299. Meanness of Infidelity

Meanness of Infidelity

Jer_36:23 : ’93When Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with a penknife.’94

On a former occasion I employed this text for a different purpose from that for which I shall now employ it. There sits Jehoiakim in the winter house, his feet to the fire, which is blazing and crackling on the hearth. His private secretary, Jehudi, is reading to him from a scroll containing God’92s words to Jeremiah. Jehoiakim is displeased at the message, gets very red in the face, jumps up and snatches the scroll from the hand of his private secretary, takes out his penknife, and cuts and slashes it all to pieces. Jehoiakim was under the impression that if he destroyed the scroll he would destroy the prophecy. Ah! no. Jeremiah immediately takes another scroll and the prophecy is redictated. The fact is that all the penknives ever made at Sheffield and in all the cutleries of the world cannot successfully destroy the Scriptures. We have Jehoiakims in our day, representatives of the infidelity of the hour, who propose with their penknives to hack the Word of God to pieces. With that penknife they try to stab Moses, and to stab Joshua, and to stab all the prophets and apostles, and evangelists, and to stab Christ, and to stab the God of the Bible; but while they are cutting to pieces their own copies of the Bible’97for I suppose they have only one copy of this dangerous book in their houses, and that carefully guarded and locked up so none of their friends may be poisoned by it’97there are innumerable copies of the Bible being distributed.

No book, secular or religious, ever multiplied with such speed and into such vastness as the Word of God. Disraeli’92s ’93Endymion,’94 Macaulay’92s ’93History of England,’94 Shakespeare’92s dramas, having very small and limited reading and very small and limited sale and distribution as compared with this Book, which, after for centuries being bombarded by thousands of enemies, today has abroad over three hundred millions of copies. Where one Bible dies, ten thousand Bibles are born. Cut away, then, with your infidel penknives.

These infidels propose to cut the Bible to pieces in ridicule. Now, I like fun; no man was ever built with a keener appreciation of it. There is health in laughter instead of harm’97physical health, mental health, moral health, spiritual health’97provided you laugh at the right thing. The morning is jocund. The Indian with its own mist baptizes the cataract Minnehaha, or laughing water. You have not kept your eyes open, or your ears alert, if you have not seen the sea smile, or heard the forests clap their hands, or the orchards in blossom-week aglee with redolence. But there is a laughter which is dreadful, there is a laughter which has the rebound of despair. It is not healthy to giggle about God, or chuckle about eternity, or smirk about the things of the immortal soul.

You know what caused the accident some years ago on the Hudson River Railroad. It was an intoxicated man who for a joke pulled the string of the air brake and stopped the train at the most dangerous point of the journey. But the lightning express train, not knowing there was any impediment in the way, came down crushing out of the mangled victims the immortal souls that went speeding instantly to God and judgment. It was only a joke. He thought it would be such fun to stop the train. He stopped it! And so these infidel champions are chiefly anxious to stop the long train of the Bible, and the long train of the churches, and the long train of Christian influences, while coming down upon us are death, judgment, and eternity, coming a thousand miles a minute, coming with more force than all the avalanches that every slipped from the Alps, coming with more strength than all the lightning express trains that ever whistled, or shrieked, or thundered across the continent. Stop! say the infidels, it is only a joke. It is a spectacle which almost splits them with laughter. It is a subject which, though agonizing the nations, throws them into uproars of laughter; and the theme of their funniest lectures, as you see them advertised, is the most stupendous question that was ever asked: ’93What must I do to be saved?’94 It is only a joke.

In my reply to the champions of infidelity, I have shown you in other discourses the untruth of infidelity, the blasphemy of it, the unfairness of it, the outrage of it. I now show you the meanness of it, a subject upon which no one has yet dwelt’97the meanness of infidelity.

These infidel advocates demonstrate the meanness of infidelity, by trying to substitute for the chief consolation of the world absolutely nothing. You have only to hear them at the edge of the grave, or at the edge of the coffin, discoursing, to find out that there is no comfort in infidelity. There is more good cheer in the hooting of an owl at midnight than in their discourses at the verge of the grave. You might as well ask the spirit of eternal darkness to discourse on the brightness of everlasting day. You know there are millions of people who get their chief consolation from this Holy Book. Now, they propose to take away that consolation. What do you think of it? What would you think of a crusade of this sort? Suppose a man should resolve that he would organize a conspiracy to destroy all the medicines from all the apothecaries and from all the hospitals of the earth. The work is done. The medicines are taken and they are thrown into the river, or the lake, or the sea. A patient wakes up at midnight in a paroxysm of distress and wants an anodyne. ’93Oh,’94 says the nurse, ’93the anodynes are all destroyed; we have no drops to give you, but instead of that I’92ll read you a lecture on the absurdities of morphine, and on the absurdities of all remedies.’94 But the man continues to writhe in pain, and the nurse says: ’93I’92ll continue to read you some discourses on anodynes, the cruelties of anodynes, the indecencies of anodynes, the absurdities of anodynes. For your groan, I’92ll give you a laugh.’94 Here in the hospital is a patient having a gangrened limb amputated. He says, ’93O for ether! O for chloroform!’94 The doctors say, ’93Why, they are all destroyed; we do not have any more chloroform, or ether; but I have something a great deal better. I’92ll read you a lecture on the mistakes of James Y. Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform as an anaesthetic, and upon the mistakes of Doctors Agnew, and Hamilton, and Hosack, and Mott, and Harvey, and Abernethy.’94 ’93But,’94 says the man, ’93I must have some an’e6sthetics.’94 ’93No,’94 say the doctors, ’93they are all destroyed, but we have got something a great deal better.’94 ’93What is that?’94 ’93Fun.’94 Fun about medicines. Lie down, all ye patients in Bellevue Hospital and stop your groaning’97all ye broken-hearted of all the cities, and quit your crying; we have the catholicon at last! Here is a dose of wit, here is a strengthening plaster of sarcasm, here is a bottle of ribaldry that you are to keep well shaken up and take a spoonful of after each meal, and if that does not cure you, here is a solution of blasphemy in which you may bathe, and here is a tincture of derision. Tickle the skeleton of death with a repartee! Make the King of Terrors cackle! For all the agonies of all the ages, a joke!

Millions of people willing with uplifted hand toward heaven to affirm that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is full of consolation for them, and yet these champions of infidelity propose to take it away, giving nothing, absolutely nothing, except fun. Is there any greater height, or depth, or length, or breadth, or immensity of meanness in all God’92s universe!

These advocates of unbelief still further demonstrate the meanness of infidelity by trying to substitute for the Bible explanation of the future world a religion of ’93don’92t know.’94 Is there a God? Don’92t know! Is the soul immortal? Don’92t know! If we should meet each other in the future world will we recognize each other? Don’92t know! These men propose to substitute the religion of ’93don’92t know’94 for the religion of ’93I know.’94 ’93I know in whom I have believed.’94 ’93I know that my Redeemer liveth.’94 Infidelity proposes to substitute a religion of awful negatives for our religion of glorious positives, showing right before us a world of reunion and ecstasy, and high companionship, and glorious worship, and stupendous victory; the mightiest joy of earth not high enough to reach to the base of the Himalaya of uplifted splendor awaiting all those who on wing of Christian faith will soar toward it.

Have you heard of the conspiracy to put out all the lighthouses on the coast? Do you know that on a certain night of next month, Eddystone Lighthouse, Bell Rock Lighthouse, Sherryvore Lighthouse, Montauk Lighthouse, Hatteras Lighthouse, New London Lighthouse, Barnegat Lighthouse, and the six hundred and forty lighthouses on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts are to be extinguished? ’93O!’94 you say, ’93what will become of the ships on that night? What will be the fate of the one million sailors following the sea? What will be the doom of the millions of passengers? Who will arise to put down such a conspiracy?’94 Every man, woman, and child in America, and the world. But that is only a fable. That is what infidelity is trying to do, put out all the lighthouses on the coast of eternity, letting the soul go up the ’93Narrows’94 of death with no light, no comfort, no peace’97all that coast covered with the blackness of darkness. Instead of the great lighthouse, a glow-worm of wit, a firefly of jocosity. Which do you like the better, O voyager for eternity!’97the firefly or the lighthouse? What a mission infidelity has started on! The extinguishment of lighthouses, the breaking up of lifeboats, the dismissal of all the pilots, the turning of the inscription on your child’92s grave into a farce and a lie.

Walter Scott’92s ’93Old Mortality,’94 chisel in hand, went through the land to cut out into plainer letters the half-obliterated inscriptions on the tombstones, and it was a beautiful mission. But these infidel iconoclasts are spending their lives, with hammer and chisel trying to cut out from the tombstones of your dead all the story of resurrection and heaven. They are the iconoclasts of every village graveyard, and of every city cemetery, and of Westminster Abbey. Instead of Christian consolation for the dying, a freezing sneer. Instead of prayer, a grimace, instead of Paul’92s triumphant defiance of death, a going out you know not where, to stop you know not when, to do you know not what. That is infidelity.

To show that infidelity can provide no substitute for what it proposes to destroy, I ask you to mention the names of the merciful and the educational institutions which Infidelity founded and is supporting, and has supported all the way through; institutions pronounced against God and the Christian religion and yet pronounced in behalf of suffering humanity. What are the names of them? Certainly not the United States Christian Commission, or the Sanitary Commission; for Christian George H. Stuart was the president of the one, and Christian Henry W. Bellows was the president of the other. Where are the asylums and merciful institutions founded by Infidelity and supported by Infidelity, pronounced against God and the Bible, and yet doing work for the alleviation of suffering? Infidelity is so very loud in its braggadocio it must have some to mention. Certainly if you come to speak of educational institutions it is not Yale, it is not Harvard, it is not Princeton, it is not Middletown, it is not Cambridge or Oxford, it is not any institution from which a diploma would be an honor. Do you point to the German universities as exceptions? I have to tell you that all the German universities today are under positive Christian influences, except the University of Heidelberg, where the ruffianly students cut and maul and mangle and murder each other as a matter of pride instead of infamy. The duello is the chief characteristic of that institution.

There stands Christianity. There stands Infidelity. Compare what they have done. Compare their resources. There is Christianity, a prayer on her lip; a benediction on her brow; both hands full of help for all who want help; the mother of thousands of colleges; the mother of thousands of asylums for the oppressed, the blind, the sick, the lame, the imbecile; the mother of missions for the bringing back of the outcast; the mother of thousands of reformatory institutions for the saving of the lost; the mother of innumerable Sabbath schools bringing millions of children tinder a drill to prepare them for respectability and usefulness, to say nothing of the great future. That is Christianity.

Here is Infidelity; no prayer on her lips; no benediction on her brow, both hands clenched’97what for? To fight Christianity. That is the entire business, the complete mission, of Infidelity, to fight Christianity. Where are her schools, her colleges, her asylums of mercy? Let me throw you down a whole ream of foolscap paper that you may fill all of it with the names of her beneficent institutions, the colleges and the asylums, the institutions of mercy and of learning, founded by Infidelity and supported alone by Infidelity, pronounced against God and the Christian religion, and yet in favor of making the world better. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93a ream of paper is too much for the names of those institutions.’94 Well, then, I throw you in a quire of paper. Fill it all up now. I will wait until you get all the names down. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93that is too much.’94 Well, then, I will just hand you a sheet of letter paper. Just fill up the four sides while we are talking of this matter, with the names of the merciful institutions and the educational institutions founded by Infidelity and supported all along by Infidelity, pronounced against God and the Christian religion, yet in favor of humanity. ’93Oh!’94 you say, ’93that is too much room; we do not want a whole sheet of paper to write down the names.’94 Perhaps I had better tear out one leaf from my hymn book and ask you to fill up both sides of it with the names of such institutions. ’93Oh!’94 you say, ’93that would be too much room; you wouldn’92t want so much room as that.’94 Well, then, suppose you count them on your ten fingers. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93not quite so much as that.’94 Well, then, count them on the fingers of one hand. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93we don;t want quite so much room as that.’94 Suppose, then, you halt and count on one finger the name of any institution founded by Infidelity, supported entirely by Infidelity, pronounced against God and the Christian religion, yet toiling to make the world better. Not one! Not one!

Is infidelity so poor, so starveling, so mean, so useless? Get out, you miserable pauper of the universe! Crawl into some rat hole of everlasting nothingness. Infidelity standing today amid the suffering, groaning, dying nations and yet doing absolutely nothing save trying to impede those who are toiling until they fall exhausted into their graves in trying to make the world better. Gather up all the merciful work that Infidelity has ever done, add it all together, and there is not so much nobility in it as in the smallest bead of that deaconess who last night went up the dark alley of the town and put a jar of jelly for an invalid appetite on a broken stand, and then knelt on the bare floor, praying the mercy of Christ upon the dying soul. Infidelity scrapes no lint for the wounded, bakes no bread for the hungry, shakes up no pillow for the sick, rouses no comfort for the bereft, gilds no grave for the dead. While Christ, our Christ, our wounded Christ, our risen Christ, the Christ of this old-fashioned Bible’97blessed be his glorious name forever!’97our Christ stands this morning pointing to the hospital, or to the asylum, saying: ’93I was sick and ye gave me a couch, I was lame and ye gave me a crutch, I was blind and ye physicianed my eyesight, I was orphaned and ye mothered my soul, I was lost on the mountains and ye brought me home; inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, ye did it for me.’94

Oh! what a magnificent array of men and women have been made by the religion of the Bible. I cannot call the roll; it would take me all of this day and to-night and to-morrow to call the roll. I call the roll only of a part of one company of a regiment of a brigade of an army of magnificent men and women innumerable: John Howard, David Brainerd, George Whitefield, Martin Luther, Adoniram Judson, Alexander Duff, Henry Martyn, William Wilberforce, Richard Cobden, Bishop McIlvaine, James A. Garfield, George Washington, Victoria the Queen, Hannah More, Charlotte Elizabeth, Harriet Newell, Mrs. Sigourney, Florence Nightingale, Lucretia Mott, and ten thousand other men and women, living and dead, standing in the present and in the past, aflame with the transpicuous glories of the Christian religion!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage