Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-11-13
DR.. TALMAGE'S G00D-BY.
HE EMBARKS FOR THE HOLY
LAND.
Impressive Farewell Sermon.

NEW YORK, ON BOARD THE CITY OF
PARIS, October 29.-The Rev. T. De Witt
Talmage, DID,, of Brooklyn, ON his EN-
barkation for the Holy Land by the steamer
City of Paris, addressed his millions of
friends through the press, taking for the
text Acts Xxx, 3S: Sand they accompanied
him unto the Ship" His sermon is printed
below at full length:
To the more than twenty five million peo
pie in many countries to whom my sermons
come week by week, in English tongue and
by translation, through the kindness of the
newspaper press, / address these words.
dictate them to stenographer on the eve
of my departure for the Hely Land, Pales
tine. When you read this sermon l will be
mid Atlantic, l go to be gone few weeks
on a religious journey. l go because want
for myself aud hearers and readers to see
Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and Jerusalem,
and Calvary, and all the other places cou
nected with the Savionr's life and DEATH
and so reinforce myself for sermons. I go
also because l am writing the "Life of
Christ" and can be more accurate and
graphic when l have been an eye witness
of the sacred places. Pray for my success
full journeying and my safe return.
l wish on the eve of departure to pro
nounce loving benediction upon all my
friends in high places aud low, upon con-
gregations to whom my sermons are read
in absence of pastors, upon groups gathered
out on pralries and in mini1g districts, up
on all sick and invalid and aged ones who
cannot attend churches, but to whom have
long administered thr ough the printed page.
NV next sermon will be addressed to you
from Rome. Italy, for feel like Paul when
be said: So, as much as in me is, | am
ready to preach the gospel to you that are
at Rome also" The fact is that Paul was
ever moving about on land or sea. He wai
an old sailor-not from occupation, but
from frequency of travel. l think be could
have taken a vessel across the M9diter-
ranean as well as some of the ship captains.
The sailors never scoffed at him for being a
sland lubber'' If Paul's advice had been
taken, the crew would never have gone
ashore at Melita.
When the vessel went scudding under
the bare poles Paul was the only self-pos
sessed man on board, and, turning to the
excited crew and despairing passengers, he
exclaims, in voice that sounds above be
thunder of the tempest and the wrath of the
sea: "Be of good cheer"
The men who now go to sea with maps
buoy and lighthouse, know nothing of the
perils of ancient navigation. Horace said
that the man who first ventu1ed on the sea
must have had heart bound with oak and
triple barss. People then ventured only
from headland to headland and from island
to island, and not until loug after spread
their sail for a voyage across the sea. Be-
fore starting, the weather was watched, and
the vessel having been hauled up on the
shore, the mariners placed their shoulders
against the stern of the ship and beaved il
off, they at the last moment leaping into it.
Vessels were then chiefly ships of burden
the transit of passengers being the excep-
ton; for the world was not then migratory
as in our day, when the first desire of a
man in one place seems to be to get into an
other place. The ship from which Jonah
was thrown overheard. and that in which
Paul was carried prisoner, went out chiefly
with the idea of taking cargo. AS now,
so then, vessels were accustomed to carry a
flag. In those times it was inscribed with
the name of heather deity. A vessel
bound for Syracuse had on it the insorip-
ton, "Castor and Pollux." The ships were
provided with anchors. Anchors were OF
two kinds; those that were dropped into the
sea and those that were thrown upon the
rocks to bold the vessel fast. This last kind
was what Paul alluded to when he said
(which hope we have as an anchor of the
soul, both sure and stesdfast, and which
entereth into that within the vail" That
was what the sailors call "hook anchor. "