Year: 1879

A"A"H"AS VN IL . C"AI1Oos


He Explodes q Number OF Sensational


Stories and Nails Lie.


Talmage took his critics to task
on Sunday. In the course of his
sermon he said "But during
these ton years of my ministry here
/ have not only received the criti-
cism of the World but much of
misrepresentation. Lies have been
told about modes, LIES, LIES {!
/ once came to New York from
philadelphia to marry a couple.
The ceremony was performed at
the Fifth Avenue Hotel. For some
reason Or other the newly married
couple started off upon their wed-
ding trip in a balloon, ascending
from Central Park in tho presence
of 5000 people. A week afterwards
it was howled through the country
that T had belittled the holy ordi-
nance of matrimony by uniting
couple in tho clouds. At one of
our May festivals, with five hundred
children roaring happy before me
and with Christmas star of ever-
greens hanging over my head, I said,
Boys, l feel like morning star
Now, it happened that this was the
refrain of some negro song, and q
member of a neighboring,church who
chanced to hear of it wrote to q
religious paper saying that 1 had
quoted two or three verses of 'Shoo
Fly from the pulpit, and that 'Shoo
Fly was sung by our Sunday -school
each Sabbath. A religious papor in
Maine recently published the state
mont tEat on several occasions I
had appeared in the pulpit in war;
paint and with an Indians dress
about me, whereupon several clerey-
men bemonn in tho colum ms of that
paper the degenoracy and abuse of
the pulpit, and asked piteously, rs
there no way to stop this man ?
Why do 1 state these ridiculous
tales LIS it to stop them? All,
no. don't want to stop them.
They make things spicy, long
since learned to harness abuse to
Christian work" Mr.. Talmage
then repeated his customary thanks
to the press of America for giving
him every week millions of read
ers.


"But while," he added, in con-
cluding his DISCOURSE, ''some of
these falsehoods may have excited
your mirth, there is one that is
different, because it invades the
sanctity of my home. It has been
stated that sixteen years ago L went
sailing upon the Schuylkill River
with my wife and her sister, and
that [ allowed my wife to drown
while saved her sister, marrying
her in sixty days afterwards. I
propose to nail this Infamous lie on
the forehead OF every man who shall
utter it, and I invoke the law to aid
me-" MIR. Talmage then read from
paper which he had prepared O
complete account of tho unfortu~
nate catastrophe on the Schuylkill.
He was in boat with his wife and
child, his own sister and her child.
Knowing nothing of the dam they
were swept over it and the boat was
upset. His wife was in stantly
sucked under by the strong current.
His sister, the two children and
himself was saved by clinging to
the gunwale of the boat. Al the
time this sad accident occurred he
had never seen OF heard of his present
wife, and was introduced to her for
the first time nine months later by his
brother. He would pay one hun
dred dollars to any responsible
witness who in the future would
give him the name of any RESPONSE
ble person who dared to utter this
libel again.


Next Sunday Mr.. Talmage will
preach sermon entitled "Sensa-
tionalism vs. Stupidity"