The Yale expositor., 1904-10-07
Calnage
Sermon
By Rev.
Frank De Witt TalnaGe. d. d.


ing made by the enemies of religion
to undermine the old established foun-
dations OF faith and to revolutlonize
| the Christian Sabbath, this sermon
makes a vivid contrast Of 1.-The old time
religion" and the new. The text is
Psalm xi, 3, "If the foundations be
destroyed, what can the righteous do?'
Emasculating, depressing and be.
numbing Is the maxim Dropagated by
home lazy, nonprogressive people as
the rule Of thought and life; that
what was good enough for our IA
theirs should be good enough for us"
would yield to no man in my rever-
ence for the memory Of the salnted
dead whose sacred dust lies In our
cemeteries. No flowers are there too
fragrant for the family plots, no cpl
taphs too eloquent or too reverent to
recount their virtues, nor. when the
family finances are adequate, any
mausoleum too imposing to enshrine
their remains. 1 have always found
out when investigating that If a son
does not respect the memory OF dead
wife, who becomes the mother of his
children.
We should hold sacred the dust OF
our dead. That is true, but we should
never build the hillock of the grave so
high that II will dam back the onward
flow of the waters of knowledge"
and change the "river of progress"
into the "stagnant pool of Ignorance
and sloth." When the past genera
tons did their work they did 1t well
for the time and the conditions in
which they lived, but the dead gen.
erations would not do as they did In
the past If they were living now. We
would not cry "halt" to the forward
march" of scientific investigation;
neither would we compel the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ to mark
time" by the grave of Justin
Martyr, a Calvin, a Wesley, Luther,
a Knox, or bivouac with eternal SOM
Violence IN the chambers Of a West
minister abbey, where the honored &C.
clesiastlcal fathers gathered July l,
1913, and composed the Presbyterian
Confession OF Faith and our Longer
and Shorter Catechisms.
But, though we would not consider
our ancestors infallible In their opin-
ions nor absolutely wise in their ways
Of living, yet, on the other hand, we
must grant that our ancestors knew
great Deal more than some Of Us are
willing to give them credit for. Though
our forefathers' lightning expresses"
were only canal boats and stagecOaches
and sailing boats. In which most Of us
would be afraid TO cross Long Island
sound. let alone the Atlantic ocean, that
is no reason why they did not know
how to develop Christian men and wo-
men as successfully rs do we. Though
our ancestors for the most part had no
books save that of a Bible, a "Pil-
grim's Progress" or a Doddridge's
Rise and Progress of Religion In the
Soul" that is 10 proof that they did
not know as much of God and hold the
truth In It's purity as tholES. ghly as do
we who have access to such vast mod
ern libraries, and yet today we find a
spirit Of discriminating iconoclasm"
abroad. Mans profane hands are dig
ging up the old foundations and de-
stroying the old affairs and ridiculing
the old ways merely because they are
old. l would not have you bend the
knee before the hillock of an ancestral
grave as though it were a shrine, but
l would have you respect and not de-
stroy 1t and use that hillock OF grave
as the stepping stone to higher
throne. The living may In some things
be right where their Christian ances-
tors were wrong, yot we have only to
look around at the modern innovations
and observe the effect they have on the
community to be convinced that In
some things our Christian ancestors
were right and the modern innovators
deplorably wrong.
Undermining the Foundations.
In the first place, L protest against
the iconoclasm which is undermining
the foundation stones of our ancestral
Sabbath. It's Decorators h0ye been
going up and down the length and
breadth Of the land asserting that re-
figious worship can become as much
form Of dissipation as drink or over
eating or overeXercising can be. They
make n wrong application Of our
Lords words that the sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath" They affirm that it is alb
surd for business man who has been
at hard work for at least six days Of
the week from o'clock in the morn
ing sometimes until 10 or IL or II
o'clock at night to be compelled to get
up on Sunday in time for an early
Sunday school, then to attend two
long church preaching services, and
then perhaps to attend Christian En-
desvpr society besides.
They cortend that Sunday should be
q day Of rest and that what a man
needs upon the Sabbath day is reiaxa-
fion. He should 60 to bed Saturday
night after a hot bath with bis mind
perfectly at ease. AS he crawls into
bed he should be able to say to him
self; Now, can lie here Just as long
as please. If awake at o o'clock, all