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12 THE SUNNY SOUTH.
ATLANTA, GA., MAY 20, 1890.
DARKNESS ETERNAL
WHAT THE EARTH WOULD BE WITHOUT THE
GOSPEL.
Rev. Dr. Talmage Vividly Portrays the Gloom of an
Infidel World—Triumph of Atheism Would
Mean Death to Civilization.
WASHINGTON, May 14.—In this sermon
Dr. Tsliuago gives a glimpse of what the
world would be if the gospel wero abolish
ed and the human race left without divine
guidance. The text Is Acts 11, 20, “The
sun shall bo turned Into darkness."
Christianity Is the rising min of our
time, und men have tried with the uproll-
ing vapors of skepticism and the smoke of
their blasphemy to turn the sun Into dark
ness. Supposo the archangels of malice
and horror should bo let loose a little
while and bo allowed to extinguish and
destroy tho sun in the natural heavens 1
They would take the oceans from other
worlds and pour them on the luminary of
the planetary system, and tho waters go
hissing down amid the ravines and the
caverns, and there is explosion after ex
plosion, until there are only a few peaks
of lire left in the sun, and these are cool
ing down and going out until the vast
coutinents cf flame are roduced to a small
acreage of fire, and that whitens and cools
off until there are only a few coals left,
and these are whitening and going out
until there is not a spark left in all the
mountains of aslies and the valleys of
ashes and tho chasms of ashes. An ex
tinguished sun ! A dead sun! A buried
6un! Let all worlds wail at tho stupen
dous obsequies.
Of course this withdrawal of the solar
light and heat throws our earth into a
universal chill, and the tropics become the
temperate, and tho temperate becomes the
arctic, and thero are frozen rivers and
frozen lakes and frozen oceans. From
arctic and antarctic regions the inhabit
ants gather in toward the center and find
the equator as tho poles. The slain forests
are pilod up into a great bonfire, and
around them gather the shivering villages
and cities. The wealth of the coal mines
is hastily poured into the furnaces and
stirred into rage of combustion, but soon
the bonfires begin to lower, and the fur
naces begin to go out, and tho nations be
gin to die. Cotopaxi, Vesuvius, Etna,
Stromboli, California geysers, cease to
smoke, and the ice of hailstorms remains
unmoltcd in their crater. All tho flowers
have breathed their last breath. Ships
with sailors frozen at tho mast, and
helmsmen frozen at the wheel, and pas
sengers frozen in the cabin, all nations
dying, first at the north and then at the
south. Child frosted and dead in the
cradle. Octogenarian frosted and dead at
the hearth. Workmen with frozen hund
on tho hammer and frozen foot on tho
shuttle. Winter from sea to sea. All
congealing winter. Perpetual winter.
Globe of frigidity. Hemisphere shackled
to hemisphere by chains of ice. Universal
Nova Zembla. The earth an ice floe grind
ing against other icc floes. The archangels
of malice and horror have done their work,
and now they may take their thrones of
glacier and look down upon the ruin they
have wrought. What the destruction of
the sun in the natural heavens would bo
to our physical earth, tho destruction of
Christianity would bo to tho moral world.
The sun turned into darkness! ‘
Infidelity a Tragedy.
Infidelity in our time is considered a
great joke. There are people who rejoice
to hear Christianity caricatured and to
hear Christ assailed with quibble and
quirk and misrepresentation and badinage
and harlequinado. I propose today to take
infidelity and atheism out of the realm of
jocularity into one of tragedy and show
you what infidels propose and what if they
are successful they will accomplish. There
are those in all our communities who
would like to see tho Christian religion
overthrown and who say tho world would
be better without it. I wont to show you
what is tho end of this road and what is
the terminus of this crusade and what this
world will be when atheism and infidelity
have triumphed over it, if they can. I
say, if they can. I reiterate it, if they can.
In the first place, it will bo the complete
and unutterable degradation of woman
hood. I will provo it by facts and argu
ments which no honest man will dispute.
In all communities and cities and states
and nations where tho Christian religion
has been dominant woman’s condition
has been ameliorated and improved, and
she is deferred to and honored in a thou
sand things, and every gentleman takes
off his hat before her. If your associations
have been good, you know that tho name
of wife, mother, daughter, suggests gra
cious surroundings. You know there are
no better schools and seminaries in this
oountry than the schools and seminaries
for our young ladies. You know that
whilo woman may suffer injustice in Eng
land and the United States she has more
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of her rights in Christendom than she has
anywhere else.
Woman end Christianity.
Now, compare this with woman’s con
dition In lands where Christianity has
made little or no advance—In China, in
Barbary, in Borneo, in Tartary, in Egypt,
in Hindustan. Tho Burmese sell their
wives and daughters as so many sheep.
The Hindoo Bible makes it disgraceful
and an*outrage for a woman to llston to
muslo or look out of tho window In the
absenoeof her husband and gives as a
lawful ground for divorce a woman’s be
ginning to cat before her husband has
finished ills meal. What mean those white
bundles on the ponds and rivers in China
In the morning? Infanticide following
Infanticide. Female children destroyed
simply because they nro female. Woman
harnessed to the plow as an ox. Woman
veiled and barricaded and In all styles of
cruel seclusion. Her birth a misfortune.
Her life a torture. Her death a horror.
The missionary of the cross today in
heathen lands preaches generally to two
groups—a group of men who do as they
please and sit where they please; the other
group, women hidden and carefully se
cluded in a side apartment, where they
may hear the voice of the preacher, but
may not be seen. No refinement. No lib
erty. No hope for this life. No hope for
the life to come. Ringed nose. Cramped
foot. Disfigured face. Embruted soul.
Now, compare those two conditions. How
far toward this latter condition that I
speak of would woman go if Christian in
fluences wero withdrawn and Christianity
were destroyed? It is only a question of
dynamics. If an object be lifted to a cer
tain point and not fastened there and the
lifting power be withdrawn, how long be
fore that object will fall down to the point
from which it started? It will fall down,
and it will go still farther than the point
from which it started. Christianity has
lifted woman up from the very dopths of
degradation almost to the skies. If that
lifting power be withdrawn, she falls cleat
back to the depth from which she was res-
sorrected, not going any lower, because
there is no lower depth. And yet. not
withstanding tho fact that the only salva
tion of woman from degradation and woe
is the Christian religion—and the only in
fluence that has ever lifted her in the social
scales is Christianity—I have read that
there are women who reject Christianity.
I make no remark in regard to those per
sons. In tho silence of your own soul
make your observations.
Society Demoralised.
If infidelity triumph and Christianity
be overthrown, it means the demoraliza
tion of society. The one idea in the Bible
that atheists and infidels most hate is tho
idea of retribution. Take away the idea
of retribution and punishment from so
ciety, and it will begin very soon to dis
integrate, and take away from the minds
of men tho fear of hell, and there are a
great many of thorn who would very soon
turn this world into a hell. The majority
of those who are inuigr.anu-againot the
Bible because of the idea of punishment
aro men whoso lives are bad or whoso
hearts are impure and who hate tho Bible
because of the idea of future punishment
for tho same reason that criminals hate
the penitentiary. Oh, I havo heard this
brave talk about people fearing nothing
of the consequences of sin in the next
world, and I have made up my mind it is
merely a coward’s whistling to keep his
courage up. I have seen men flaunt their
immoralities in the face of the communi
ty, and I have heard them defy the judg
ment day and scoff at the idea of any fu
ture consequonco of their sin, but when
they came to die they shrieked until you
could hear them for nearly two blocks, and
in the summer night the neighbors got up
to put the windows down because they
oould not endure the horror.
I would not want to see a rail train
with 500 Christian people on board go
down through a drawbridge into a watery
grave; I would not want to see 500 Chris
tian people go into such disaster, but I tell
you plainly that I could more easily see
that than I could for any protracted time
stand and see an infidel die, though his
pillow were of eider down and under a
canopy of vermilion. I have never been
able to brace up my nerves for such a
spectacle. There is something at such a
time so indescribable in the countenance.
I just looked in upon it for a minute or
two, but the clutch of his fist was so dia
bolic and the strength of his voice was so
unnatural I could not endure it. “Thero
is no hell, there is no hell, there is no
helll" the man had said for 60 years, but
that night when I looked in the dying
room of my infidel neighbor there was
something on his countenance which seem
ed to say, “There is, there is, there is,
there is!” The mightiest restraints today
against theft, against immorality, against
libertinism, against crime of all sorts—the
mightiest restraints are the retributions
of eternity. Men know that they can es
cape the law, but down in the offenders'
soul there is the realization of the fact
that they cannot escape God. He stands
at the end of the road of profligacy, and
ho will not clear the guilty. Take all idea
of retribution and punishment out of the
hearts and minds of men, and it would
not be long before our cities would become
Sodoins. Tho only restraints against the
evil passions of the world today are Bible
restraints.
If Atheism Triumphed.
Suppose now these generals of atheism
and infidelity got the victory and suppose
they marshaled a great army made up of
the majority of the world. They are in
companies, in regiments, in brigades—the
whole army. Forward, march, ye hosts
of infidels and atheists, banners flying be
fore, banners flying behind, banners in
scribed with the words: “No God! No
Christ! No Punishment! No Restraints!
Down With the Bible! Do as You Please!"
The sun turned into darkness!
Forward, march, ye great army of In
fidels and atheists! And first of all you
will attack the churches. Away with
those houses of worship! They have been
standing there so long deluding the people
with consolation in their bereavements
and sorrows. All those churches ought to
be extirpated, they have done so much to
relievo the lost and bring home the wan
dering, and they have so long held up the
idea of eternal rest after the paroxysm of
this life is over. Turn the St. Peters and
St. Pauls and the temples and taber
nacles into olubhouses. Away with those
churches!
Forward, march, ye great army of In
fidels and atheists, and nbxt of all they
scatter the Sabbath schools filled with
bright eyed, rosy cheeked littlo ones who
aro singing songs on Sunday afternoon
and getting instruction when they ought
to be ou the street corners playing marbles
or swearing on the commons. Away with
them 1 Forward, march, ye groat army of
infidels and atheists, and next of all they
will attack Christian asylums, tho Institu
tions of mercy supported by Christian
philanthropies. Never mind the blind
eyes and the deaf ears and the crippled
limbs and the dorkenod intellects. Let
paralyzed old ago pick up Its own food and
orphans fight their own way and the half
reformed go back to their evil habits.
Forward, march, ye great army of Infidels
and atheists, and with your battleaxes
how down the cross and split up the man
ger of Bethlehem.
Army of Destruction.
On, ye great army of infidels and athe
ists, and now they come to tho graveyards
and the cemeteries of tho earth. Pull
down the sculpturo above Greenwood’s
gate, for It means the Resurrection. Tear
away at tho entrance of Laurel Hill the
flguro of Old Mortality and tho chisel. On,
yo groat army of infidels and atheists, Into
tho graveyards and cemeteries, and where
you see “Asleep In Jesus" out It away,
and where ^ou find a marble story of
heaven blast it, and where yon find over a
littlo child’s grave “Suffer Little Children
to Gome Unto Me" substitute the words
“delusion’ and “sham," and where you
find an angel in marble strike off tho
Wings, and when you come to a family
vault chisel on the door, “Dead once, dead
forever.”
But on, ye great army of Infidels and
atheists, on! They will attempt to scale
heaven. There are heights to be taken.
Pile hill on hill and Pelion upon Ossa,
and then they hoist the ladders againft
the walls of heaven. On and on until they
blow up the foundations of jasper and the
gates of pearl. They charge up the steep.
Now they aim for the throne of him who
llreth forever and ever: They would take
down from their high place the Father,
the Son, the Holy Ghost. "Down with
them!" they sair, "Down With them from
the throne!" they eay ; "Down forever I
Down out of sight! He is not God, Do
has no right to Sit there, Down with him!
Down with 0hrist! H
B*«k is Barbarism.
A world without a head, a universe
Without it king. Orphan constellations.
Fatherless galdxies. Atiawhy supreme.
A dethroned Jehovah. An assassinated
God. Patricide, leglcide, deicide. That
Is What they meaifi. That is what they
Will have If they ean. 1 say, if they eah.
Civilization hurled back Into semlbaiba-
rism and semi barbarism driven back into
Hottentot savagery. The wheel of pro
gress turned the other way and turned to
ward tho dark ages. Tho clock of the cen
turies put back 2,000 years. Go back, you
Sandwich Islands, from your schools and
from your colleges and from your roferrm-
ed condition to what you were in 1620,
when the missionaries first came. Call
home tho 500 missionaries from India and
overthrow their 2,000 schools, where they
•ro trying to educate the heathen, and
scatter tho 140,000 little children that they
have gathered out of barbarism into civili
zation. Obliterate all tho work of Dr. Duff
In India, of David Aboel in China, of Dr.
King in Greece, of Judson in Burma, cf
David Brainerd amid the American abo
rigines, and send home the 8,000 mission
aries of the cross who aro toiling in for
eign lands, tolling for Christ’s sake, toil
ing themselves into the grave. Tell these
8,000 men of God that they are of no use.
Send home tho medical missionaries who
are doctoring the bodies as well as the
souls of the dying nations. Go home, Lon
don Missionary society. Go home, Ameri
can Board of Foreign Missions. Go homo,
ye Moravians and relinquish back into
darkness and squalor and death the na
tions whom ye have begun to lift.
FITC Ca,? Be
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Oh, my friends, there has never bean
such a nefarious plot on earth as that
which Infidelity and atheism have planned.
Wo were shocked a few years ago because
©f tbe attempt to blow Up the pari lament
bouses in London, but if infidelity and
atheism succeed lu their attempt they will
dynamite a world. Let them have tbeir
full way, and this world will be a habita
tion of three rooms—a habitation with
Just three rooms, the one a madhouse, an
other a lazaretto, tbe other a pandemo
nium. These infidel bonds of music havo
only Just begun tbeir concert—yea, they
have only been stringing tbeir instru
ments. I today put before you their whole
programme from beginning unto close.
In tho theater the tragedy comes first and
the farce afterward, but in this infidel
drama of death the force comes first and
the tragedy afterward. And in the former
atheists and Infidels laugh and mock, but
in tbe latter God himself will laugh and
mock. He says so. ‘I will laugh at tbeir
calamity and mock when their fear
Cometh.”
From such a chasm of individual, na
tional, worldwide ruin, stand back. Oh,
young men, stand back from that chasm!
You see the practical drift of my sermon.
I want you to know where that rood leads.
Stand back from that chasm of ruin. The
time is going to come (you and I may not
live to see it, but it will come; just as cer
tainly as there is a God it will come)
When the infidels and tho stbeiste who
openly and out and out end above board
preach and practice infidelity and atheism
will be considered os criminals* against so
ciety, as they are now criminals against
God. Society will push out tbe tepee, and
the wretch With soul gangrened and ichor
ous and vermin covered and rotting apart
with his bouatiallty will bo left to die in
tbe ditch and be denied decent burial, and
men will conic with spades »Dd cover np
the carcass where it falls, that tt poison
not the air, and tbe only text In all the
Bible appropriate for the funeral sermon
will be Jeremiah xxii, 19, "He shall bo
buried with the bnrial of an ass."
Victory For Christianity.
A thousand voices come up to me this
hour, saying: “Do yen really think infi
delity will succeed? Has Christianity re
ceived its deathblow? and will tho Biblo
become obsolete?’’ Yes, when tbo smoko
of the city chimney arrests and destroys
the noonday eun. Josephus says about tho
time of tbo destruction of Jerusalem the
sun was turned into darkness, but only
the clouds rolled between the sun and tho
earth. Tbe sun went right on. It is the
same sun, the same luminary, as when at
the beginning it shot out like an electric
spark from God’s finger, and today it is
warming the nations, and today it is gild
ing the sea, and today it is filling the
earth with its light. The same old sun,
(Continued on Page. Tt
NOW FOR YOUR COTTON ESTIMATES.
THE NUMBER OF BALES IN THE COTTON CROP. SEASON 1898-1899.
$5,000 FUR SOLUTION!
An Extraordinary Offer to Our Subscribers Here it ,:s. Read It All Very Carefully and Be Sure
You Understand the Terms.
FIRST AWARD.
To the subscriber or subscribers naming the exact number, or the near
est to the exact number, of bales in the cotton crop of 189S-99 we
will give if the estimate is received during
April, 1899 $2,500
If during May, 1899 2,000
If during June, 1899 1,500
If during July orAu^usty 1899 1,000
V THIRD AWARD.
SECOND AWARD.
To the subscriber or subscribers naming the first next nearest we will
give, if the estimate is received during
April, 1899 $1,500
If during May, 1899 1,250
If during June, 1899 1,000
If during July or August, 1899 750
To the subscriber or subscribers naming the second next nearest we will give, if the estimate !s re
ceived during
April, 1899 $1,000
If during May, 1899 750
If during June, 1899 500
If during July or August, 1899 250
So that the most we are liable for hereon is $5,000-00 in Cash.
Vj/V't A /'I O 11 TT the exact figures are not givenduring the contest, the money will be paid out for the nearest to the exact fig-
vjULLldil V" ures - Somebody will get the money; it does not come back to us by any means. Those who solve the problem
* J at the longest range will receiveproportionately the hignest prizes, as you notice the figures grow less as the
time expires and because the number of bales received up to certain dates, as the time advances, can be known exactly leaving shorter time and
probabilities to figure against. The point is to hit it exactly during April, then you have it. In all three of the cases submitted it is distinctly un
derstood that should more than one correct or equally correct estimate be filed in the contest, the amount of the prizes so earned will be divided
properly among the correct answers.
In Last Year’s Cotton Contest Hr. D. P. HcLaurin, of Clio, 3. C., Was Paid $2,500 in Cash.
for his (nearest to the correct number of bales) estimate received on April 4th. This is the largest sum ever paid out to any one person in any of
thecontests. Mr.McLaurinmay miss it this year, and It may be your time to hit it. Think of it! Two thousand five hundred dollars la cash all for
one estimate! ! !
Among the other amounts-paid were: B. M. Woods, Box 991, Fort Worth. Texas, $375,000: Mrs. C. J. Quinn, Pistol, Ga„ $375.00; Robert Boyd,
Powell. Ark., $333.34; Mrs. F. H. Hankinson, Beach Island, S. C.. $333.34; D. W. Perdue, Griffin Ga., $156.69.
FIGURE ON THIS $5,000 PROBLEM.
THE CONTEST CLOSES AUGUST 31, 1899.
The estimate to be made upon tho total United States cotton crop for
1898-99, the crop that has alredy been gathered and Is now In the country,
as official figures of receipts will show It from September 1, 1898, to September
1, 1899. This is not the crop that is to be planted this spring, because the
figures thereon will not be obtainable until September 1, 1900. It is for the
crop already in and being marketed, official figures of which will be an
nounced in September. As a guide for making your estimate we give the
Season Acres planted. Bales in crop.
1888- 89 19,362,073 6,938,290
1889- 93 20,171,896 7,311,322
1890- 91 20.809,053 8,652,597
1891- 92 \ . 20,714,937 9,035,379
1892- 93 18,067,924 6,700,365
official figures for each of the last ten crops. The conditions under which
this last crop was grown and its probable output are elements for you to
compute from, and will aid in the correctness of your present estimate.
The figures given by Latham, Alexander & Co., of New York, are ac
cepted the world over as official, and we give an exact copy from their
latest edition of “Cotton Movements and Fluctuations” as follows:
5eason. Acres planted. Bales in crap.
1893- 94 19,684,000 7,549,817
1894- 95 21,454,000 9,901,251
1895- 96 18,882,000 7,157,346
1896- 97 22,341,000 8,757.964
1897- 98 24,071,000 11,199,994
Their Estimate of the Acreage for the Crop of the Season of 1898-99 is 22,736,000 Acres.
THE FOLLOWING ARE THE CONDITIONS OF THE CONTEST:
First. If the prizes offered under the first proposition are awarded for
the EXACT estimate upon the number of bales, the prizes offered under tha
second proposition will be for the nearest estimate, but If the first prizes
are given for the NEAREST estimate, no one having named correctly the
exact figures, then the second prizes would come In for the second nearest
estimate, and the third prizes for the third nearest estimate. Second. If
some one should submit a correct estimate in one division of the time shown
above and some one should send a correct estimate in some later division,
this last estimate would take rank only proportionately by the award for
the nearest estimate according to its period, because the larger sum had
been previously awarded proportionately to some one who named the
amount correctly in the former period. Third. The condition precedent for
sending an estimate of the cotton crop Is that each and every estimate
must be accompanied by $2.00 for a year’s subscription to The Weekly Con
stitution and Sunny South. This must be sent In the identical envelope
that brings the money that pays for the subscription. You cannot subscribe
now and send your estimate after ards; no forgetting it or leaving it out
by accident or otherwise, or not knowing of this contest at the time you
subscribe, or any other reason, will entitle one to send an estimate after
ward. The estimate must come with the subscription, or not at all. In
sending your estimate by an agent of The Constitution or The Sunny
South, you make him your agent, and not ours, in forwarding your esti
mate, both as to the correctness of the figures as you intended them and the
certainty of the forwarding of the estimate. Should a party send more
than one estimate, he or she will be entitled to a share of the prize-fund
under which it may secure a prize for each correct estimate sent. Persons
may enter the contest as many times as they send subscriptions, and under
the rules the same person may receive a prize with each of the three prop
ositions. Fourth. In making your answer Just state simply: “I estimate
the number of bales-of cotton will be Make your figures very
plain. We will record them as received every day, exactly as they look,
and will allow no change whatever. If you want to make estimates later,
or if you want to repeat the estimates you have made, send other subscrip
tions. Don’t forget every subscription for yourself or your friends will en
title you to an estimate. Address all orders to
THE SUNNY SOUTH, Atlanta, Ga.
The above is the Atlanta Constitntions’ offer, and they may he depended on to give away every oent promised. Wo havo made
arrangements by which every subscriber we have can, by sending us $2.00 for a renewal, receive as a premium the Weekly Con
stitution for one year, and also be allowed one guess in above $5,000.00 contest. Send your guess direct to ns and accompany
it with $2 for The Sunny Sonth and Weekly Constitution one year, and both will be sent yon and your guess will be turned
over by ns to The Constitution and properly entered to your credit. If yon are already paid np on The Sunny Sonth, yon ean
send $2.00 and have yonr subscription extended for one year from the time it will expire and also receive The Constitution one
year and also guess in above contest.
THE SUNNY SOUTH, ATLANTA, GA.
BOO*