The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-01-14
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON
BY THE REV. FRANK DE WITT TALMAeE, D. D.

John, get broader vision of heaven than had his ministerial brethren than he was deprived of his Presbyterian orders
 and the greatest Bible teacher and com mentator of his generation had to sit in the pew of the First Presbyterian church of Philadelphia as a worshiper instead of standing in the pulpit as a preacher. All the prosecutions of the dark ages were due to the worship of seetarian creed. All the horrors of a St. Bartholomew massa- ere and the murderings of the Covenant CTS among Scottish ills and the fiendish works of a Bloody Mackenzie and of a Bloody Mary" were due to the worship at a denominational altar instead of the cross of Jesus Christ Oh religion, re- ligion, what awful crimes have been com mtted in thy name The demons of the darkest caverns and the most bestial of sins have drenched their garments with human gore because under he helmets of seetaranism they have been prompted to unsheath the sword of bigotry. But now all things are being changed. Paul revealed the "unknown God" to the Athenlans. Jesus Christ has revealed God to us. Now our religious teachers have become so broad that they are ready to join all Protestant churches in one great federation for Christian work as long as the one cardinal doctrine of those churches is Jesus Christ the Savior, who has come to save man. sinner
 Christian Federation.
 And. mark you, this revelation of Christ
 has not been gladly acclaimed by the churches during the past centuries, but only within the last few years. You must think of this church fellowship as a child of our youth and not as a blessing Of bygone generations. It was as late as the life of Patrick Henry. who died Tn 17e9. that the Baptist ministers of old Virginia were called upon to defend themselves in the criminal dock because they were charged with preaching the gospel of the son of God" You who are students of history recall how the same seloquence which fired the American colonists for liberty or death' reused the hearts of his jurors when Patrick Henry pleaded for the freedom of the indicted Baptist minis ters. My God" he cried, can 1t be that any man should be charged as criminal for preaching the love of Jesus Christ?'' Then, again and again he waved the in- dictment above him as he said; For preaching the love of Jesus Christ" But now, thank God. all such criminal trials are past. God has revealed himself to us. theologically We know, and well know, that foreordination or Armenanism or belief in apostolic succession is not es- sential for salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved" was the slogan of, Paul and Is the slogan of the modern Christian pulpits. Sectarian intol- erance Is being rapidly demolished. We might have clung to our sectarianism in the past as the Athenians clung to their altars of gold and silver and marble be- fore Paul appeared. But we cannot, we dare not do so now. There is but one true altar, and that Is the altar of Jesus Christ And the times of this ignorance God winked at. but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent" Repentl Repentl Repent in Christs name or ye shall all likewise perish.
 But God has borne with our moral ignorance as well as our theological in- tolerance He has been overlooking for generations the sins of the flesh which men have unconsciously committed as we'll the sins of false creeds. And when l speak thus I could roam over very wide territory If I would. for you have no more right to judge a man of the fifteenth or sixteenth century by the moral standards of the twentieth century than you have a right to condemn the Puritans because they exiled Roger Will liams from Massachusetts in 1885 or be- cause, under the leadership of Cotton Mather, they burned the supposed witches of Salem in 1891.
 Abolished Code of Honor.
 It was only few years ago that mans moral code of honor compelled man to | bravest acts of that brave man, George D. Prentice. was exhibited not in his will | ingness to fight a duel, but in his being willing to defy public opinion and re- fuse to fight one. When one of the sub scrbers of his paper challenged him. as Aaron Burr challenged Alexander Hamll- | ton, he wrote a letter which ended thus:
 'It takes only one fool to send chal- lenge, but two fools to fight. I am not one of them" And again, to show to what a low state the mind of man was | In reference to the savage customs of duelling during the last generation, M. | de Girardin. the father of the present French statesman and author of that name, was one day with a party of gen. tlemen admring the precision with which friend was shooting at a target. "Yes." said M. de Girardin, he shoots very well. but it Is quite different thing to hit man in duel from hitting a bit of paste- board The most skillful marksman, who could hit coin at twenty-five paces, might easily miss a man at the same dis tance." At once this gentleman chal- lenged, M. de Girardin to a duel. claim | ing that he had called him coward. The | two men faced each other at twenty-five | paces. The pistols were raised. The | gentleman shot at De Girardin and miss ed. M. de Girardin refused to fire. why do you not shootT' called his seconds. | For what should snootI nave no Dlt- | terness against my friend. wanted to prove to him that a good marksman might miss his man at twenty-five paces, and l he has done so. I am satisfied if my friend is." Yet such was the foolish de- mands of the duelo that many a noble man had to uselessly lay down his life on account of such trival remarks as M. de Girardln made.
 What was true of the duello was also fr,tA af t1,a rata alfaer tol, Ia ond k 1 ing cup and the lascivious habits of the l past generations. In olden times almost all gentlemen were supposed to gamble
 and get drunk and be licentious if they
 so willed. The words of Paul. "1f meat make thy brother to offend l will eat no meat while the world standeth, lest l make my brother to offend" have far different Interpretation now from that or a few years ago. No one would dream or
 erecting a college building now by lot l tery, as one of the first buildings was
 erected upon the Princeton campus. No
 one would dream of a party of ministers | adjourning from presbytery and then sit | ting down to dinner, each with glass | of liquor fianking his plate, as the minis | ters used to do. No one would dream or | our present President of the United States | playing a game of cards with his minister. as George Washington was accustomed to do with his Episcopalian rector. These men of the past generations should not be 1 judged by our moral standards. Every | year the moral criterions of the human race are lifted higher and higher. But, my | friends we know today what we ought