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755 am 810 pm'Lv Cincinnati Ar ti 42 pm 040 am
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II 35 am 12 o3pm Lv Junction City Ar 242 pm 240 am
o P IU o [ jV Chattanooga ■ Arl 760am5 65 pm
890 pm 9do Mil Lv Wauhatchie Lv 730 am 535 pm
t 7 07 pm +9 55 urn Lv Morganvillc Lv +7 05 am +5 13 pm
t 725 pm 10 I t am Lv Trenton Lv +0 4 , am 456 pm
t 743 pm +lO 32 aiui Lv Rising Fawn Lv 031 am 437 pm
755 pm 10 44 aro!Lv Sulphur Springs... Lv l 020 am 425 pm
£1 pm 11 li pm Lv /... . alley Head Lv L* r»0 am 3 ;>5 pin
tb 55 pm 11 55 pm Lv Fort Payne Lv +5 14 am 3 \b pm
t 939 pm 12 48 pm Lv Coilingsville Lv 425 am 230 pm
10 31pm 215 pm Lv Attalia Lv, +3.2 am 125 pm
2 3a pin|Lv— S ecle Lv; il3 50 pm
, „ “ 98 pnijLv Whitney Lv 12 28 pm
11 59 pm 337 pm Lv Sprlngville Lv 215am11 48 am
12 40 ain 422 pmiLv Trussville Lv 133 am 1102 am
140 am 535 pm Lv Birmingham Lv 1260 am 10 15 am
+6 03 pm Lv Wheeling- Lv |+937 am
ic 1~ pnijLv „ Jonesboro Lv 930 am
T 240 am 6 t>9 pm Lv Woodstock Lv +ll 32 pm 851 ant
+7 00 pm Lv Bibbvillo Lv j+B4s am
7 15 pm Lv Vance Lvj 8 37 am
7 35 pm| Lv Coaling Lv 8 17 am
7 *4 pin Lv CeUonda! • Lv. In 47 pm 800 am
347 am 815 pm Lv Tuscaloosa Lv 10 30 pm 74s am
j +8 58 pm Lv Carthage Lv +7 1..- ain
20 pm Lv Afcr.ni Lv +9 30 pm 045 am
+5 08 am. 952 pm Lv El TAW Lv 911 pm 020 am
638 ami 10 tspm Lv Boligee Lv 849 pm! 532 am
10 25 pin l,v Miller Lv 840 pm
547 am 10 82 pm Lv Epes Lv 835 pin 514 am
605 am 10 53 pin Lv Livingston Lv 810 pm 453 am
025 urn 11 15 pm Lv York Lv 755 pm 430 am
40 40 am 11*1 pm Lv Cuba Lv +7 38 pm 4 14 am
ti 02 am li 55 pm Lv Toomsuba Lv +7 15 pm 351 am
7 40uni 12 30 am Ar Meridian Lv 040 pm 315 am
843 am 110 tun Ar Enterprise Lv 520 pm 218 am
300 pm, 735 am|Ar New Orleans I,v 1(J 40 am SOO am
12 55 amiLv Meridian Ar 2 35 am
5 05 am Ar Jackson Lv 10 05 pm
7 30 am Ar Vicksburg Lv 7 30 pm
2 40 pm Ar Monroe Lv 12 20 pm
6 45 pin Ar Shreveport Lv 815 am
7 10 pin■ Ar Texas and Pacific Junction Lv 7 50 am
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TRENTON, DADE COUNTY GA. f FRIDAY, FEBRUARY ‘25, 1887.
PLAYING FOOL.
Sermon by Rev. T. DeWitt Tal
mage, D. D.
Unman Life Ton Mach Engrossed In
Transitory Enjoyments, and Too Keik
less of the Preparations Keipiired lor
Eternity—The Wise and the Brave a:id
the Regal All Included.
Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D., took t>r
his text: “And he changed his behavior
before them, and feigned himself mad .1
their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of
the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon
his beard.’’—l. Samuel, xxi., 13. He said:
There is one scene in David’s life that yoa
may not have pondered: You have seen
him with a harp playing the devil out of
Saul; with a sling, smashing the skull of
Goliath; with a sword, hacking to pieces
the Philistines; xvith a scepter, ruling a
vast realm; with a psalm, gathering all
nations into doxologv; but in my text you
have David playing the fool. He has been
anointed King,yet he is in exile and passing
incognito among the Gathites. They begin
to suspect who he is, and say: “I wonder
if this is not the warrior, King David? It
looks like him. Is not this the man about
whom they used to make poetry, and about
whom they composed a dance, so that the
maidens of the city, reeling now on one
foot and now on the other, used to sing: 1
“Saul has slain his thousands, but David
has slain his tens of thousands?” Yes, it
is very much like David. It must be David, j
It is David. David, to escape their hands, I
pretends to be demented. He said within i
himself: “If I act crazily, then of course
these people will not injure me. No
one would be so much of a coward as to
assault a madman.” So, one day while
these Gathites are watching David with
increased suspicion, they see him standing
by the door running his hands meaning
lessly up and down the panels—scrabbling
on the door as though he would climb up,
his mouth wide open, drooling like an in
fant. I suppose the boys of the streets
threw missiles at him, but the sober people
of the town said: “This is not fair. Do you
not see that he has lost his reason? Do
not touch this madman. Hands off,
hands off!” So David escaped ; but what
an exhibition he made of himself before all
the ages! There was amnesty in King
Lear’s madness after Regan and Goneril,
his daughters, had persuaded him to ban
ish their sister Cordelia, and all the
friends of the drama have been thrilled
with that spectacular. The craziness of'
“Meg Merrilles” was weird and imposing,
and the most telling passage in Walter
Scott’s “Guy Mannering.” There was a
fascination about the insanity of Alex
ander Cruden, who made tho best con
cordance of the Bible that the world ever
satv—made it between the mad houses.
But there was nothing grand, nothing
weird, nothing majestic, nothing sublime
about this simulation on the part of David.
Instead of trusting in the Lord, as he had
on other occasions, he gathers before him
a vast audience of all generations that
were to come, and standing on that con
spicuous stage of history, in the presence
of all ages, he impersonates the slavering
idiot! “And he changed his behavior be
fore them, and feigned himself mad in
their hands, and scrabbled at the door of
the ga‘e, and let his spittle fall upon his
be 'i’d.”
Taking the behavior of David as a sugges
tion, I wish to tell you how many of the
wise and the brave, and the regal some
times play the fool. And in the first place,
I remark that those men as badly play the
fool as this man of the text, who in any
crisis of life take their case out of the
hand of God. David, in this case, acted as
though there were no God to lift him out
of the predicament.
What a contrast between his behavior
when this brave little man stood up in
front of the giant ten feet in height and
looking into his face, said; “Thou comest
to me with a sword, and with a spear, and
with a shield; but I come to thee in the
name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the
armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
This day will the Lord deliver thee into
mine hand, and I will smite thee, and
take thine head from thee, and I will give
the carcases of the hosts of the Philistines
this day unto the fowls of the air, and
to the wild beasts of the earth, that all
the earth may know that there is a God
in Israel”—between that time and this
time, when he debased himself and be
draggled his manhood, and affected insan
ity in order that he might escape from the
grip of the Gathites. In the one case he
played the hero. In the other case ho
played the fool. So does every man who,
in the great crisis of life, takes his case
out of the hand of God. The life of the
most insignificant man in this house is too
vast for any human management. One
time, returning from the West, I very
easily got on the locomotive while pass
ing over the plains and talked with the
engineer; but coming on toward the
Allegheny mountains I thought I
would like to sit on the loco
motive as it came down from the
mountains amid that most wonderful
scenery on this continent. I asked the en
gineer if I might ride, but he courteously
denied me for there the grade is so steep,
and so winding, and so perilous that he
must not have any one on the locomotive
who may divert his attention when eye and
hand and foot and brain must be con
centred, ready for the most sudden emer
gency. Well, my friends, life is steep and
so perilous and so exposed to sudden sur
prises that none but the Lord Almighty
can guide and engineer it, and our dis
asters come from the fact that wc want to
get up and help the Lord manage the train.
Keep off the engine! Be willing to let
God pull you where He wants to pull you.
You have no right for an instant to sur
render your sanity and manhood as David
surrendered his. Put your trust in God,
and He will take you through and
over the mountains. I very much sus
pect that all the successful enter
prises. that were ever carried on, and
all the successful lives that have ever
been lived, have been fully surrendered to
God. When the girl Victoria was awaueu-
ed in the night, and told that the throne of
Great Britain was hers, she said to the
prelate informing her: “I ask your pray
ers,” and then and there they knelt down
and prn ed. Do you wonder that, though
since that time all the of Europe
have fallen or been fearfully
shaken, hers stands as firm
as the day she ascended it, and
in every country under the sun, wherever
an Englishman hears that name pronoun
ced, he feels like waving his hat and cry
ing : “God save the Queen!” That man
and that woman who put their trust in
God will go through in triumph; while
those who attempt to gather under their
own supervision the intricate and elaborate
affairs of their life are miserably play
ing the fool. I stood on the beach look
ing off upon the sea and there was a
strong wind blowing, and I noticed that
some of the vessels were going that way,
and other vessels were going another way.
I said to myself: “How is it that the same
svind sends one vessel in one direction
and another vessel in another direction ? I
found out, by looking, that it was the dif
ferent way they had the sails set. And so
does trouble come on this world. Some
men it drives into the harbor of Heaven,
and other men it drives on the rocks. It
depends upon the way you have your sails
set.
All the Atlantic and Pacific oceans of
surging sorrows can not sink a soul that
has asked for God’s pilotage. The diffi
culty is, that when we have misfortunes
of any kind we put them in God’s hand,
and they stay there a little while; and
then we go and get them again and bring
them back. A vessel comes in from a for
eign port. As it comes near the harbor it
sees a pilot floating about. It hails the
pilot. The pilot comes on board, and he
Isavs: “Now, Captain, you have had a
stormy passage. Go down and sleep, and
I will take the vessel into New York har
, hor.” After a while the Captain be
| gins to think: “Am I right in trust
ing this vessel to that pilot? I guess
111 go up and see.” So he comes
tc the pilot and says: “Don’t you see that
rock! Don’t you see those headlands?
Y»u will wreck the ship. Let me lay hold
l +he helm for a while myself, and then I’ll
1 trust to you.” The pilot becomes angry,
land says: “I will either take care of the
J ship or not. If you want to I will get into
my yawl and go ashore or back to my
boat.” Now we say to the Lord: “O,
Ood, take my life, take my all in Th v keep
ing! Be Thou my guide; be Thou my
pilot.” We go along for a little while, and
' suddenly wake up, and say: “Things are
! going all wrong. O, Lord, we are driving
, on these rocks, and Thou art goiug to let
,us he shipwrecked.” God says: “You go
ind rest; I will take charge of this vdssel,
and take it into the harbor.”
It 1b God’s business to comfort, and it is
our business to be comforted. Herbert,
the great thinker, philosophized about
himself, philosophized about this world,
philosophized about every thing, then in
his dying asked that only one
word might be '<ffupon and
that word “Infelicissimus”—most un
happy—descriptive of the state of the lives
and of the deaths of those who take their
case out of the hand of God. The only ap
propriate inscription for their banqueting
hall, and their equipage, and their grave,
and the wall of their eternal prison-house
—“lnfelicissimus.” In drooling, moral
idiocy, they are scrabbling at the door of
their which never opens; mis
erably plarlng the fool.
mgain, I remark that all those persons
pl» the fool, as certainly did this man of
th§text, who allow the technicalities of
religion to stop their salvation. David
Yvas wise about a great many things, but
his cuttingsup in the text for a little while
eclipsed his character. And I know wise
men and great men, competent for all
other stations, who are acting a silly and
foolish part in regard to the technicalities
of religion. They ask us some questions
which we can not answer categorically,
and so they burst into a broad guffaw, as
though it is of any more interest to us than
it ought to be to them. About the atone
ment, about God’s decrees, about man’s
destiny, they ask a great many questions
which we can not answer, and so they de
ride us, as though we could not ask them
a thousand questions that they could not
answer, about their eyes, about their ears,
about their finger-nails, about every thing.
A fool can ask a question that a wise man
can not answer. O, you caviling men ! O,
you profound men ! O, you learned men !
do please admit something. You have a
soul? Yes. Will it live forever? Yes.
Where? You say that Jesus Christ is not
a Divine Saviour. Who is He? Where
will you go to after you leave your law
books, and your medical prescriptions, and
your club-room, and your newspaper office,
where will you go to? Your body will be
six feet under ground. Where will your
soul be? The black coat will be off, the
shroud on. Those spectacles will be re
moved from your vision, for the sod will
press your eyelids?
Have you any idea that an earthly alma
nac describes the years of your life-time?
Of what stuff shall I gather the materials
for the letters of that word which de
scribes your eternal home? Shall it be
iron chain or amaranthine garland? The
air that stirs the besweated locks of your
dying pillow, will it come off a garden or
a desert? Oh, quit the puzzling questions
and try these momentous questions, yuit
the small questions and try these great
questions. Ins ead of discussing whether
the serpent in Eden was figurative or lit
eral, whether the Mediterranean fish did
or did not swallow the recreant prophet,
whether this and that or the other thing is
right or wrong, come and discuss one
question: “How shall I get rid of my sins
and wine Haven?”
That is the question for you. Yes, there
have been men who have actually lost
their souls because they thought there
was a discrepancy between Moses and
Prof. Billiman—because they could not un
derstand how there could be light before
the sun rose—the light appearing in verse
3 of Genesis, and the sun appearing not
until verse lfi— and because they do not
knflw how the moon could stand still with
out upsetting the universe, and because
they had decided upon the theory of
natural selection. A German philosopher
in dying had for his chief sorrow that he
had not devoted his whole life to the study
of the dative case. O, when your immor
tality is in peril, why quibble? Quit these
non-essentials, my dear brother. In the
name of God, I ask you in regard to these
matters of the immortal soul that you do
not play the fool.
What is that man doing over in Bowling
Green, New York? Well, he is going in
fora ticket for a transatlantic voyage. He is
quarreling with the clerk about the spots—
the red spots on tfte ticket—and he is quar
reling about the peculiar signature of the
President of the steamship company; and
he is quarreling about the manner of the
clerk who hands him the ticket. How long
has he been standing there? Three
weeks. Meanwhile, perhaps, twenty
steamers have gone out of port, and I hear
the shriek of the steam-tug that could
take him to the last vessel that could bear
him to his engagement in London.
Still he stands in Bowling Green
discussing the ticket. What do you say in
regard to that man? You say he is a fool.
Well, in that very way are many men act
ing in regard to matters of the soul. They
are caviling about the Atonement, tho red
spots on the ticket; about the character of
the minister who hands them the ticket;
about whether it has a Divine or human
signature; and, meanwhile, all their op
portunities for Heaven are sailing out of
the harbor, and I hear the last tap of the
bell announcing their last chance for
Heaven. Go aboard! Do not waste any
more time higgling and carping, and criti
cising, and wondering, and, in the pres
ence of an astounded Heaven, playing fool.
Igo still further, and say to you that
those men play the fool who undertake to
pay our eternity for time. How little care
do we bestow upon the railroad depot
where we stop twenty minutes to dine!
We dash in and we dash out again. We
do not examine the architecture of the
building, nor the face of the caterer. We
supply our hunger, we pay our money,
and we put on our hat and take our
place in the train. What is that de
pot as compared with the place for
which we are bound? Now, my friends,
this world is on'y a stopping place
on the way to a momentous destina
tion, and yet how many of us sit down as
though we had consumated our journey,
as though we had come to the final depot,
when our stopping here is compared with
our stopping there as is twenty minutes to
twelve hours—yea, as the one-hundredth
part of a "second compared with ten thou
sand million years! Would Spain sell us
Cuba for a bushel 9 wheat? Would Eng
land sell us India for a ton of coal? Would
Venice sell us all her pictures for an
American school-boys sketch? Ah! that
would be abetter bargain for England,
Spain and Venice than that man makes
who gives his eternity for time.. Yet
how many there are who are
saying to-day, “Give me the world’s
dollars and you may have the eternal
rewards. Give me the world’s applause
and you may have the garlands of God.
Give me twenty, or forty, or sixty years of
worldly successes and I don’t caro what
becomes of the future. lam going into
that world un nsured. I take the respon
sibility. Don’t bother me about your re
ligion. Here I have the two worlds before
me—this one and the next. I have chosen
this. Go away from me, God and angels,
and all thoughts of the future!”
But where is Croesus and Cleopatra; and
ASsopus, who had one dish of food
that cost $400,000; and Lentulus, who
had a pound of fish worth $175,000;
and Scaurus, who bought a country
seat for $29,000,000; and Tiberius,
who left at death a fortune of $118,120,000?
Where are they ? If a xvindy day should
blow all the dust that is left of them into
your eyes it would not make you wink
twice ! Ah, my friends, then very certain
ly your comforts of surrounding can not
keep back the old archer. You can not
charm him with music, or dazzle him with
plate or decoy him with pictures, or bribe
him with your money. What is the use of
your struggling for that which you can not
keep? As long as you have clothes and
food and shelter and education for
yourselves and children, and the
means for Christian generosity, he satis
fied. You worry and tug and sweat,
and wear yourself out for
that which can not satisfy. Whole flocks
of crows’ feet on your temples and cheeks
before they o*ght to have come there.
You are, ten yjftrs older than you ought to
be, and' can not take along with
you into the future world even the two
pennies on your eye-lids to keep them shut
after you are dead. And yet you hold on
to this world with the viditv of the miser
xvho persisted in having his bonds and
mortgages and notes of hand in the bosom
of his dressing-gown while he was dying,
and in the last moment held his parchment
in such a tight grip that the undertaker
after death must almost break the man’s
fingers in order to get the bonds away.
Men are actually making that choice,
while there are others who have done far
differently. When they tried to bribe with
money Martin Luther some one said:
“There’s no use trying to do that—that
Dutch beast cares nothing for gold.”
When they tried by giving him a Cardinal’s
hat to bribe Savonarola, he stood up in his
pulpit and cried out: “I will have no
red hat save that of martyrdom, col
ored with, my own blood.” These men
chose Christ amid great persecutions;
but how many there are in this day,when
Christianity seems to be popular, who are
ashamed of Christ and not willing to take
the hardships—the seeming hardships—of
His religion. And, alas for them! for
long after the crash of the world’s demoli
tion they shall find that in all these years
they were turning their backs upon the
palaces of Heaven, scrabbling on the door
of this world’s treasure house, the saliva
of a terrific lunacy on their lips—horribly
and overwhelmingly playing the fool.
Once more, I say to you that those men
play the fool who, while they admit the
righteousness ef religion, set it down for
future attendance. Do you know how
many times the word “ now ” occurs
in the Bible? Over two hundred times.
One of the shortest words in the Bible,
VO!* IV.-NO. 1.
and yet one of tho grandest in mean
ing and ramifications. When does
the Bible say is the best time to repent?
Now. When does the Bible say that God
will forgive? Now. When does God say
is the only safe time to attend to the mat
ters of the soul? Now. But that word
“Now” melts away as easily as a snow
flake in the evening rain. Where is the
“now” of the dead of last year? the “now”
of the dead of last month? the “now” of
the dead of last week ? the “now” of the
dead of yesterday? Time picked it up in its
beak and flew away with it. Swammer
dam and other naturalists tell us there
are insects which within the space of one
minute are bom, fulfil their mission, cele
brate their nuptials, and die; but this won
derful “now” is more short-lived than they.
It is a flash, a stroke, a glance. Its cradle
is its grave. If men catch it at all it is with
quick clutch. Millions of men have lost
their soul immortal because they did not
understand the momentum and the ponder
osity of that one word. All the strategic
powers of hell are exercised in trying to
subtract from the energy and emphasis of
that word. They say it is only a word of
three letters, while there is a better word
of eight letters—“to-morrow.” They say:
“Throw away that small word and take
this other grand one;” and so men say:
“Give us ‘to-morrow’ and take away from
us ‘now;’ ” and between those two words
is the Appian Way of death, and a great
multitude throng that road, jostling and
elbowing each other, hastening on swifter
and swifter to die.
For hosv much would you walk the edge
of the roof of your house! For how much
would you come out on the most danger
ous peak of the Matterhorn and wave your
cap? You say: “No money cculd induce
me to do it.” And yet you stand to-day,
with one foot on a crumbling moment
and the other foot lifted, not know
ing where you will put it down,
while the distance between you and
the bottom of the depth beneath you no
plummet can measure, no arithmetic cal
culate, no wing of lightning cleave. And
yet the Bible tells us that unless a man
has a new heart he can not get into
Heaven, and some of you are not seeking
tor that new heart. In Mexico, some
times, the ground suddenly opens, and a
man standing near the gap can see dotvn
an appalling distance. But, O! if to-day
at your feet there should open the chasm
of the lost xvorld, how you would fling
yourself back and hold the pew, and cry:
“God save me—notv! now! now!”
I greet you to-day, my brother, in the
very gate of eternity. Some of us may
live a shorter time, but, at the longest, life
is so short that I feel that we ail stand on
the door-sill of the great future. The next
steps—all the angels of God can not undo
the consequences. Will your exit from
this life be a raising or a falling? The
righteous go up. The Saviour helps them.
Ministering spirits meet them.
The doors of paradise open to
receive them. Up! up! up! O, what a
grand thing it is to die with a strong faith
in God, like that which Stonewall Jackson
had, when, in his expiring moments, he
said: “Let us cross over the river, and
lie down under the shade.” But to leave
this world unpreparedly is falling—falling
from God, failing from hope, falling from
peace, falling from Hea\ T en—swiftly fall
ing, widely falling, forever falling.
So it was with one who had been emi
nent for his intelligence, but who had
omitted all preparation for the future
world, and had come down to his last hour.
He said to his wife, seated by his bedside:
“O, don’t talk to me about pain; it is the
mind, woman, it is the mind! Of all the
years of my life, I never lived one minute
for Heaven. It is awfully dark here,” be
whispered, “it is awfully dark. I seem to
stand on the slippery edge of a great gulf.
I shall fall! I am falling!” And with a
shriek, as xvhen a man tumbles over a
precipice, he expired. Wise for this
world, about all the_ matters of his immor
tal soul he was, his life long, playing the
fool.
INFLAMMABLE BREATH.
A Curious Phenomenon Which Is Not bo
Rare as Generally Supposed.
There is a brief reference in a recent
number of Science to a remarkable ease
in which the breath of an individual,
or rather the eructations from his
stomach, took fire when brought in
contact with a lighted match. This
case, which was reported in the Medi
cal Record, has called forth communi
cations from physicians by which it
would appear that the phenomenon is
not such a rare one as was first sup
posed. In one case of disordered di
gestion the patient emitted inflam
mable gas from the mouth, which, up
on analysis, was found to be largely
composed of marsh gas. In an
other case the gas w r as sul
phuretted hydrogen. A case is report
ed in the British Medical Journal, in
which, while blow ing out a match, the
patient's breath caught fire with a noise
like the report of a pistol, which was
loud enough to aw’aken his wife. One
evening, while a confirmed dyspeptic
was lighting his pipe, an eructation of
gas from his stomach occurred and the
ignited gas burned his mustache and
lips. In Ewald’s book on indigestion,
the analysis of the gas in one of these
cases was, carbolic acid, 20.57; hydro
gen, 20.57; carburetted hydrogen, 10.75;
oxygen, 6.72; nitrogen, 41.38; sulphur
etted hydrogen, a trace. The orign of
these gases is undoubtedly the undi
gested food, which in these cases un
dergoes decomposition. —Swiss Cross.
—“I had no idea Sharker had so
many friends in the club as he seems tc
have. Why, every one looks quite
down iu the mouth since he went
abroad.” “No wonder. He forgot tc
make any announcement of his de
parture, you know, and he carried his
(.heck-book with him.”— Town Topics,