The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-14
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.

Washington, July 7.--Although Dr. Tallmage was hindered from attending the great annual meeting of the Chris tian Endeavor Society at Cincinnati. his sermon shows him to be Tn sym pathy with the great movement; text, Amos ix, IS: Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper"
 Unable because of other important duties to accept the invitation to take part in the great convention of Chris ton Endeavors at Cincinnati. begun last week, I preach a sermon of con- graduation for all the members of that magnificent association. whether now gathered in vast assemblage or busy in
 their places of usefulness, transatlantic and cisatlantic. And. as it is now nar-
 vest time in the gathering of great
 crop, I find mighty suggestiveness in
 my text.
 It Is a picture of a tropical cline.
 with a season so prosperous that the
 harvest reaches clear over to the plant
 ing time and the swarthy husbandinan,
 busy cutting the grain, almost feels the
 breath of the horses on his shoulders,
 the horess hitched to the piow prepsl-
 ing for a new crop. Behold the days
 come. saith the Lord, that the plownian
 shall overtake the reaper" Wen Is
 that? That is now. That is this day,
 when hardly have you done reaping one harvest of religious result than the plowman is getting read for another.
 In phraseology charged with all ven- om and abuse and caricature I know that infidels and agnostics have de- clared 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
 today.
 Between s.eoO,o0O and 100000 En-
 deavorers sworn before high Heaven
 that they will do all they can to take
 America for God, Europe for God. Asia
 and Africa for God-are not the signs
 most cheering? Or, to return to the agricultural figure of my text, more than a million reapers are overtaken by more than a million plowmen. Be- sides this. there are more people who believe in the Bible than at any time in the worlds existence.
 Growth of Christianity.
 But now let us see whether the book is a last years almanac. Let us see whether the church of God is Bull Run retreat. muskets, canteens and haversacks strewing all the way. The great English historian Sharon Turner, a man of vast learning and great ac- | curacy. not clergyman. but an attor- neys as we'll as 8 historian, gives this overwhelming statistic in regard to Christianity and in regard to the num- ber of Christians in the different cen- | turies: In the first century 500, ,0e0 Christians: in the second century 2,0O0,- 900 Christians; in the third century, 5000, 900 Christians; in the fourth cen- tury 1o.0e0,000 Christians; in the fifth century 15,0o0, 900 Christians; in the sixth century 20,000. 900 Christians; in the seventh century 24.0os,000 Chris tians; in the eighth century 3000O, ,OO0 Christians; in the ninth century 40,000,- 900 Christians: in the tenth century 50, coo. 900 Christians; in the eleventh cen- tury 7o,000, 900 Christians: in the twelfth century s0,000.000 Christians, in the thirteenth century 75.eO0.seo Chris tians: in the fourteenth century S0,000,- 900 Christians: in the fifteenth century 100 e00. .00e Christians. in the sixteenth century 125.000.O0o Christians. in the seventeenth century 155, ,000, 0e0 Chris tians: in the eighteenth century 200.- 000, 900 Christians-a decadence, as you | observe. in only one century and more | than made up in the following centu- ries. while 1t is the usual computation I that there were at the close of the rine- teenth century 470,0o0,0e0 Christians,
 making us to believe that before thls l century is closed the millennium will
 have started its boom and lifted it's hosanna.
 Poor Christianity! What a pity 1t has no friends! How lonesome it must bel Who will take 1t out of the poor house? Poor Christianity! Four hun dred millions in one century. In a few weeks of this year 2,500,000 copies of
 the New Testament distributed. Why, the earth is like an old castle with 2U gates and a park of artillery ready to thunder down every. gate. See how heathendom is being surrounded and honeycombed and attacked by this all conquering gospel. At the beginning of the nineteenth century 150 mission aries: at the close of that century S4, 900 missionaries and native helpers and evangelists. At the beginning ot the nineteenth century there were only 60.0e0 converts; now there are over l, ,00e. .000 converts from heathendom. So Christianity is falling back and
 the Bible, they say, is becoming an ob- solete book! I go into a court, and wherever I find a judge's bench or c clerks desk find a Bible. Upon what book could there be uttered the solem- nifty of an oath? What book 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 Chris
 tendon? The Bible. Voltaire wrote
 the prophecy that the Bible in the nine
 teenth century would become extinct.
 The century is gone, and have to tell
 you that the room in which VoItaire
 wrote the 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 60.000,0oo grown people in the
 United States, there would be 60,0eo,- O00 people in an army to put down such
 6 law and defend their right to read