Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 February 1895 — NOT A MONOPOLY. [ARTICLE]

NOT A MONOPOLY.

No Sect or Denomination Endowed With an Exclusive Franchise. •’Other Sheep I Have -Which Are Not of This If old*'—Dr. Talmage's.Sermon. Dr. Talmage was again permitted to address an audience that completely filled the New York Academy of Music last Sunday.' It .was estimated that three thousand people were turned away, being unable togain admission. Dr. Talmage’s subject was: “A Call to Outsiders.”. Text,’ John x. JG—“Other sheep I have which are not Of this fold.” He said: , In my boyhood, next the country school house, there was an orchard of apples owned by a lame man, who, although there were apples in the place perhaps decaying and by and scores of bushels, never would allow any of us to touch the fruit, One day in the sinfulness of a nature inherited from our first parents, who were ruined by the same temptation, some of us invaded that orchard, but soon retreated, for the man came-after us ata speed reckless of making his lameness worse and cried out, “Boys, drop those apples, orH’ll set the dog on you!” . Well, my friends, there are Christian men who have the church under severe guard. There is fruit in this orchard for the whole ’world, but they have a rough and unsympathetic way of accosting outsiders, as though the Lord wants them all to to come .. and take the largest and ripest fruit on the premises. Have you an idea, because you were baptized at thirteen months of age and because you have all your life been under hallowed influence, that therefore you have a right tp one whole side of the Lord’s table, spreading yourself out and taking up the entire room? I tell you no. You will have to haul in your elbows, for I shall place on either side of you those who you never expected would sit there, for, as Christ said to his favored people long ago, so he says to you and to me, “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold.” So Christ says to us. Here is a knot of Christians, and there is a knot of Christians, but they make up a small part of the flock. Here is the Episcopal fold, the Methodist fold, the Lutheran fold, the Congregational fold, the Presbyterian fold, the Baptist and Pedobaptist fold, the only difference between these last two being the mode of sheep washing, and so they are scattered all over, and we come with our statistics and say there so many thousands of the Lord’s sheep, but Christ responds: “No, no. You have not .seen.more —than one.out of a.thousand of my ffoclc. They are scattered ail over the earth. ‘Other sheep I have which are not of this fold.' ”

In the first place I remark that the heavenly shepherd will find many of his shee.p among the non-church goers. There are congregations where they are all Christians, and they seem to be completely finished, and they remind one of the skeleton leaves which by chemical preparation have had all the green ess and verdure taken off them and are left cold and white and delicate, nothing wanting but a glass case to put over them. The minister of Christ has nothing to do with such Christians but to come once a week and with ostrich feather dust off the accumulation of the last six days, leaving them bright and chrystalline as before. But the other kind of a church is an armory with perpetual sound of drum and fife, gathering recruits for the Lord of Hosts. We say to every applicant: “Do you want to be on God’s side, the safe side and the happy side? If so. come into the army and get equipped. Here is a bath in which to be cleansed. Here are sandals to put upon ytftir feet. Here is a helmet for your brow. Here is a breastplate for your heart. Here is a sword for your right arm and yonder is the battlefield. Acquit yourselves like men.” I remark agaiif, the heavenly Shepherd is going to find a great many of His sheep among those wfio are positive rejectors of Christianity. I do not know how you came to reject Christianity. It may have been through hearing Theodore Parker preach, ior through* reading Renan’s.“Life of Jesus,” or through the infidel talk of some young man in your store. It may have been through the Trickery of some professed Christian man who disgusted you with religion. Ido not ask you how you became so, but you frankly tell me that you do reject it. You do not believe that Christis a divine being, although you admit that H n was a very good man. You do ni t believe that the Bible was inspireu o>f God,although you admit that there are some very fine things in it. You believe that the scriptural description of Eden was only an allegory. There are fifty things that I believe that you do not believe., And yet you are an accommodating man. Everybody that knows you say that of you. If I Should ask you to do a kindness for me, or if anyone else should ask Of you a kindness, you ’ would do it, Now, I have a kindness to ask of you today. It is something that will cost you nothing and will give me great delight. I want you by experiment to try the pbwer of Christas religion. 1 Will you try thatexperimentnow’ Ido not at this point'of my discourse

say that a there is anything in religion,'but I simply say try itc—try it’/ Do hot take my counsel or the counsel of-any clergyman, if you despise clergymen, Perhaps we may be talking professionally. Perhaps wq may in the matter. PeFEaps we may be hypocritical in our utterances. Perhaps our advicefe not worth taking. Then take the counsel of some very respectable layman, as John Miltqq, the poet; as William Wilberforce, the statesman; as Isaac Newton, the astronomer, as Robert Boyle, the philosopher; as Locke, the metaphysician. They never preached or pretended to preach, and yet putting down, one his telescope, and another his parliamentarj' scroll and aroother his electrician’s wire, they all declare the adaptedness of Christ's religion to the wants and troubles of the world. If you will not take the rec/ ommendation of ministers of the gospel then take the recommendation” of highly respectable laymen, O men, skeptical and struck through with unrest, would you not like to have some of the peace which broods over our souls today? I know all about your doubts. I have been through them all. I have gone through all the curriculum. I have doubted whether there is a God—whether Christ is God. I have doubted the immorality of the soul. I have doubted my own existence. I have doubted everything, and yet out of that hot'desert of doubt I have come into the broad, luxuriant, sunshiny land of gospel and peatee and comfort, and so I nave confidence in preaching to you and asking you to come in. Again,l remark that the heavenly shepherd is going to find a great -m.any sheep among those who have flung of evil habit. It makes me sad to see Christian people give up a prodigal as lost. There are those* who talk as though the grace of God were a chain of forty or fifty links, and after they-bad run out there was nothing to touch the depth of a very bad case. If they were hunting an<Tgbt off the trackof the deer, they would look longer among the brakes and bushes for the lost game than they have been looking for that lost soul. People tell us that if a man have delirium tremens twice he cannot be reclaimed; that after a woman has sacrificed her integrity she cannot be restored. The Bible

has distinctly intimated that the Lord Almighty is ready to pardon 490 times—that is 70 times 7. There are men before the throne of God who have wallowed in every kind of sin; but, saved by the grace of Jesus and washed in His blood, they stand there radiant now. There are those who plunged into the very lowest of all hells in New York who have for the tenth time been lifted up and finally, by the grace of God, stand in heaven gloriously rescued by the grace promised the chief of sinners. I want to tell you that God loves, to take hold of a very bad case. When the church casts you off, when the club rooms cast you off, and when society casts you off, and when business associates cast you

off, and when father casts you off, and when mother casts you off, and when everybody casts you off, your first cry for help will bqnd the eternal’ God clear down into the ditch of your suffering and shame. ' The Good Templars cannot save you, although they are a grand institution. The Sons of Temperance cannot save you, although they Pre mighty for good. Signing the temperance pledge cannot save you, although I believe in it. Nothing but the grace of the eternal

God can save you, and that will if you throw yourself upon it. There is a man in this house who said to me: “Unless God helps me I cannot be delivered. I have tried everything, sir, but now I have got into the habit of prayer, and when I come to a drinking saloon I pray that God will take me safe past, and I pray till I am past. He does help me.” ■ ‘‘There are families represented in this house that are wrapped in the martyrdom of fang and scale of venom—a living Laocoon of ghastliness and horror. What are you to do? lam not speaking to the air. lam talking to hundreds of men who must be saved by Christ’s gospel or never saved at all. What are you going to do? Do not put your trust in bromide of potassium or Jamaica ginger or anything that apothecaries caff mix. Put your trust only in the eternal God, and He will see you through. When I have hope for all prodigals there are some people in this house whom I give up. I’mean those who have been church-goers all their life, who have maintained outward morality, but who notwithstanding twenty, thirty, forty*years of Christian advantages, have never yielded their heart to Christ. They arc go - pel hardened. I could call their names now, and if they would rise up they would rise up by scores. Gospel hardened! A sermon has no more effect upon'them than the shining moon on the city pavement. As Christ says, “The publicans and harlots will go into the kingdom of God before them," They have resisted all the importunity of divine mercy and have gone during these thirty years through most powerful earthquakes of religious feeling, and they are farther away from God than ever. After awhile they wi'l lie down sick, and some day it will bo told that they are dead. No hope! But I turn to outsiders with a hope that thrills through my body and soyj. “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold." You arc not gospel hardened. You have not heard or read many sermons during the last few years. As you came in today everything was novel, and all

the services are suggestive of your early days. How sweeCHhe opening hymn sounded in your ears, and how blessed is this hour! Everything suggestive of- heaypn. You do not weep, butthesbower is not far off. You sigh, and you have noticed that there is always a sigh in the wind before the rain falls., There are those here who would give anything if they could find relief in tears. They say; “Oh, my wasted life!,. Oh, the bitter past! Oh, the, graves over which I have stumbled! Whither shall I fly? Alas for the future! Every thingis dark—so dark, so dark. God help me! God pity me!” ‘ Thank the Lord for that last utterance. You have begun topray, and when a man begins to petition that sets all heaven flying this way, and God steps in and beats back the hounds of temptation ’to their kennel, and around about the poor wounded soul putsdhe covert of His pardoning mercy. Hark,- I hear something fall! What was that? It is the bars of the the fence around the sheep-fold. The shepherd lets them down,and the hunted sheep of the mountain bound in,some of them their fleece torn . with the brambles, some of them their feet lame with dogs, but bounding in. Thank God! "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold.”