Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1893 — A ROYAL DRUNK. [ARTICLE]

A ROYAL DRUNK.

Thirty-Throe Intoxicated Kings In One TentSciontlsfs Disagree lu Tlteir Attack* on the Christian Kcllglun—Dr. Taliuage’s Sermon. Rev. Dr. Tat mage -preached at Brooklyn, last Sunday. Subject: “The Battle Ours.” Text: I Kings xx, 27.—“ And the children of Israel pitched before them like two flocks of kids.” : * | With thirty-three kinT's druhk tn one tent this chapter opens. They were allies plotting for the overthrow of the Lord's Israel. You know that if a lion roar a flock of kids will shiver and huddle together. One lion could conquer a thousand kids. The battle opens. There are a great multitude of Syrians under Gen. Ben-hadad, strong as lions. The Israelites ai‘e few and weak,

like two little flocks of kids. Who beat? The lion, of course. Oh, no; the kids, for it ail depends whether <plod is on the side of the lion or the kids. After the battle 100,U00 Syrians lay dead on the field, and 27,000 Attempting to fly, came along by a great wall, which toppled and •crushed them to death. Which was the stronger weapon--great Goliath's sword or little David’s sling? David had five smooth stones from the brook. He only used one in striking down Goliath. ‘He had a surplus of ammunition; he had enough to take down four more giants if they had appeared in the way. It all depends upon whether God is on the side of the shepherd bov or on the side of the giant. fgo through the court rooms of the country. Wherever I find a judge’s bench or a clerk’s desk I find a bible. By what other book would they take solemn oath? What is very apt to be among the bride’s presents? The bible. What is very apt to.be put in the trunk of the young man when he starts for city life? The bible. Voltaire predicted that the bible during the nineteenth

century would become an obsolete book. Well, we are pretty near through the nineteenth century; the bible is not obsolete yet. There is not much prospect of its becoming obsolete, but 1 have to tell you that that room —the very room in which Voltaire wrote that prediction—some time ago was crowded from the floor to the ceiling with biblcs for Switzerland. Suppose the Congress of the United States t should pass a law that no bibles should be printed in the United States. If there are thirty million grown men and women in the country then there would be thirty million people armed against sueh a law. But suppose the Congress of the United States should pass a law that Maoauley’s history or Charles Readers novels should not be read. Could you get half as large an army or the fourth of as large an army? “But,” say those who areantagon-, stic, is falling back from the fact that the church is not as much respected as it used to be and is notas influential." I reply toothat with the statistic that one denomination —the methodist church—-ac-

cording to a statistic given me by ane of their bishops, dedicates on an average a new church every Hay of the year. Three hundred and sixty-five new churches in one denomination in a year, and over a thousand now Churches built every year in this country. Does that look as though the church were failing in its power and were becoming a worn-out institution? Around which . institution in our communities gather the most ardent affections? —the postoffice, the hotel, the court house, the city hall or the churches? But our antagonists go on and say that Christianity is falling back, in the fatt that infidelity is bolder now and more blatant than it ever was. I deny the statement. Infidelity is not near so bold now as it was in the days of our fathers and grandfathers. There were times in this country when men who were openly and above board infidel and antagonistic to Christianity could be elected to high office. Now let -ome man wish a high position in the State proclaim himself the foe of Christianity and an infidel, how many States of the Union will he carry; how many counties; how many ovards in Brooklyn? Not one. Do you suppose such things could be enacted now as were enacted in the days of Robespierre, when a shameless woman was elected to be goddess, and she was carried on a golden chair to. a cathedral, and the people bowed down to her as to a divine being and burned incense before her—she to take the place of the Bible, and of Christianity, and of the Lord Almighty? And while that ceremony was going on in the cathedral, in the chapels and in the corridors adjoining the cathedral scenes of drunkenness and debauchery and obscenity were enacted such as the world had never seen. Could suph a thing as that transpire now?' No, sir. Tho police would swoop on it, whether in Paris or New York. Infidelity is not half as bold now as it used to be.

Do you suppose that this Bible theory about the origin of life is .going to be overthrown by inen who have different theories—fifty different theories about the origin of life? And when Agasaia comes out and puts both feet on the doctrine of evolution and says in regard to many scientists. “I notice that these young naturalists are adopting Os the theories in science things that have not passed under observation:" Agassiz taw what we *ll see—that there are

men who talk very wisely who know but very little, and that just as soon as a young scientist finds out the difference between the feelers of a wasp and the horns of a beetle he begins to patronize the Almighty and go about talking about culture as though if were spelled c-u-l-c-h-a-t culchar! It makes me Sick to see these literary fops going down the street with a copy of Darwin under one: arm and a case of transfixed grasshoppers and butterflies under the other arm, talking about the “survival of the fittest,” and Huxiey's “protoplasm,” and the “nebular hypothesis,” &nd talking to us common men as thmtgh we were fools. If they agreed in their theories and came solid front against Christianity, I say perhaps they might make some impression, but they do not agree. Darwin charges upon Lamarck, Wallace upon Cope. Herschel even charged upon Ferguson. They do not agree upon the gradation of the species; they do not agree upon embryology. What do they agree about? Even mathematicians do not agree. Taylor’s logarithms are found to have faults The French metric system has wrong calcula-. tions. Talk about exact sciences: Thev are inexact. As far as with

my little knowledge I have been able to explore the only exact science is Christianity. There is nothing under which you can so appropriately write, “Quad erat demonstrandum.” But ray subject shall no longer be defensive —.it must be aggressive. I must show you that instead of Christianity falling back it is on the march and that the coming religion of the world is to be the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ ten thousand times intensified. It is to take possession of everything—-of all laws, all manners, all customs, all nations. It is going to be so mighty compared with what it has been—so much more mighty—that it will seem almost like a new religion.

C!o back a few years when there was not a decent paper in the United States that had not a discussion on the doctrine pf eternal punishment. Small wits made merry. I know, but there was not an intelligent man in the United States that, as a result of the controversy in regard to eternal punishment, did not ask himself the question, “What is to be toy eternal destiny?’' And so some years ago, when Tyndall offered his prayer guage there was not a secular paper in the United States that did not discuss the ques tion, “Does God-cver answer prayer? May the creature impress the Creator?” Besides that, you must have noticed if you have talked on these great themes that they are finding out that while science is grand in secular directions, they can not give any comfort to a soul in trouble. Talking with men on steamboats

, and in rail cars, I find they are coming back to the comfort of the gospel. They sayu “Somehow human science doesn’t comfort me when I have any trouble, and I must try something else.” And they are trying the gospel. Take your scientific consolation to that mother who has just lost her child. Apply the doctrine of the “Survival of th§„ Fittest;” tell her that her child died because its life was not worth as much as the life of one that lived. Try that, if you dare. Go to that dying man with your transcendental phraseology and tell him he ought to have confidence in the great “to be,” and the everlasting “now.” and the eternal “what is it?” and go on with your consolation and see if he is comforted. Go to that woman who has lost her husbaud and tell her it was a geological necessity that that man passed out of existence just as the megatherium disappears in order to make room for a higher style of creation, and go on with your consolation and tell her that there is a possibility that 10,000,000 years irom now we ourselves may be geological specimens of the extinct human race! And after you have got all through with your consolation, if the poor afflicted soul is not utterly crazed, I will send out the plainest Christian from my church, and with one-half hour prayer and the reading of the scripture promises, the tears will be staid, and the consolation and the joy in that house will be like the calmness of an Indian summer sunset. There will be glory flooding the house from floor to cupola. Oh, people arc finding out themselves—and they all have troubles —they find that philosophy and science do not help when there is a dead babe in the house. They are coming back to our glorious old-fashioned sympathetic religion.