The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-06-12
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Our Need Of Cleansing"

TEXT: ssIf 1rnsh myself aoith sno,t
arater, and should cleanse my hands IN
alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me IN the d1tch
and mine o,Un clothes ShGH d0hoT ME-
Job tx, 80, 81.
Albert Barnes-honored be his name on
earth andin entStralght back to the
original writing of my text, and translated
it as have now quoted it, giving substantial
reasons for so doing. Although we know
better, the ancients had an idea that in snow
water there was special power to cleanse,
and that garment washed and rinSed In it
would be as clean as clean could be: but if
the plain snow water failed to do its work.
then they would take lye or alkai and
mixed it with oil, and under that
preparation they felt that the last impurity
would certainly be gone. Job, in my text,
in most forceful figure sets forth the
idea that all his attempts to make himself
pure before God were a dead failure, and
that, unless we are abluted by something
better than earthly liquids and chemical
preparations. we are loathsome and In the
ditch. ''lf wash myself with snow water,
and should cleanse my hands in alkali, yet
shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine
own clothes shall abhor me-"
You are now sitting for your picture.
I turn the camera obscura Of Gods
word full upon you, and pray that
the sunshine falling through the skyight
may enable me to take you just as you
are Shall it be a aattering picture, or
shall it be true one? You say: LET it be
q true one" The first profile that was ever
taken was taken three hundred and thirty
years before Christ, Of Antigonus. He had
blind eye, and he compelled the art
defect in his vision. But since that inven-
ton, three hundred and thirty years before
Christ, there have been great many pro-
files. Shall to-day give you one-sided
view Of yourselves, profile, or shall it be q
full-length portrait, showing you just what
sou are? If God will help me by His al
mighty grace, shall give you that last kind
when I first entered The ministry used to
write nv sermons all out and read them, and
run my hand along the line lest should lose
my place Ihavehundreds Of those manu-
scripts Shall ever preach them? Never;
for in those days was somewhat over-mas-
tered with the idea heard talked all around
about, of the dignity of human nature, and
adopted the idea, and evolved it, and Illus
trated it, and argued it; but coming on in
life and having seen more Of the world, and
studied better my Bible find that that early
teaching was faulty, and that there is no dig
nifty in human nature, until it reconstructed
by the grace of God. Talk about vessels going
to pieces on the Skerries, off Ireland! There
never was such shipwreck aS in the Gihon
and the Hiddekel rivers Of Eden, where
our first parents foundered. Talk OF a
steamer going down with five hundred
passengers on board! What is that to the
shipwreck Of fourteen hundred million souls?
We are by nature mass of uncleanness and
putrefaction, from which it takes all the om-
impotence and ininitude of Gods grace to
extricate us. "If wash myself with snow
water, and should cleanse my hands in al
kali, vet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch,
and nv own clothes shall abhor me-"
remark, in the first place, that some peo-
ple try to cleanse their soul of sin in the snow
water of fine apologies. Here is one man who
says: 81 am a sinner; Lconfess that; but
inherited this. My father was sinner, my
grandfather, my great-great-grandfatheri
eoadns epd M 'he help way @yysa Gfe' Ny Bother have
you not, every day in your life, add.
ed something to the original estate Of
sin that was bequeathed to you? Are
you not brave enough to confess
that you have sometimes surrendered to sin,
which you ought to have conquered? I ask
you whether it is fair play to put upon our
ancestry things for which we ourselves are
personally responsible? If your nature was
askew when you got it, have you not some
times given it an additional twist? VIII all
the tombstones Of those who have preceded
for eternal defenses? I know devout
man who had blasphemous parentage.
know an honest man whose father was q
thief. know pure man whose mother was
q waif of the street. The hereditary tide
may be very strong but there is such thing
as stemming it. The fact that have a cor
rupt nature is no reason why should yield
to it. The deep stains Of our soul can never
be washed out by the snow water of such in
sufficient apology.
Still further, says some one:. IF have
gone into sin, it has been through my COM
panions my comrades and my associates;
they ruined me. They taught me to drink.
They took me to the gambling hell. They
plunged me into the house of sin. They
ruined my soul" I do not believe it. God
gave to no one the power to destroy you or
me- If man is destroyed he is self destroyed,
and that isalways so. Why did you not break
your purse, you would have knocked them
down; if they had tried to purloin your gold
watch, YOU would have riddled them
with shot; but when they tried to steal your
immortal soul, you placidly submitted to it.
Those bad fellows have cup of fire to drink;
do not pour your cup into it. In this matter
Of the soul, every man for himself. That
those persons are not fully responsible for
your sin, I prove by the fact that you still
consort with them. Ycu cannot get off bv
blaming them. Though you gather up all
these apologies: though there were great
food of them; though they should come down
with the force of the melting SHOWS from
Lebanon, they could not wash out one stain
of your IMMORTAL soul.
Still further, some persons apologize for
their sins by saying: I'VE are great deal
better than some people. You see people all
around about US that are great deal worse
than We" You stand up columnar in your
integrity, and look down upon those who are
PROSTATE in their habits and crimes. What
Of that, my brother? i'll failed through reck-
lessness and wicked imprudence for ten thou
sand dollars, is the matter alleviated at all
by the fact that somebody else has
failed for one hundred thousand dollars,
and somebody else for two hundred
thousand dollars? Oh, no. If I have
the neuralgia, shall refuse medical attend
ance because my, reighbor has virulent
typhoid fever: The fact that his disease
is worse than mine-does that cure mine:
If T. through my foolhardiness, leap Off into
ruin, does it break the fall to know
that others leap off higher cliff into
deeper darkness? When the Hudson river
rail train went through the bridge at Spuyten
Duyvil, did it alleviate the matter at all that
instead of two or three people being hurt
there were seventy-five mangled and crushed!
Because others are depraved, is that any ex.
cuse for my depravity? Am I better
than they? Perhaps they had worse
temptations than I have had. Per
haps their surroundings in life were
more overpowering. Perhaps, o man
if you had been under the same stress OF
temptation, instead of sitting here to-day
you would have been looking through the
bars Of a penitentiary. Perhaps o woman,
If you had been under the same power of
temptation, instead of sitting here to-day,
you would be tramping the street, the laugh