The Worlds Great Sermons, Volume 8

The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little

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Title: The world's great sermons, Volume 8 Talmage to Knox Little
Author: Grenville Kleiser
Release Date: March 24, 2004 [EBook #11693]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Formerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty; Author of "How to Speak in Public," Etc.
With Assistance from Many of the Foremost Living Preachers and Other Theologians
INTRODUCTION BY LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D.D.
Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology in Yale University
VOLUME VIII TALMAGE TO KNOX LITTLE
1908

CONTENTS
VOLUME VIII.
TALMAGE (1832-1901). A Bloody Monster
SPURGEON (1834-1892). Songs in the Night
POTTER (1834-1908) Memorial Discourse on Phillips Brooks
ABBOTT (Born in 1835). The Divinity in Humanity
BROOKS (1835-1893). The Pride of Life
GLADDEST (Born in 1836). The Prince of Life
CLIFFORD (Born in 1836). The Forgiveness of Sins
MOODY (1837-1899). What Think Ye of Christ?
FOWLER (1837-1908). The Spirit of Christ
WHYTE (Born in 1837). Experience
WATKINSON (Born in 1838). The Transfigured Sackcloth
LORIMER (1838-1904). The Fall of Satan
LITTLE (Born in 1839). Thirst Satisfied

TALMAGE
A BLOODY MONSTER
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Thomas De Witt Talmage was born at Bound Brook, N.J., in 1832. For many years he preached to large and enthusiastic congregations at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. At one time six hundred newspapers regularly printed his sermons. He was a man of great vitality, optimistic by nature, and particularly popular with young people. His voice was rather high and unmusical, but his distinct enunciation and earnestness of manner gave a peculiar attraction to his pulpit oratory. His rhetoric has been criticized for floridness and sensationalism, but his word pictures held multitudes of people spellbound as in the presence of a master. He died in 1901.

TALMAGE
1832--1901
A BLOODY MONSTER[1]
[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch, and reprinted by permission.]
_It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him._--Gen. xxxvii., 33.
Joseph's brethren dipt their brother's coat in goat's blood, and then brought the dabbled garment to their father, cheating him with the idea that a ferocious animal had slain him, and thus hiding their infamous behavior. But there is no deception about that which we hold up to your observation to-day. A monster such as never ranged African thicket or Hindustan jungle hath tracked this land, and with bloody maw hath strewn the continent with the mangled carcasses of whole generations; and there are tens of thousands of fathers and mothers who could hold up the garment of their slain boy, truthfully exclaiming, "It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him." There has, in all ages and climes, been a tendency to the improper use of stimulants. Noah took to strong drink. By this vice, Alexander the Conqueror was conquered. The Romans at their feasts fell off their seats with intoxication. Four hundred millions of our race are opium-eaters. India, Turkey, and China have groaned with the desolation; and by it have been quenched such lights as Halley and De Quincey. One hundred millions are the victims of the betelnut, which has specially blasted the East Indies. Three hundred millions chew hashish, and Persia, Brazil, and Africa suffer the delirium. The Tartars employ murowa; the Mexicans, the agave; the people at Guarapo, an intoxicating product taken from sugarcane; while a great multitude, that no man can number, are the votaries of alcohol. To it they bow. Under it they are trampled. In its trenches they fall. On its ghastly holocaust they burn. Could the muster-roll of this great army be called, and could they come up from the dead, what eye could endure the reeking, festering putrefaction? What heart could endure the groan of agony? Drunkenness! Does it not jingle the burglar's key? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock the highwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has it not sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the minister with his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, from the very top of his fame, fall a gibbering sot, into the gutter, on his way to be married to one of the fairest daughters of New England, and at the very hour the bride was decking herself for the altar; and did he not die of delirium tremens, almost unattended, in a hospital? Tamerlane asked for one hundred and sixty thousand skulls with which to build a pyramid to his own honor. He got the skulls, and built the pyramid. But if the bones of all those who have fallen as a prey to