The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1902-05-15

In the following discourse, prepared
by DR.. Talmage before his illness, the
folly and danger of postponing the ac-
| ceptance of the Gospel invitation are
exposed on the text, Luke 14:1s, "And
they all with one consent began to
make excuse"
After the invitations to a levee are
sent out the regrets come in. One man
apologies for nonattendance on one
ground, another on another ground.
The most of the regrets are founded
on prior engagements. So in my text
great banquet was spread, the in
vitations were circulated and now the
regrets come in. The one gives an
agricultural reason, the other stock
dealers reason, the other domestic
sreason. All poor reasons. The fact
was, they did not want to go. "And
they all with one consent began to
make excuse"
So now God spreads great banquet.
1t is the Gospel feast, and the table
reaches across the hemisphere, and
the invitations go out, and multitudes
come and sit down and drink out of the
chalices of Gods love, while other null
titudes decline coming, the one giving
this apology, and the other giving that
apology, land they all with one con-
sent began to make excuse" I pro-
pose, so far as God may help me, to ex-
anime the apologies which men make
for not entering the Christian life.
Apology the first: I am not sure
there is anything valuable in the Chris
tian religion. 1t is pleaded that there
are so many impositions in this day; so
many things that SCENE to be real are
sham. A gilded outside may have 1
hollow inside. There is so much quack-
cry in physics, in ethics, in politics,
that men come to the habit of incred-
| ulity, and after awhile they allow that
incredulity to collide with. our holy
religion. But, my friends, I think re-
ligion has made pretty good record
in the world. How many wounds it
has salved! How many pillars of fire
it has lifted in the midnight wilder
ness! How many simoom struck des-
the Lord! How it hath stilled the
chopped sea! What rosy light it hath
sent streaming through the rift of the
stormcloud! What pools of cool wa
ter it hath gathered for thirsty Hagar
and Ishmael! What mama winter
than coriander seed it hath dropped
all around the camp of hardly bested
pilgrims! What promises it hath sent
out like holy watchers to keep the
lamps burning around deathbeds,
through the darkness that lowers into
the sepulcher! What flashes of resur-
rection morn!
Besides that, this religion has made
SO many heroes. 1t brought Summer
field, the Methodist, across the Allan
tic ocean with his silver trumpet to
blow the acceptable year of the Lord
until it seeemd as if all our American
cities would take the kingdom of
heaven by violence. It sent Jehudi
Ashman into Africa alone, in conti-
nent of naked barbarians, to lift the
standard of civilization and Christian
ity. 1t made John Milton among po-
cts, Raphael among painters, Christie
pher Wren among architects, Thor
waldsen among sculptors, Handel
among musicians, Dupont among mil
itary commanders, and to give new
wings to the imagination and better
balance to the judgment and more de-
termination to the will and greater
usefulness to the life and grander no.
bility to the soul there is nothing in all
the earth like our Christian religion.
Nothing in religion Why, then, all
those Christians were deceived when
in their dying moment they thought
they saw the castles of the blessed,
and your child, that with unutterable
agony you put away into the grave,
you will never see him again nor hear
his sweet voice nor feel the throb of
his young heart. There is nothing in
religion? Sickness will come upon
you. Roll and turn on your pillow;
no relief. The medicine may be bitter,
the night may be dark, the pain may
be sharp; no relief. Christ never comes
to the sickroom. Let the pain stab;
let the fever burn; curse it and die.
There is nothing in religion? After
awhile death will come. You will hear
the paving of the pale horse on the
threshold. The spirit will be breaking
away from the body, and it will take
fight-whither whittier? There is no
God, no ministering angels, to con-
duct, no Christ, no heaven, no home.
Nothing in religion? Oh, you are not
willing to adopt such dismal theory!
And yet the world is full of skeptics.
And let me say there is no class OF
people for whom have a warmer SYM
pathy than for skeptics. We do not
know how to treat them. We deride
them, we caricature them, We, in
stead of taking them by the soft hand
of Christian love, clutch them with
the iron pi1chers of ecclesiasticism.
Oh, if you lnesv how those men had
fallen away from Christianity and be-