The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-11-01
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
BY THE REV. FRANK DE WITT rALMAeE. O. D.

body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? 9,
 The physical body in the first place. should be a strong temple It's chest should be broad and deep, it's limits sup pie and sinewy, It's nerves steady and like cords of steel, it's heart beating with the regularity of pumping automaton; it should be made as strong as possible because all temporal and spiritual hap piness depends to a great extent upon the physical body being in healthy con- dition.
 When the soul laughs, the body laughs; when the body weeps the soul is very apt to weep, Thomas Jefferson, the sage of Monticello, taught this when he wrote this very suggestive letter to his young kinsman, T. M. Randall, Jr.: Without health, there is no happiness. Our att tention to health, then, should take pre- eedence of every other object The time necessary to secure this by active exer- else should be devoted to it in preference to every other pursuit I know the diff culty with which busy man tears him. self away from his work at any given moment of the day. but his happiness and that of his family depend upon it. The most uninformed mind, with healthy body, is happier than the wlsest valetudinarian." Good advice for Thomas
 
 good advice to give to tte young peo- pie of the present day.
 Value of Health.
 Not only happiness, but also most of temporal and spiritual usefulness, is de- pendent upon physical health. We read with amazement what Alexander H. Ste phens was able to accomplish when he, as an invalid, confessed to Senator Vest that for over forty years he had never seen day without suffering physical pain. We study with wonderment the gi- gantic work of the invalid Robert Hall, of the invalid Frederick W. Robinson, of the invalid Robert Louis Stevenson, of the invalid J. R. Green and of the in- valid Henry Kirke White, who continued to work, although he was fighting death step by step. Yet, for the most part you will find that the great leaders of the world have had strong bodies. Go and sit today in the galleries of the United States senate, and you can not gainsay l this fact Some of the United States l senators are now very aged men, yet, even in the decay of their physical or ganisms, as among the ruins of Merose abbey, you can still trace the strength and the power of bygone days But, though the necessity of physical health should be an axiom, yet the strange fact remains that most people by countless l folies are fiagrantly undermining the physical walls of the temple of the Holy 1 Ghost. They are overworking the body. as you sometimes see tired horse com 1 pelled to pull too big load. They are abusing the body with the idea that God will forgive them because they are trying | to do his work No. no, my friends. This abuse of the body must not be. The temple of the Holy Ghost should be a physically strong temple. The | broader a mans shoulders, the heavier is the load he can lift for Christ The louder his voice, the farther. all things being equal. he can sound forth the mes. sage of a Savor's sacrifice.
 A Moral Cleanliness.
 The temple of the Holy Spirit, in the next place, should be a clean body, There are some men whose bodies are given over to moral filthness. They are like some of the ancient heatfen temples which were avowedly dedicated to the deities of lust, drunkenness and debauch- cry, the existence of which was a na- tional dishonor. The worship performed in those temples was so vile that you could not describe 1t in public without bringing a blush of shame to every modest cheek and a demand for silence from every modest lip. The pictures found on the wall of the exnumed city of Pompeii show that those temples were veritable charnel houses where bats and owls and carrion birds gorged themselves on the decaying corpses Of truth, purity and love. Let the temple of your body be clean, as Christ wanted the Jerusalem temple to be clean when he drove the traders out of that temple, crying. "Is it not written my house snail be called of all nations the house of prayer but ye have made it a den of thieYesY' clean as David wanted his physical altar to be clean when he uttered the agonizing prayer, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sim" or clean as Paul meant us to be clean when in this same letter to the Corn- thian church, he notwithstanding worlds If any man defile the temple of God. him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy which temple ye are" Oh, the terrible condemnation which is to De visited upon those whose bodies are defiled by the indulgence of degrading vices. Oh. the awful doom awaiting the spiritual dissertation of the temple of the Holy Ghost
 A Consuming Fire.
 | Have you ever seen sanctuary of brick and stone which has been dedicated | to God destroyed by earthquake or by l fire? Well, I have. On a dark. stormy lnightI was awakened in my Brooklyn 1 home by the rumbng of the fire en- I zines. l heard a quick rap at my door. i as my sister called: Wake up! The Tabernacle is in hames!' I hurriedly | dressed and ascended to the cupola of our house, which overlooked the city. There the whole family were gathered. The air seemed charged and surcharged
 with electricity. off in the distance, the