more Bibles printed in America and
no Bibles read. If there are $4,000, 600
| grown people in the United States there
would be 6O,0O0,0 600 people in an army to
put down such law and defend their
right to read the Bible. But suppose the
make a law against the reading or the
publication of any other book-how many
people would go out in such. a crusade :
Could you get 10000, 900 people to 60 out
and risk their lives in the defense OF
| Shakespeare's tragedies or Gladstone's
tracts or Macaulay's History of Eng,
| land?" You know that there are a thou.
| sand men who would die in defense OF
this book where there is not more than
one man who would, die in the defense OF
| any other book. You try to insult my
common sense by telling me the Bible is
| fading out from the world. It is the most
| popular book of the centuries.
"Oh," say people, "the church is col
lection of hypocrites, and it is losing it's
| power, and it is fading out from the
world" Is it? A bishop of the Metho'
dist church told me that that denomina-
| ton averages two new churches every day
In other words, they build 100 churches
| in that denomination in a year.. and
there. are at least 1900. new Christian
| churches built in America every year.
| Does that look as though the Christian
! church were fading out, as though 1T were
| defunct institution? What stands near
est to the hearts of the American people
to-day? do not care in what village or
what city or what neighborhood you CO.
What is it? Is it the postofhce? Is it the
hotel? Is it the lecture hall? An, you
know it is not. You know that that
which stands nearest to the hearts OF the
American people is the Christian church.
| You may talk about the church being q
collection of hypocrites, but when the
diphtheria sweeps your children of, whom
do you send for? The postmaster? The
Acknowledgment? The hotel keeper: