1889 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

sectarian and other prejudices. Below we give some extractsfrom Mr. Talmage's discourse of Sunday, Sept. 8th, on theabove text--"The day is at hand" --which we consider quiteremarkable.They give evidence that Mr. Talmage is getting awake, thoughhe has not yet arisen from the old creed bed which is evidentlytoo short for him and its coverings uncomfortably narrow. (Isa.28:20.) Yet, rubbing his eyes, he recollects the divine promise ofcoming day as he hears the great clock of the ages strike thehours of early morning, and sincere faith and the noble impulsesof a generous nature catch the inspiration of the prophet-apostle,and he re-echoes his words--"The night is far spent; the day is athand!" While we cannot endorse all that this eminent Christianbrother says on the subject, but must here and there offercriticism, yet we rejoice that the gentleman and his thousands ofhearers and readers have been brought face to face with so muchtruth so forcibly and so widely promulgated. Mr. Talmage said:--"I find a ray of the dawn in the compression of the world'sdistances. What a slow, snail-like, almost impossible thingwould have been the world's rectification with 1,400,000,000 ofpopulation and no facile means of communication; but now,through telegraphy for the eye and telephonic intimacy for theear, and through steamboating and railroading, the 25,000 milesof the world's circumference are shriveling up into insignificantbrevity. Hong Kong is nearer to New York than a few years agoNew Haven was; Bombay, Moscow, Madras, Melbourne withinspeaking distance. Purchase a telegraph chart, and by the bluelines see the telegraphs of the land, and by the red lines thecables under the ocean. You see what opportunity this is goingto give for the final movements of Christianity. A fortress maybe months or years in building, but after it is constructed it maydo all its work in twenty minutes. Christianity has been plantingits batteries for nineteen centuries, and may go on in the workthrough other centuries; but when those batteries are thoroughlyplanted, and those fortresses are fully built, they may do all theirwork in twenty-four hours."The world sometimes derides the Church for slowness ofmovement. Is science any quicker? Did it not take science 5,652years to find out so simple a thing as the circulation of thehuman blood? With the earth and the sky full of electricity,science took 5,800 years before it even guessed that there wasany practical use that might be made of this subtle and mightyelement. When good men take possession of all these scientificforces, and all these agencies of invention, I do not know thatthe redemption of the world will be more than the work of half aday. Do we not read the queen's speech at the proroguing ofParliament the day before in London? If that be so, is it anythingmarvelous to believe that in twenty-four hours a divine