DANGER IN DELAY.
Dr. Talmage on the Folly of Postponing
the Acceptance of the Gospel.
“~ypatky for the Skeptics — The Time td
Be R
Wasningrox, D. C.—In the following
discourse, prepared by Dr. Talmage before
his illness, the folly and danger of post.
poning the acceptance of the gospel invi-
tation are exposed on the text, Luke xiv,
18, “And they all with one consent began
to make excuse.”
After the invitations to a
sent out the regrets come in. Une
apologizes for non-atlendance on
ground, another on another ground.
most of the regrets are founded on prior
engagements. Do in my text a great
quet was spread, the invitations we
eulated, and now the regrets come
The one gives an agricultural
other a stock dealers reason,
domestic reason All CARO NS i
fact wag, they did not to go. “An
they all with one couscnt began to make
excuse.”
So now God
It is the gospel feast, and t
across the hemispheres, and
go out, and multitudes «
are
man
one
levee
oan
in
FEQson,
the other &
poor 1 .
want
spreads a great hanque!
invita
and
the
tions ome
God's love, while other multitudes decline
coming, the one giving this apology, and
the other giving that apology, “and they
all with one consent begin to make ex-
cuse.” I propose, so far as God way help
me, to examine the apologies which men
make for not entering the Christian life.
Apology the first: I am not sure there
is anything valuable in the Christian re
ligion. It is pleaded that there are
many impositions in this day; so many
things that seem to be real are sham. A
ilded outside may have a hollow inside.
‘here is s0 much quackery in physics, in
ethies, in politics, that men come to the
80
allow that incredulity to collide with our
holy religion. But, my friends, 1 think
religion has made a pretty good record in
the world. How many wounds it
salved! How many pillars fire it
lifted the midnight derness!
ol
in
into the gardens of the
ath stilled the chop;
it it hath se
ri of the
cool water it hatl
Hagar and Ishmael
than coriandes
around the camp of bards
What promises it
watchers to keep the
deathbeds, through
lowers into the sepulcher!
of resurrect morn!
Besides that, this re
many heroes. mn
Methodist, acro Atlant:
his silver trumpet to blow
year of the Lord until
our American cities w
dom of heaven by violence
Ashman into Afr alone.
of naked i to lift
sea! What
through
Ding
hath se
1a nt
ami
on
It brought
the
ald
barians.
of civili and Ch
John Milton among
painters, Christophe
tects, Thorwaldsen among rs,
del among musicians, Dupont among
tary commanders, and to give new wings
to the imaginatiorg and better
801
and grander nobility to the soul there is
nothing in all the earth like our Christian
religion. Nothing in religion? Why, then,
all those Christians were deceived when
in their dving moment they thought they
saw the castles of the blessed, and your
child, that with unutterable agony you
put away into the grave, you
see him again or hear his
nor feel the throb of his
There is nothing in religion?
will come upon you. Roll and
vour pillow: no relief
be bitter, the night may be dark
may be sharp; no relief
comes to the sek-room
stab; let the fever bur
There is nothing in
death will come
ing of pale
The spirit will
body. and it
whither? There
ing angels to conduct.
heaven, no home in
Oh, you are not willing to adopt
dismal theorv!
And yet world is
And let there is no ¢
ple for whom I have a warmer s
than for skeptics. We 4d i
to treat them.
ture them
by the soft hand of Christian love,
sweet
young heart.
Sickness
turn
Christ neve:
Let the pai
: curse it and die
n? After awhi!
1 will hear
horse on the
be breaking away from t
1 Right-w
Cod, no
no (
Nothing
reht
[0 the 1
the
thres;
will take nither
I= no
mimsier
o}
tae
me say
ciuteh
gicism. Ob, if you knew how those men
bad fallen away from Christianity and be
come skeptics you would not be so rough
on them! Some were brought up in homes
where religion was overdone. The most
wretched day in the week was Sunday
Religion was driven into them with = trip
hammer. They had a surfeit of praver
meetings. They were stuffed and choked
with catechisms. They were told by their
parents that they were the worst children
that ever lived because they liked to ride
down hill better than to read “Pilgrim's
Progress.” They never heard their pa-
rents talk of religion but with the corners
of the mouth drawn down and the eyes
rolled up. Others went into skepticism
through maltreatment on the part of some
who professed religion. There is a man
who says: “My partner in business was
conspicuous in prayer meeting, and he
was officious in all religious circles, but
he cheated me out of $3000, and I don't
want any of that religion.” Then there
are others who get into skepticism by a
natural persistence im asking questions,
why or how? How can God be one being
in three persone? They cannot understand
it. Neither can I. How can God be a
complete sovereign and yet man a free
agent? They cannot understand i!
Neither can They cannot understand
why a holy God lets sin come into the
world. Neither can I. They say: “Here
1s a great mystery; here is a disciple of
fashion, frivolous and godless all her days;
she lives on to be an octogenarian, Here
is a Christian mother, training her chil.
dren for God and for heaven, self-sacrific
ing, Christlike. indispensable seemingly to
that household; she gets Lf cancer and
ies e skeptic says, “I can’ )a
that.” Neither Teas 4g BY expan
, I can see how men reason themselves
into skepticism, With burning feet |
have trodden that blistering way. I know
what it is to have a hundred nights
ured into one hour. There are men in
he arid desert of doubt who would give
their thousands of dollars if they could
t back to the old religion of their
athers. Such men are not to be carica
tured, but heiped, and not through their
heads, but through their Reavis, When
men really do come into the kin
fom of God, they will be worth far ——
© the cause of Christ than those who
ever examined the evidences of Chris
ianity. Thomas Chalmers onee a skeptic,
tobert Hall once a skeptic, Christmas
Svans once a skeptic; but when they did
ay hold of the gospel charict how they
made it speed ahead! If, therefore. 1 ad.
dress men and women who have drifted
away into skepticism. I throw out no
scoil; 1 rather implead you by the mem.
ory of those g
melt at your Mother'y
old times when you
t knee and said your
evening prayer and those other days of
ness when she watched all night and
gave you the medicines at just the right
time and turned the pillow when it ¥
hot and with hand long ags turned to
dust soothed vour pains and with that
voice you will never hear again unless yon
Join her in the better country, told you
’
Wis
i
!
:
pever mind, and by that dying couch
where she talkvd so slowly, catching her
breath between the words—by all those
memories 1 ask you to come and take
the same religion. It was good enough for
her; it is good enough for you. ve, |
make a Letter plea: By the wounds and
the death throe of the Son of God, who
approaches you in infinite love with
torn brow and lacerated hands and
whipped back, crying, “Come unto Me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
1 will give you rest!”
Other persons apologize for not enter
ing the Christian life because ol the in
corrigibility of their temperament. Now,
we admit it is harder some people to
become Christians than for others, but {
of God never came to a meuntain
it could not climb or to an abyss that
it could not fathom or to a bondage that
it could not break. The wildest horse that
ever trod Arabian sands has been broken
to bit and trace
The idest {orre
fon
he
grace
that
from
to
& v
tng
nt tumbling
harnessed
band, se
shutt il buzz and a-ciat
haughtiest, the
overnable created by
God ma bdued and sent
stry of kindness, as God gends
ind vater the wild
Peter, wilh
sea that
ane look
bitterly
grown on
and flocks of
pasturage in
Lain i neen
» mill wheel and the factory
thousand
And the widest
un
grace of
On min
went
iv be the
summit of tne ngyed steep,
Christi races mn find
fields oi } ]
hough
sirietie
may be all
though
1 quick light
be like that of
“Give!” thougn
wrapped you in
all consuming can drive that
devil out of your soul, and over the chaos
and the darkness He can say, “Let there
be ”
The best
a neight
loctors,
thant
tne
ther
yu who
+ and co
a-l you
4)
have a temper
nings. though vour avarice
the horse leect
damnable img
Light
Iga
re are all
7 an enterpn
store 1s in a place
barga.n do not under
business, and the best place
the
makers
ecome
anristian,
» right d
Jack, NO An
letter travel
i
ANG
houseless and
an to go through
and barefooled
and friendices
without religion
headed
Romelean t
life
statesman or Iavelock any less of a
80
idier or Grinnell any
¢
religion 12 the best
it is the sweet.
the
Why, my friends,
security in every bargain;
e3t note In every song
in very coronet in
Why, you will have t
sick, to be troud to
mw only the i Tom
rbark for he
is
t
die
which
Our
we
to be
vorid
the
uough
perhaps
¢ be there
set, but 1 wil
! Not yet!
be there at the close.”
vet Now, 1 do not give
doleful view f this If There
ioieiul it ol this ere ia
in my natare, nothing in the
God, that tends toward a dolefal
human life
any
nothing
grace of
view of
I have not muca sympathy with Ad-
dison’s description of the “Vision of
Mirza,” where he represents human hfe
both ends of the bridge covered with
of them through the first
falling down
the last spen.
It is a very dismal picture
much sympathy with the Spanish proverb
which says, “The sky is good and the earth
carth and the sky.”
But, while we as
must also confess that life is a great un
certainty and that man who
time enough yet,"
finite
is running a risk in
and steeper and that you are gathering
may not'answer to the brakes.
Be not among those who give their
corpse to God. It does not
while our pulses are in full
serve ourselves and
we serve the world
a coffin,
van our ship from coast to coasi carrying
the shivered timbers.
for a man on his dying pillow to repent--
better that than never at all;
much better, how much more generons, it
would have been if he had repented filty
vears before! My friends, you will never
get over these procrastinations,
We have started on a march from which
there is no retreat. The shadows
eternity gather on our pathway. How
insignificant is time compared with the
vast eternity! As | was thinking of this
one day while coming down over the Alle.
ghany Mountains at noon, by that won-
derful pass which you all have heard de
soribed as the Horseshoe—a depression in
aimost turns back again upon itself, and
you see how appropriate ix the name of
the Horseshoe—and thinking on this ve
theme and preparing this very seriton:
seemed to me as il the great courser of
eternity Speeding along d just strock
the monntain h one hoof and gone on
ints illimitable space. So short is time,
#0 insignificant is earth, compared with
the vast aternily! This moment voices roll
doven the sky snd all the ‘vorlds of light
are ready to wejoice at your disenthrall
ment. Kush vot into the presence of the
King ragged with sin when von may have
this robe of righteousness, h not your
foot Alcan against the throne of a cruel
fied Christ. Throw not your erown of life
off the battlements. All the scribes of
God are at this hour ready with volumes
of living light to record the news of your
emancipated,
(Copyright, Ing, L. Kiopsch.)
An Obliging Caller.
When Monsieur Clemenceau was in
the French Chamber of Deputies he be
came, for some reason, the idol of the
working man; but his popularity, ac
cording to the course of nature, brought
its penalties. He was besieged by all
sorts of people, who came merely to ask
questions, and sometimes they were
questions of the most trivial sort
He was originally a doctor, and used
to give advice for nothing at certain
hours of the day. One morning a work
ing man entered his room, and Cle
menceau said, without looking up from
his writing
“Take off your coat and shirt
tend to you directly.”
Three minutes later he
had stripped to the wi
I'here 1s nothing
) " said the Doctor,
made an examination
“1 know
man
I'l at
found the man
with
matter
vol, hen he had
there isn't
"To
tion.”
“But what did you strip for?”
“1 thought vou wanted
of the emaciated body of
Hves sweat of his brow”
I'he political
swered. Monsieur
exasperated
man to dress
Companion
consu
an
the
by the
question remained
Clemenceau y
more than teil
go home. ~You
io do
and
Tendon.
in Lon
are a few
the
Inquisitive American In
A curious American arrived
don the other morning. Here
of the questions he asked in
ing: Why do bute i
which will n
wot shops wear immaculate
? “Why is footwear
polishes
even
ue aprons
assist
hers wear |
show dirt,
ant
white aprons
“r who
Why
mn Bridge
the
y
the
there
Sta
iste
i
straw na
: .q
m1 get Dreaktast
A Bait of Rattlesnake Skins,
A peculiarly interesting and highly
valued curiosity In the possession of
an Ameri gentleman named Peter
Gruber, of Rochester, N. Y., Is a com-
of made from the
gewn together
an
plete suit clothes
aki ¢
skins of
NO
requisitioned to
rattlesnakes
fewer than rattiesnakes
the necessary
Four different
of rattiers were comprised
suit-—black yellow and
gray—and the judicious arrangement
of these variegated skine presents a pe-
culiar and bizarre effect. The buttons
are rattlesnakes’ heads stuffed, and
supplied with brilliant bead eves. Even
Mr. Gruber's hat and stick are covered
with skins, ndering the attire most
extraordinary The owner would not
part with it for any sum of money, for
it is the only one of its kind in exist.
ence,
were
125
supply
skins for this purpose
specimens
he
in brown,
Gisss Made by Lightalag.
Tubes of glass made by lightning are
often found in sand, The electricity
passes into the ground and melts the
siliclous material, forming little pipes,
inside diameter of which repre-
gents the “bore” of the “thunderbolt
Such measuring as much as 27
feet in lensth have been discovered
No doubt exists as to the method of
their manufacture
have sought for them and dug them u
the
tubes
lightning
to reproduce them artificially by pase
ing a powerful current of electricity
through finely powdered glass. In this
way pipes nearly an inch long and as
big as a darning needle have been ob
tained. From the comparative size
one gets a notion of the enormous en
ergy of lightning.
~ CHANGE OF LIFE.
men by Mrs. E. Sailer,
——
“Dear Mrs. Pixgmasm:— When I
through what is known as
‘change of life,’ I had two years’ suf-
fering, — sudden heat, and as quick
chills would pass over me ; my appetite
was variable and I never could tell for
MRS. E SAILER,
President German Relief! Association,
Los Angeles, Cal.
a day at a time how 1 would feel the
next day. Five bottles of Lydia BE,
Pionkham's Vegetable Compound
changed all that, my days became days
of health, and I have enjoyed every day
since-—now six years.
** We have used considerable of your
Vegetable Compound in our charitable
work, as we find that to restore a
mother to health so she can support
self and those dependent her
such there be, is truer o
end you hy
yourself a true friend to suffering wo-
men 0 h EB Salm, 756) St,
Delon, == §6000 forfeit |f above ter.
No other person can give such
helpful advice to women
are sick as can Mrs.
for no other has had such
u are sick write her—you are
te tr bine
from Tomahawk to Shoe. brush.
Sitting Bull's eldest son is a bootblack,
His name is Montezuma, and he is a
graduate of the Carlisle Indian School.
After his schooling he went to Phil-
wer the profession he would adopt. At
1 banker, and then, when no one seemed
1 master merchant Jut he was begin
ning to learn that there is royal road to
riches, and he thereupon decided that he
would black shoes
For a few cents he bought the regula
tion kit, and it was not long before he
could send for Winonah, from the Rose
bug Agency, the girl who had promised
to marry him. Instead of the séap box
which Montezuma an
] handsome stand
if chief
bust
once carried for
now a a
5 3
Y Outh
Threat,
Fay—He 1
refused
Maa
Vid}
Fay
pose 10 me agam
Y Ou
Yes;
don’t
he declared he'd never pro
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