Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-06-08
The Eloquent Brooklyn Di-
vines Sunday Morning
Discourse.
eft I Wash Myself With Snow
Water and Should I
Cleanse
My Hands in Alkiii, Yet Shall Thou
Plunge Me in the Ditch and
Mine Own Clothes
AbhOr Me-"

BROOKLYN, May 26.-The Rev. I. d.
Witt Talmage, y. d., preached at the
Tabernacle today to an overlooking con
gregation. He selected as the opening
hymn that one beginning:
Salvation, O the joyful sound,
IT'S pleasure to our ears;
a sovereign balm for every wound,
A cordial TO our fears.
~ The text was: IF | wash myself with
snow water, and should / cleanse my
hands in alkali, yet shall thou plunge MT
in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall
abhor me."S-Job tx. 30, 81. The elo'
quent reache...=sKd.~@
Albert Barnes -honored by his name
on earth and In heaven-went straight
back TO the originsl writing of my text,
and translated il as | have now quoted il,
giving substantial reasons for so doing.
Although we know better, the ancients
had an idea that in snow water there was
q special power to cleanse, and that a
garment washed and rinsed in ii would
be as clean as clean could be; but if the
plain snow water failed to do its work,
her they would take lye or alkali and
mix it with oil, and under that prepare
ton 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 him
self pure before God were a dead failure,
and that, unless we are abluted by some
thing better than earthly liquids and
chemical preparations, we are loathsome
and in the ditch. IF ] 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.
] turn the camera obscura of Gods word
full upon you, and | pray that the un-
shine falling through the skylight may
enable me to take you just as you are.
Shall it be a tiattering picture, or shall it
be a true one? You say: Let it be a
true one" The first profile that was
ever taken was taken $50 years before
Christ, of Ambiguous. He had a blind
eye, and he compelled the artist TO take
his profile SO as TO hide the defect in his
vision. But since that invention, $50
years before Christ, there have been
many profles. Shall ] today give You a
one sided view Of yourselves, a profile,
or shall it be a full length portrait, show
ing you just what you areY If God will
help me by his almighty grace, | shall
give you that last kind Of a picture.
When | first entered the ministry I
used to write my ermOn all Out and
read them, and run my hand along the
line lest | should lose my place. / have
hundreds Of those manuscripts. Shall |
ever preach them? Never; for in those
days ! was somewhat ove mastered with
the idea I heard talked all around about.
of the dignity Of human nature, and |
adopted the idea, and | evolves il, and |
illustrated it, and | argued ii; but com
ing on il 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 dignity in humau
nature, until il is reconstructed By The
grace Of God. Talk about vessels going
10 pieces on the Skerries, off lrelandl
There never was such a shipwreck rs in
the Gihon and the Hiddekel, rivers of
Eden, where u first parents f~oundered.
Talk Of q steamer going down with 500
passengers on boardl What is that 10
the shipwreck Of fourteen hundred
million souls? We are by nature a mass
ef u~ncleanliness and putrefaction, from
which it takes all the omnipotence and
infnitude Of Gods grace to eXtricate us.
'If | wash myself with TO- water. and
should J. cleanse my hands in alkali, yet
shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and
nv own clothes shall abhor me-"
I remark, in the first place, that some
people try to cleanse their soul of sin in
snow water of fine apologies. Here is
one mar who says: Il am a sinner; /
confess that: but | inherited that. My
father was d sinner, my grandfather, my
reat-great-grandfather, and all the way
back to Adam, and / couldn't help my
self" My brother, have you not, every
day in your life, added something to the
original estate of sin that was bequeathed
to your Are you not brave enough to
confess Ia you have sometimes sur
RENDERED = sin, which you ought to have
uogduereu2 | ask you whether it is fair
lay to put upon our ancestry things for
which we ourselves are personally rc,
sp02sihley If your nature was askew
when you got it, have you not some
times given it an additional twist? Viii
ell the tombstones Of those who have
preceded ue make a barricade high
enough for eternal defenses? know a
devout man who had blasphemcus
~payentage, / know an honest man
whose father was a thief. know a pure
man whose mother was q wait on the
street. The hereditary tide may be very
strong, but there IS such a thing as stem.
ming it. The fact that have a corrup,
nature is no reason why | shall yield &c
it. The deep stains of our soul a move,
be washed nut by the now water OF such
insufficient apology.
Still further, says some one: IF
have gone into sin. it has been through
my companions. my comrades and asso.
ciates; they ruined me. They taught me
10 drink. They took me te the gambling
hell. They plunged me into the house
OF sin. They ruined my soul" do no,
believe ii, God gave to no n the
power to destroy you or me. If q man
is destroyed he is self destroyed, and thu
is always o Why did you not break
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