The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1904-10-07

Sermon
By Rev.
Frank De Witt Talnaee, d. d.

ing made by the enemies or religion
to undermine the old established foun-
dations of faith and to revolutionize
the Christian Sabbath this sermon
makes a vivid contrast of "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 propagated by
some lazy, nonprogressive people as
the rule of thought and life; that
"what was good enough for our ia
theirs should be good enough for u.s."
l would yield to no man in my rever-
ence for the memory of the sainted
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. l have always found
out when investigating that if a son
does not respect the memory of a dead
mother he will not respect the living
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 it will dam back the onward
flow of the waters of knowledge"
and change the "river of progress"
into the "stagnant pool of ignorance
lions did their work they did it 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 a Justin
Martyr, Calvin, a Wesley, a Luther,
a Knox, or bivouac with eternal SOM
Violence in the chambers of a West
minister abbey, where the honored &C.
clesiastical 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 infallble in their opin-
ions nor absolutely wise in their ways
of living, yet, on the other hand, we
must grant that our ancestors knew a
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 as do we. Though
our ancestors for the most part had no
books save that of a Bible, Pill |
grim's Progress" or DOddridge's |
"Rise and Progress of Religion In the |
Soul" that Is no proof that they did |
not know as much of God and hold the
truth in its purity as thoroughly 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 it and use that hillOck of grave
as the stepping stone to a higher |
throne. The living may in some things !
10 I,pic
tors were wrong, yet 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. Its decorators have been
going up and down the length and
breadth of the land asserting that re
ligious worship can become as much
form of dissipation as drink or over
eating or overexercising can be. They
make a 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
Burd for a business man who has been
ut hard work for at least six days of
The week from o'clock in the morn
Ing sometimes until 10 or II 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-
deavor society besides,
They contend that Sunday should be
q day of rest and that what a man
needs upon the Sabbath day is relaxa-
ton He should go to bed Saturday
night after a hot bath with his 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 8 o'clock, all
right. If l can sleep to u, better still.
Then after 1 awake l will have a cup
Of coffee and a roll brought to my
bedside. and l will eat little and then
stay in bed for another hour, reading
the newspaper. Then after dinner /
will take my children out to one of the
public parks or down by the seaside
and get a SIN bath and view of
Gods trees and valleys and hillsides,
or 1 will go to one of our great art
galleries and look at the pictures. 1t
IS impossible for me to go and see the
painters and the sculptors' master
pieces on any other day. Therefore the