? — Two modes of divination by which the King of Babylon proposed to find out the will of God. He took a bundle of arrows, put them together, mixed them up, then pulled forth one, and by the inscription on it decided what city he should first assault. Then an animal was slain, and by the lighter or darker colour of the liver the brighter or darker prospect of success was inferred. Stupid delusion! And yet all the ages have been filled with delusions. It seems as if the world loves to be hoodwinked. In the latter part of the eighteenth century Johanna Southcote came forth pretending to have Divine power, made prophecies, had chapels built in her honour, and 100,000 disciples came forth to follow her. So late as the year 1829, a man arose in New York, pretending to be a Divine being, and played his part so well that wealthy merchants became his disciples, and threw their fortunes into his discipleship. And so in all ages there have been necromancies, incantations, witchcrafts, sorceries, magical arts, enchantments, divinations, and delusions. None of these delusions accomplished any good. They opened no hospitals, healed no wounds, wiped away no tears, emancipated no serfdom. But there are those who say that all these delusions combined are as nothing compared with the delusion now abroad in the world, the delusion of the Christian religion. That delusion has today two hundred million dupes. It has conquered England and the United States, for they are called Christian nations. This champion delusion, this hoax, this swindle of the ages, as it has been called, has gone forth to conquer the islands of the Pacific the Melanesia and Micronesia, and Malayan Polynesia have already surrendered to the delusion. Yea, it has conquered the Indian Archipelago, and Borneo, and Sumatra, and Celebes and Java have fallen under its wiles. What a delusion! This delusion of the Christian religion shows itself in the fact that it goes to those who are in trouble. Now, it is bad enough to cheat a man when he is prosperous; but this religion comes to a man when he is sick, and says: "You will be well again after awhile; you're going into a land where there are no coughs, and no pleurisies, and no consumptions; take courage and bear up." Yea, this awful chimera of the Gospel comes to the poor, and it says to them" "You are on your way to vast estates and to dividends always declarable." This delusion of Christianity comes to the bereft, and it talks of reunion before the throne, and of the cessation of all sorrow. And then, to show that this delusion will stop at absolutely nothing, it goes to the dying bed and fills the man with anticipations. How much better it would be to have him die without any more hope than swine and rats and snakes. Annihilation, vacancy, everlasting blank, obliteration! Why not present all that beautiful doctrine to the dying, instead of coming with this hoax, this swindle of the Christian religion, and filling the dying man with anticipations of another life until some in the last hour have clapped their hands, and some have shouted, and some have sung, and some had been so overwrought with joy that they could only look ecstatic. To show the immensity of this delusion, this awful swindle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I open a hospital, and I bring into that hospital the deathbeds of a great many Christian people, and I ask a few questions. "Dying Stephen, what have you to say? Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." "Dying John Wesley, what have you to say? The best of all is, God is with us." "Dying Edward Payson, what have you to say?" "I float in a sea of glory." "Dying John Bradford, what have yon to say?" "If there be any way of going to heaven on horseback, or in a fiery chariot, it is this." "Dying Neander, what have you to say? I am going to sleep now — goodnight." "Dying Mrs. Florence Foster, what have you to say?" "A pilgrim m the valley, but the mountain tops are all agleam from peak to peak." "Dying Alexander Mather, what have you to say?" "The Lord who has taken care of me fifty years will not cast me off now; glory be to God and to the Lamb! Amen, amen, amen, amen!" "Dying John Powson, after preaching the Gospel so many years, what have you to say? My deathbed is a bed of roses." "Dying Doctor Thomas Scott, what have you to say?" "This is heaven begun." "Dying soldier in the last war, what have you to say?" "This is heaven begun." "Dying soldier in the last war, what have you to say?" "Boys, I am going to the front." "Dying telegraph operator on the battlefield of Virginia, what have you to say? The wires are all laid, and the poles are up from Stony Point to headquarters." "Dying Paul, what have you to say?" "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Oh my Lord, my God, what a delusion! what a glorious delusion! Submerge me with it; fill my eyes and ears with it; put it under my dying head for a pillow — this delusion; spread it over me for a canopy; put it underneath me for an outspread wing; roll it over me in ocean surges ten thousand fathoms deep. The overwhelming conclusion is that Christianity, producing such grand results, cannot be a delusion, an hallucination; cannot launch such a glory of the centuries. Your logic and your common sense convince you that a bad cause cannot produce an illustrious result. Some of you have read everything. You are scientific and you are scholarly, and yet if I should ask you, What is the most sensible thing you ever did? you would say, "The most sensible thing I ever did was to give my heart to God." But there may be others here who have not had early advantages, and if they were asked to give their experience they might rise and give such testimony as the man gave in a prayer meeting when he said: "On my way here tonight, I met a man who asked me where I was going. I said, 'I am going to a prayer meeting.' He said, 'There are a great many religions, and I think the most of them are delusions; as to the Christian religion, that is only a notion, that is a mere notion, the Christian religion.' I said to him: 'Stranger, you see that tavern over there?' 'Yes,' he said, 'I see it.' 'Do you see me?' 'Yes, of course I see you.' 'Now, the time was when, every body in this town knows, if I had a quarter of a dollar in my pocket I could not pass that tavern without going and getting a drink; all the people of Jefferson could not keep me out of that place; but God has changed my heart, and the Lord Jesus Christ has destroyed my thirst for strong drink, and there is my whole week's wages, and I have no temptation to go in there. And, stranger, if this is a notion, I want to tell you it is a mighty powerful notion; it is a notion that has put clothes on my children's backs, and it is a notion that has put good food on our table, and it is a notion that has filled my mouth with thanksgiving to God; and, stranger, you had better go along with me, you might get religion too; lots of people are getting religion now.'" Well, we will soon understand it all. We will soon come to the last bar of the music, to the last act of the tragedy, to the last page of the book — yea, to the last line and to the last word, and to you and to me it will either be midnoon or midnight.

(T. De Witt Talmage.)