from a sermon by t. de witt talmage

home from morning mass and waiting for ellie grace to wake up so we can saunter to our neighbor amanda's apt. for some lunch (i can smell it through the wall!), i'm thinking about what to post. i could write about fr. moore's sermon on today's gospel; i could comment on darren's post about alan creech's case for liturgy @ livingroom; i could post about the red sox revival @ fenway. but i think i'll eschew original thought and quote from a sermon i just read by t. de witt talmage, great brooklyn preacher and "greatly beloved divine." my mom's pastor loaned me a tattered old copy of a biography of talmage which contains several sermons, and i've fallen in love w/ his style, as well as his content. so, for your sunday fare, i offer the following snippet:

there is nothing in the bible that staggers me. there are many things i do not understand, i do not pretend to understand, never shall in this world understand. but that would be a very poor god who could be fully understood by the human. that would be a very small infinite that can be measured by the finite. you must not expect to weigh the thunderbolts of omnipotence in an apothecary's balances. starting with the idea that god can do anything, and that he was present at the beginning, and that he is present now, there is nothing in the holy scriptures to arouse skepticism in my heart. here i stand, a fossil of the ages, dug up from a tertiary formation, fallen off the shelf of an antiquarian, a man in the latter part of the glorious nineteenth century, believing in a whole bible, from lid to lid!

from john rusk, the authentic life of t. dewitt talmage: the greatly beloved divine (l.g. stahl: 1902), 298. {i'd link the book, but i haven't found a copy in print anywhere}