Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-09-29
TALMAGE'S TABERNACLE.
PLATE WASHING HIS HANDS
HIS TEXT YESTERDAY.

q BROOKLYN, Sept. 2S.-Immense crowds
continue to throng the Brooklyn Taberna
/ Gle Sunday after Sunday, to hear DIR. Tai
/ mage preach. Among them are many
, foreigners, especially Englishmen, at
tracted by his worldwide reputation
Indeed DR.. Talmage's sermons are ex
tensively published in England. The
; Christian Age, of London, says of them
"We believe that for originality, power
and splendor, these sermons will bear
comparison with the greatest pulpit pro.
ductions of any age or country. But for
J knowledge of human life and the adapta-
ton of Divine truth to the whole beng OF
man-intellectual, emotional, moral, prac-
tical-and for the power of applying that
truth. we know not his equal" The
opening hymn at tO-day's services was:
"Oh could speak the matchless worth.
Oh could sound the glOries forth.'
The subject of the sermon was 'Gover-
nor PLATE Washing his Hands," and the
text was taken from Matthew xvii, %:
'He took water and washed his hands be-
fore the multitude, saying, Il am innocent
Of the blood of this just person." Dr..
Talmage said:
About o'clock in the morning, up the mar
BILE stairs of palace, and across floor of
richest mosaic. and under ceiling dyed with
all the splendors Of color, AMI along snow
banks OF white and glittering sculpture passes
pale, poor, sick young man of 80, condemned
to death by one court and on his way to be
condemned by another. Jesus Of Nazareth is
his name. To meet him on the. tesselated
pavement comes out an unscrupulous, cow
ardly, time-serving, compromising man, with
some few traces of sympathy and fair dealing
left in his composition-Govern Pontius
| mppty
Luxury and pain, seltishness and generosity,
sin and holiness. arrogance and humility,
midnight and mid noon, PLATE and Christ.
The blOated-hpped Governor takes a cush
ioned seat and leans back at his ease. The
prisoner stands, his wrists manacled. In
semi circle around him are the fiery sanhe-
drists, their eyes flashing and their fists
brandished, prosecuting the case for the sake
Of religion; for in all ages religious prosecutors
are the tercest of all prosecutors, and when
the devil does get possessl OF good men
he makes up by intensity for brevlty of
occupation. And il you have never been
in an ecclesiastical court where they had
some one on trial you cannot understand the
fOaming infernalsm of those old Jewish san
| hedrists. Gov. PLATE begins to cross-ques-
ton the prisoner and finds him innocent and
| wants to let him go. TO add to his caution in
the matter, some one comes up and whispers in
his ear. whats that?" says the Governor,
his hand behind his ear to catch the words
| almost inaudible. 1t is message from Clau-
| dia PrOcula, his wife. who has had a dream
| about the prisoners innocence and the dan
| ger of executing him, and has just awakened
| from this morning dream to send news of it
| to the Governor at that very moment on the
| judicial bench, and, what with the protest of
| his wife, and the voice of his own conscience,
and the entire failure Of the sanhedrists to
make out case. he resolves to discharge the
| prisoner from custody.
But that an lOuncement let loose on the
| Governor an equinoctial storm of Indignation
| They would get him recalled by the Emperor
| Tiberius at Rome, and he should no more be
| Governor of Judea, and how would he feel
then in disgrace, and perhaps be hanged for
| treason. He had already excited the old
| Emperor's suspicion, which rested not until il
| finally did effect his banishment and
suicide. So Governor PLATE. to compromise
the matter, proposes the whipping
| Of Christ instead OF his assassination
| He was tied to pillar near the ground and
| on his bent and bare back came the thongs of
| leather with chunks of lead and bone inter
! twisted to augment the force and horror of the
stroke, and when he was led up from tn at with
| flushed cheek and torn and quivering and
| bleeding flesh he presented a spectacle of suf-
] fering in which Rubeus, the painter, found
! the theme for his great masterpiece. But
| the sanhedrists were still unsatsfed. They
| wanted not only part of his nerves laceratcd,
| they wanted all Of them laCerated. They did
not want part of his blood, they wanted all
! of it down to the last corpuscle. So after all
| his merciful hesitation Plate surrender
! to the demOniacal CRY of 'Crucify himr
! But Governor Pirate, seated in the presence
! of the people, sends slave to fetch him some
| thing. The cOnst aDles are impatient to lead
| out the criminal to execution and the mob In
/ the street are waiting to glare on their victim.
| But pause is necessltated for few mo
ments. J Onder comes wash BASIN The ciesn,
| bright water IS poured into 1t and Governor
| Pontius PLATE puts back the sleeves OF hi
robe and thrusts his soft, delicate HANDS into
| the water and rubs them together, aDd then
| lifts them dripping for the towel fastened to
the slaves girdle. and said practically: 81
! wash my hands Of this whole hOmIcidal trans
action. / will take none Of the responsibility
of this prisoners death. You must assume
all of it," My friends, that is the meaning OF
| the text when it says: 'He took water and
| washed his hands before the m1ititude, say
| ing, i am innocent Of the blood of this just
| person. see ye to it,"
| Behold how ceremonies amount to no hing
without cOrrespOndencies of heart. 1t is well
| that the hands be washed, when God made
| three-fourths of the world water. He COM
| manded cleanliness, and as the ancients did
not take the hint. He put whole world under
| water The Jewish religion made hand
washing a law. By minute direction the
| hand must be plunged three times up to the
| wrist and the palm of one hand rubbed by the
| closed fist of the other. The Jewish Misnna
gives elaborate rules on this subject, all well as
| a symbol. But here in my text Governor PLATE
| proposes to wash off guilt, which he does not
| omit and of which he makes no repentance.
| Pilates wash-basin is failure Ceremonies
grand and good in themselves may mean no
more than this hypOcritlcal ablution. We
may be sprnkled in childhood at baptisma
fountains and IN manhood may wade into sol
emn immersiOns and never reach NOR
al publication. We may kneel with
without reverence and sing without accep-
tance. All the creeds and all the liturgies
and all the sacraments and all the genuhec-
tions and all the religious convocations
amount to nothing unless the heart and the
life go into them. When the bronze slave of the
palace carried out Pilates wash-basin he ear
ried out none of Pilates cruelty or cowardice
or wickedness. Nothing against creeds; we
all have them either written or implied
Nothing against ceremonies; they are inlin-
itely important. Nothing against sacraments:
fhnxT 6iNTl,1 lU ppF qTaCp
to the rosary If there many heartfelt
prayers as beads counted. No objections to
incense floating from censers among Gothic
arches if the devotion it typifes is as real as
the aroma ascending. No objections
to Epiphany and Lent and A sh
Wednesday and Easter and Whitsuntide
and Palm Sunday if the forms are only SYM
bols of real penitence and of holy reminiscence
and conservation. Ceremonies are only the
sheath of the sword, only the shell of the kerr
mel, only the lamp Of the flame, only the body
of the spirit. But the outward must be only
typical of the inward. Most surely wash your |
hands, bat more surely wash your hears.
Behold, also, as you see Governor PLATE |
thrust his hands into the wash basin, the power |
Of conscience. He felt that already there was |
blood on his hand, and it needed to be removed, |
the blood of an innocent prisoner, the blood of |
one whom he might have set at liberty had |
he only possessed the courage to do so. Poor
Plate! His conscience was after him and he |
never could wash of that stain, either from
his right hand or his left hand, and to the dav |
of the Roman Empire. there would be eight |
fingers and two thumbs red at the tips Oh.
the rover Of conscience when fully aroused |
With what whip of scorpions. over what bed |
of spikes, into what pitchy midnight it chases |
the guilty. Are there ghosts? Yes; but noi |
of the graveyard, ghosts of the mind not at |
rest with itself.
''Thus Brutus, amid his slumb'rng host
Startled by Casar's stalwart ghost"
Macbeth looks at his hands after he has COM |
mitted midnight assassination and says:
''Will all your Neptunes ocean wash this blood |
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will |
rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green-one red"
For every kind Of sin, great or small. con-
science, which is the voice of God, is a areDrOof
more or less emphatic. Charles TX, who or |
dered the st. Bartholomew massacre. was
pursued by hitter memories until the last
and In his dying moments said TO his doctor
Ambrose Parry, 81 know not how it is but |
the last few days feel as in a fever NV
body and mind are both disturbed on. / |
wish had spared the innocent and the i'm
becile. Rousseau confessed in old age that a
deed committed by him when he was Young
had given him many seepless nights. Charles
H., OF Spain, did not dare sleep unless he had
in his room a confessor and two friars. Cata-
line was haunted at his evil deeds and was
startled at the least sound Richard ILL., after
Staying his two nephews, would in the night
leap out of bed and clutch his sword and
strike at apparitions. Cardinal Beau
| Duke of Gloucester sometimes would cry out:
| ''Away. away! Why do you look at MI s''
| Prof. Webster, of Boston, while in prison
| waiting for his doom on the scaffoId, COM