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About Plattsmouth weekly herald. (Plattsmouth, Nebraska) 1882-1892 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 9, 1888)
0 r L ATTS AI O ITT 1 1 TrKEK:;, ,ift7.ii,i.i. iniJiyDA V, AUGUST 0, 18S8. ;. 9' 1 1 ?; is U i i I . v. I' f IS 11 i I r 0PJII0D0XY. REV. T. DE WITT TALMACE CHAUTAUQUA. AT The Celebrated Ilrookljrn Divine Antwcrt the Ouedtlon, '! Orthodoxy Stale anil E'nrrasoiiuMc?" The HI bio IHviiirly In spired and IHvlurlj Protected. Chautauqua, N. Y., Aug. 5. TJio Rev. T. Do Witt Talmagc, D. D., of Ilrooklyn, in present for llio twelfth time at tho national meeting of religions edu cators and students held yearly in this jlaco. His sermon today, 'which was delivered to an audience imjiobing in Tiumlcrs and intelligence, was from the following text, in tho Ixxjk of Jeremiah vi, 10: "Ask for tho old paths, where is tho good way, und walk therein, and ye Bhall lind rest for j-our kouI.j," and answered tho question: "Is Orthodoxy Stale and Unreasonable?" Following is a verbatim report of it: A great Ixindon fog has como down upon eome of the ministers and sonw of tho churches in the shape of what is called "advanced thouylit" in biblical interpru 'iation. All of them, and without any exception, deny tho full inspiration of tho Bible. Genesis is an allegory, and there are many myths in tho Libia, and they philosophize and guess and reason and evoluto until they land in a great continent of mud, from which, I fear, for all eternity they will not be able to extricate themselves. Tho Diblo is not only divinely inspired, but it is divinely protected in its present fchapo. You could as easily, without de tection, take from tho writings of Shake ppear "Hamlet," and institute in place thereof Alexander Smith's drama, as at nny time during the last fifteen hundred years a man could have made any im portant change in tho Bible without im mediate detection. If there had been an element of weakness, or of deception, or of disintegration, tho lxok would long ago have fallen to pieces. If there had been onu loose brick or cracked casement in this castellated truth, surely tho bom bardment of eight centuries would have discovered and broken through that im j)crfection. Tho fact that tho Biblo btands intact, notwithstanding all the furious assaults on all sides upon it, is proof to mo that it is a miracle, and every miraclo is of God. ' 'But," 6ays some one, "while wc admit tlio BiLJo is of God, it has not been uu derstood until our time." My answer is, tliat if tho Biblo bo a letter from God, our Father, to man, his child, is it not strange that that letter should have been written in such a way that it should tllow sev enty generations to pass away and ia buried beforo the letter could lo under stood? That would bo a very bright fa ther who should writo a letter for tho guidance and intelligence of his children, not understandable until a thousand years after they were buried and. forgot fenl While as the years roll on other beauties an4 excellencies will unfold from tho Scriptures, that tho Bible is such a dead failuro that all tho Christian scholars for eighteen hundred years were deceived in regard to vast reaches of its meaning, is a demand upon my credulity so great that if I found myself at all disposed to yield to it X should to-morrow morning apply at some insane asylum as unfit to go alone. Who make up this precious group of Advanced thinkers to whom God has made especial revelation in our time of that which he tried to make known thou sands of years ago and failed to make in telligible? Are thev so distinguished for unworldliness, piety and scholarslup that it is to be expected that they would have been chosen to fix up tho defective work of Moses and Isaiah and Faul and Christ? Is it at all possible? I wonder on what mountain these modern exegetes were transfigured? I wonder what star ixnnted down to their birthplace? Was it tho North 6tar, or the evening star, the Dipper? As they came through and descended to our world did Mars blush or Saturn lose one of its rings? When I lind these modern wiseacres attempt ing to improve upon the work of the Al mighty and to interlard it with their wisdom and to suggest prophetic and apostolic errata, I am filled with a dis gust insufferable. Advanced thought, . which proposes to tell the Lord what he ought to have said thousands of years ago, ana would nave said lr no nad been as wise aa his Nineteenth century critic ,' All this comes of living away back in the eternities instead of 1888. I have two wonders in regard to these men. The first one is how the Lord got along with out them before they were born. The second wonder is how the Lord will get along without them after they are dead "But," say some, "do you really think the Scriptures are inspired throughout?" Yes, either a3 history or as guidance. Gibbon and Josephus and Prescott record In their histories a great manv thinjrs they did not approve of. When Geonre Bancroft puts upon his brilliant histor ical page tho account of an Indian mas sacre, does he approve of that massacre? There are scores of things in tho Bible winch neither God nor inspired men sanctioned. .Lather as history or as guidance the entire Bible was inspired of God. "But," says some one, "don't you think that the copyists might have made mistakes in transferring the divine words from one manuscript to another?" Yes, no doubt there were such mistakes; but they no more affect the meaning of tho Scriptures than the misspelling of a word or the ungrammatical structure of a sentence in a last will and testament af fect the validity or the meaning of that will. All the mistakes made by tho copyists in the Scriptures do not amount to any more importance than the differ ence between your spelling in a docu ment the word forty, forty or fourty. This book is tho last will and testament of God to our lost world, and it be queaths everything in the right way, although human hands may have dam aged tho grammar or made unjustifiable interpolation. These men who pride themselves in our day on being advanced thinkers in JJibiical interpretation will all of them end In atheism, if they live long enough, nnd I declara here today they are doing xnore in the dittt-reut denominations of Christians, and throughput the world, fsr damaging Christianity and hindering l c cause of the worm s Dettermenc iiian Jive thousand Robert Ingereolla could do. 1 That man who stands inside a castle is far more dangerous if bo bo an enemy than live thousand enemies outside tho cattle. Robert G. Ingersoll assails Uio catlo from the outside. These men vlio pretend to o advanced thinkers in all tho denominations are fighting tho truth from tho inbido, and trying to shoro back tho IjoIIs and swing ojen the gates. Now I am in favor of the greatest f ree dom of religious thought and discussion. I would havo as much liberty for hetero doxy as for orthodoxy. If I should change my theories of religion I should preach them out and out, but not in the building whero I am accustomed to preach, for that was erected by iplo who leliovo in an entiro Bible, and it would lo dishonest for mo to promulgate sentiments different from those for which that building was put up. When wo enter any denomination as ministers of religion we take u solemn vow that we will preach tho sentiments of that de nomination. If we change our theories, as wc havo a right to chango them, then 1 hero is a world several thousand miles in circumference, and there are hundreds of halls and hundreds of academies of music whero we can ventilate our senti ments. I remember that in all our cities in time of political agitation there are tho Republican headquarters and tho Demo cratic headquarters. Supjioso I should go into oho of these headquarters pre tending to bo in sympathy with their work, at the samo time electioneering for the opposite party. I would soon find that the centrifugal force was greater than tho centripetal! Now, if a man enters a denomination of Christians, tak ing a solemn oath, as ho will do, that he will promulgate tho theories of that de nomination, and then the man shall pro claim some other theory, ho ha3 broken his oath and ho is an out and out perjurer. Nevertheless, I declare for largest liberty in religious discussion. J would no more havo tho attempt to rear a monument to Thomas I'aino interfered with than I would havo interfered with tho lifting of tho splendid monument to Washington. Largest liberty for tho body, largest lib erty for the mind, largest liberty for the boul. Now, I want to show you, as a matter of advocacy for what I believe to be the right, tho splendors of orthodoxy. Many liavo suppo. ed that its disciples are ieo ple of fiat skulls, and no reading, and be hind the ago, and the victims of gullibil ity. I shall show you that tho wprd or thodoxy stands for tho greatest splen dors outside of heaven. Behold the splendors of the achievements. All the missionaries of tho Gospel ilia world round are men who believe in an entiro Bible. Call tho roll of all the mission aries who are today enduring sacrifices in the ends of the earth for the causo of re ligion and the world's betterment, and they all believe in an eniiiu Eblc. .Tust as soon as a missionary begins to doubt whether there ever was a Garden of Eden, or whether there is any such thing as future punishment, he comes right horao from Beyrout or Madras, and goes into the insurance business 1 All the missionary societies this day are officered by orthodox men, and are supported by orthodox churches. Orthodoxy, beginning with the Saiyl- wich Islands, lias captured vast regions of barbarism for civilization, while heterodoxy has to capture ile first square inch. Blatant for many years hi Great Britain and the United States, and strut ting about with a peacockian braggado cio it has yet to capture the first conti nent, the first state, the first township, the first ward, the first space of ground as big as you could cover with tho small end of a sharp pin. Ninety-nino out of every hundred of the Protestant churches of America were buiit by people who be lieved in an entire Bible. The pulpit now may preach some other Gospel, but it is a heterodox guu on an orthodox carriage. The foundations of ail tho churches that are of very great use in this world today were laid by men who believed the Bible from lid to lid, and if I cannot take it" in tliat way I will not take it at all; just as if I received a letter tliat pretended to come from a friend, and part of it was liis and part somebody else's, and the other part somebody else's, and it was a sort of literary mongrelism, I would throw the garbled sheets into the waste basket. No church of very great influence today but was built by those who be lieved in an entire iJibio, neither will a church last long built on a part of the Bible. You have noticed, I suppose, that as soon as a man begins to give up the Bible he is apt to preach in some hall, and he has an audience while ho lives, and when he dies tho church dies. If I thought that my church in Brooklyn was built on a quarter of a Bible, or a half Bible, or three-quarters of a Bible, or ninety-nine one-hundredths of a Bible, I would expect it to die when I die ; but when I know it is built on tho entire Word of God, I know it will last 200 years after you and I sleep the last sleep. Oh, the splendors of an orthodox v which with 10,000 hands and 10,000 pul pits and 10,000 Christian churches, is trying to save the world ! In Music ITall, Boston, for many years stood Theodore Parker battling ortho doxy, giving it, a3 some supposed at that time, its death wound. lie was the most fascinating man I ever heard or ever erpect to hear, and I came out from hearing him thinking, in mv boyhood way, "Well, that's the death of the church." On that same street, and not far from being opposite, stood Park Con gregational church, called by its ene mies "nellfire Corner." Theodore Parker died and his church died with him; or, if it is in existence, it is so small you cannot see it with the paked eye. Park Congregational church still stands on "Ilellfire Corner," thundering away uo magnificent truths of this glorious ortho doxy just as though Theodore Parker had never lived. All that Boston, or Brooklyn, or New York, or the world ever got that is wortn nanng came through the wide aqueduct of orthodoxy from the throne of God. Behold the splenders of character built up by orthodoxy. Who had the greatest human intellect the world ever knew? Paul. In physical stature insignificant; in mind, head and shoulders above all the giants of the age. Orthodox from scalp to heel. Who was the greatest poet j the ages ever saw, acknowledged to bo so both by infideb and Christians? John j Milton, seeing more -without eyes than anybody else ever saw with jv-?r- thodox from scalp to heel. Who was the greatest reformer tho world has ever seen, bo acknowledged by infidels ao well as by Christians? Martin Luther. Or thodox from scalp to heel. Then look at the certitudes. O man, lif.lieving in an entire Bible, v here did you come from? Answer: "I descended from a erfcct parentngo in Paradise, and Jehovah breathed into my no: trils tho breath of life. I am a son of God." O man, believing in a half and half Bible, be lieving in a Bible in sjots, whers did you como from? Answer: "It is all uncer tain; in my ancestral line away back there was an orang outang and a tad-ole and a polywog, and it took millions of years to get mo evolutod. " O man, lc lieving in a Bible in sjKits, whero are you going to when you quit thi3 world? Answer: "Going into a great to be, so on into tho great somewhere, and then I shall pass through on to tho r.;reat any where, and I thall probably arrive in tho nowhere." That is where I thought you would fetch up. O, man, believing in an entire Bible, and believing with all your heart, whero are you going to when you leave this world? Answer: "lam going to my Father's house; I am going into tho companionship of my loved ones who have gone before; I am going to leave all my sins, and I am going to bo with God and liko God forever and for ever." Oh, the glorious certitudes of orthodoxy 1 Behold the splendors of orthodoxy in its announcement of two destinies. Palace and penitentiary. Palaco with gates on all sides through which all may enter and livo on celestial luxuries world without end, and all for the knock ing and tho asking. A palaco grander than if all tho Alhambras and tho Ver sailles and tho Windsor castles and the Winter gardens and tho imperial abodes of all the earth were heaved up into one architectural glory. At the other end of the universe a jenitentiary, whero men who want their sins can have them. Would it bo fair that you and I should havo our choice of Christ and the palace, and other men be denied their choice of sin and eternal degradation? palaco and jKjnitentiary. Tho first of no uso unless jou havo tho last. Brooklyn and New York would bo better places to live in with Raymond street jail and tho Tombs and Sing Sing, and all the small pox hospitals emptied on them than heaven would bo if there were no hell. Palace and ienitentiary. If I see a man with a full bowl of sin, and he thirsts for it, and his whole nature craves it, and he takes holdjwith both hands and presses that bowl to his lips, and then presses it hard between his teeth, and the draught begins to pour its sweetness down his throat, shall we snatch away the bowl, and jerk the man up to tho gate of heaven, and push him in if he does not want to go and sit down and sing psalms forever? No. God has made you and me so comt'lctely free that we need not go to heaven unless wo prefer it. Not more free to soar than free to sink. Nearly all the heterodox peoplo I know believe all are coming out at the samo destiny; without regard to faith pr character we are all coming out at the shining gate. There they are, all in glory together. Thomas Paine and i George VYlnciieiu, izebei and Mary . 1 -.i i 1 Til l 'ir i i,y".7l- iicru ana vnanes wesiey, Wiao'-S Guiteau and Jaines A. Garfield, John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln all in glory together! All the innocent men, women and children who were massacred, side by aide with their mur derers. If we are all coming out at the same destiny, without regard to charac ter, then it is true. I turn away from such a debauched heaven. Against that caldron of piety and blasphemy, philan thropy and assassination, self eijcrulce and beastliness, I place the two destinies of the Bible forever and forever and for ever apart. Behold also the splendors of the Chris tian orthodox death beds. , Those who deny tho Bible, or deny any part of it, never dje well. They either go out in darkness or tkey go out in silence portentous. You may gather up all the biographies that have come forth since the art of printing was invented, and I challenge you to show me a triumphant death of a man vho rejected the Scrip tures, or rejected any part of them. Here I make a great wide avenue. On the ono I put the death beds of those who be lieved in an entire Bible. On the other side of that avenue I put the death beds of those who rejected part of the Bible, or rejected all of the Bible. Now, take my arm and let us pass through this dividing avenue. Look off upon the right side. Here are the death beds pn the right sido of this avenue. "Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" "Free gracel" "Glory, glory!" "I am sweeping through the gates washed in the- blood of the Lamb!" "The chariots arecoming !" "I mount, I fly !" "Wings, wings!" "They are coming for me!" "Peace, be still!" Alfred Cookman's deathbed, Richard Cecil's deathbed, Commodore Foote's deathbed. Your father's deathbed, your mother's deathbed, your sister's deathbed, your child's deathbed. Ten thousand radiant, songful deathbeds of those who believed an entire Bible. Now, take my arm and let us go through that avenue, and look off unon the other side. No smile of hope. No shout of triumph. No face supernatu rally illumined. Those who reject any part of the Bible never die well. No beckoning for angels to come. No listen ing for the celestial escort. Without any exception they go out of the world because they are pushed out; while on the other hand tho list of those who be lieved in an entire Bible and gone out of tho world in triumph is a list so long it seems interminable. Oh, is not that a splendid influence, this orthodoxy which makes that which must otherwise be the most dreadful hour of life the last hour positively paradisaical? Young men, old men, middle aged men, take sides in this contest between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. "Ask for the old paths, walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." But you fol low this crusade against any part of the Bible first of all you will give up Gene sis, which is as true as Matthew; then you will give up all the historical parts of the Bible; then after a while you will cive up the miracles; then you will find it convenient to give up the Ten Com mandments: and then after a while you will wake up in a fountainless, reckless, treeless desert swept of everlasting fdrocco. If you are laughed at you can afford to l.e hufghed at for standing by the I'ill jui as God has given it to you and mi raeulotisly preserved it. l)o not jump overboard from th Htanch old Great llastern of old fahiowd orthodoxy until there i) something ready to tako you up stronger than tho fan tastic vawl which has painted on tho sido "Advanced Thought," and whic leaks at the prow and leaks at tho stern and has a steel pen for ono oar and i:t .i .i - guu tongue ior mo otner oar, and now tips over mis wav ana men tips over that way, until you do not know whether tho passengers will land in tho breakers of despair or on tho sinking sand of infi delity and atheism. I am in full sympathy with tho ad vancements of our time, but this world will never advance a singlo inch beyond this old Bible. God was just as capable of dictating tho truth to the prophets and apostles as ho is capable of dictating tho trutli to these modern apostles a;i. prophets. God has not learned any thing in a thousand years. Ho knew just as much when ho gavo tho first die tation as ho does now giving the last die tation, if ho is giving any dictation at all. bo I will stick to the old paths. Naturally a skeptic and preferring new things to old, I never so much as today felt tho truth of the entiro Bible, especially as I see into what spectacular imbecility men rush when they try to chop up tho Scrip 4 ii - . .... lures wnn mo meat ax or tneir own preferences, now calling upon philosophy, now calling on tho church, now call ing on God, now calling on tho devil. I prefer tho thick, warm robe of the old religion old as God tho rolio which has kept so m;uiy warm amid the cold pilgrimage of this life and amid tho chills of death. Tho eld robe rather than tho thin, uncertain gauze offered us by these wiseacres who believe the Bible in spots. uiiomy si, ion, at z years or age, expired Isabella Graham. Sho was tho most useful woman of her day amid tho roor and sick, at the head of tho orphan asylums and Magdalen asylums, and an angel of mercy in hospital and reforma- tor-. JJr. Mason, ono of the mightiest men of liis day, said at her funeral that sho was mentally and spiritually tho most wonderfully endowed person he had ever met. She was an impersonation of tho most orthodox orthodoxy. Her last word wa3 peace. As a sublime peroration to my sermon, I will give an extract from her last will and testament, showing how ono vho lxlieves in an entire Bible may make a glorious exit. An extract from a will: "My children and my grandchildren I leave to my covenant God, the God who hath fed mo all mv life with the hrend that periaheth and the bread that never perisheth, who has been a Father to my fatherless children and a husband to their widowed mother thus far. And now re ceiving my Redeemer's testimony, I set to my seal that God is true; and believing the record of John that God hath given to mo eternal life and this llfo is in his Son, who, through tho eternal Spirit, overcomes without spot unto God, and, being consecrated a priest forever, hath with his own blood entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal re demption for me. I also believe that ho will perfect what concerns me, support and carry mo safely through death, and present me to his Father, complete in his own righteousness, without spot or wrinkle. Into the hands of this redeem ing God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I commit my redeemed spirit. Isabella Grftham." Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be liko liers. ' 'Giory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Iloly Ghost; as it was in the begin ning, i3 now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen and amen!" MULTUM IN PARVO. Not a single congressman smokes cigar ettes, but the majority of them incline to cigars. Sunday schools are increasing rapidly in this country. Last year tho American Sunday School union organized 1,502, with G,32G teachers and 54,120 scholars. A BritLjh vessel is now surveying a route between Australia and Canada, preliminary to laying a telegraph cable. The cablo will bo 7,500 miles long, and the work of laying it will take thrte years. Counterfeit silver certificates of $5. as well as $1, are floating about. The coun terfeits are three-sixteenths of an inch shorter than the genuine bills. Take along your tape measure. The Western Union Telegraph com pany reports $5,000,000 gros3 earnings for the last quarter; net earnings, $1, 350,000; fixed charges and dividends, $1,220,000; surplus, $130,000. The gross earnings for the quarter are larger than ever before. Thirty-three persons were killed and C47 injured by railway accidents in Eng land last year. There were thirty-one collisions between passenger trains, in wliich twenty-five persons were killed and forty-two collisions between passen ger and freight trains, by which one person was killed. In 18S6 twelve per sons were killed and COG injured on English railways. The Transvaal republic in South Africa bids fair to become a British possession before many years. The Eng lish aro flocking to the gold mines in large numbers, and the Boer3 are appre hensive of being swamped. Arni3 and ammunition are now being distributed among them, and it is supposed that tney will forcibly resist any attempt to get Englishmen represented in the legis lative body. The expression "dark horse," now in Buch general political use, first occurred in Lord Beacons field's "Young Duke." Here is the paragraph: "The first favor ite was never heard of, the second favor ite was never seen after the distance post, all the ten-to-ones were in the rear, and a dark horse which had never been thought of rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph." The fact that at the recent national congress in Jndia all the speeches and proceedings were in Englishes a striking illustration of the wide diffusion of that tongue. There were gathered at Madras 700 delegates from all parts of India, Afghanistan, Nepaul and Scinde. They spoke nine different languages, and the English was the only medium through which the proceedings could be satis factorily conducted. IF ALL RUN DOWN ambition, and uro uhvayn tired, yon are in much in need of medicine as if hick abed. You need Fame's Celery Compound nt tliia season, when the whole system is debilitated by the wear anil tear of work or play in the extreme heat. Canyon aflord the time and cost of a vacation? Paine'a Celery Compound will remove the need of one. It is the only hot weather tonic that ban true medicinal value. Compounded from the formula of a successful physician, us a genend invigorator it has no equal. WJien all run down from heat or overwork, re- BRACE YOU UP. member that Paine's Celery Compound ' Sold by all druggists, 1 a bottle. Six for 5. WELLS, RICHARDSON & CO., l'ropw, Burlington, 't. e li n e Wil call your attention they are headquarters for all and Vegetables. We are receiving day Oranges, Lemons and hand Just received, a We have Pure Mapl Jonathan Hatt. WilOXiSSALS POKK PACKERS and dkalkhs in BUTTEIi AND EGG'S. BEEF, PORK, MUTTON AND YEA L. THE BEST THE MARKET AFFORDS ALWAYS ON HAND. Sugar Cured Meats, Hams. Bacon, Lard, &c, of our own make. The best brands WHOLESALE HA H ! OP HER if IE arriages for Pleasure and Short Drives Always Slept IZcc&y. Cor. 4th and Vino IS THE Oldest kicu In Cass HE KEKTS OX JIAM) To suit all seasons of He keeps the Buckeye, .Minneapolis and McConnic Jiinders, Nichols and Shefard Threshing Alaehines. Peter Shelter and all InoflirifT W ogwuo a.iu .uu-'Mcn tc,t TIT TTT- . T- weeping ater. be sure ami call Plattsmouth or "Weeping "Water. XMaUsmouth and Weeping; Water, Nebraska F. 6, FRlCKE & CCL (SUCCESSOR TO J. M. ROBEUV3.) Will keep constantly on band a full and cccjplele etock of ju,e Drugs and Mm, Paints, Oils PUR E L IQUORS, From the debilitating eflocta of summer.! heat ; if you can't sleep, have no appetite, lack to the fact t h c t kinds of Fru i Freeh Ctrcuberries every Eananes ccnetantl variety e Sugar cf Canned Scups and r.o rristake. TUTT, J. Vf. Martihs. L'.. P.I TAIL 8 of OYSTKRS, AND RETAIL. in cans sum! bulk, nt - SPlattszaoiith.. County. A El" EE E1XE E the rear. the the ui.Mi. - i.uiuv on nana, jiiancli 11 ouse on b red before you buy, eitl " ' ier at I Dealer, ts cn v