Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-11-04
HIS SERMON FROM A STEAMSHIP,
HIS NEXT SERMON TO BE FROM ROME
rooRREsroNDENoE OF THE D1srArcH.,

rOoRREsPoNDENCE OF THE DISPATCH.
NEW YORK, ON BOARD THE CITY OF
PARIS, October 29.-The Rev. 7. De Witt
Talmage, D. D., OF Brooklyn, on his en-
Oarkation for the Holy Land by the steamer
City of Paris, addressed his millions of
friends through the press, taking for his
text Acts Xxx, 3S: "And they accompanied
Him unto the ship" His sermon is printed
below at full length:
To the more than 5000, 900 people in
many countries to whom my sermons come
week by week. in English tongue and by
translation, through the kindness of the
newspaper press, 1 address these words. L
dictate them to a stenographer on the eve of
my departure for the Holy Land, Palestine
When you read this sermon 1 will be mid
Atlantic. 1 go to be gone few weeks on a
religious journey. I go because want for
myself and hearers to see Bethlehem and
Nazareth and Jerusalem and Calvary, and
all the other places connected with the
Saviour's life and death, and so reinforce
myself for sermons. 1 go also because 1 am
writing the Life of Christ" and can be
more accurate and graphic when I have
been an eyewitness of the sacred places
Pray for my successful journeying and my
safe return.
1 wish on the eve of departure to pro-
nounce a owing b. reelection upon all nv
friends in high places and low, upon con-
gregago"s to whom nv sermons are read in
absence OF pastors, upon groups gathered
out on praises and in mining districts, upon
all sick and Invalid ana aged ones who can
not attend churches, but to whom l have
long administered through the printed page.
My next sermon will be addressed to you
from Rome, Italy, for 1 feel like Paul when
ne said: $50, as much as in me is, am
ready to preach the gospel to you that are at
Rome also"
PAUL, THE ANCIENT MARINER.
The fact is that Paul was ever moving
about Ga laLd or sea. He was an old sailor
not from occupation, but from frequency
of travel. think he could have taken a
vessel across the Mediterranean as well as
some Of the ship captains. The sailors never
scofed at him for being "land lubber" If
Pauls advice had been taken, the crew
would never have gone ashore at Melita.
When the vessel went scu6ding under
bare poles Paul was the only selfpossessed
man on board, and, turning to the excited
crew and despairing passengers. he ex-
claims, in a voice that sounds above the
sea: ''Be OF good cheer"
The men who now go to sea with maps
and charts and modern compass, warned by
buoy and Lighthouse, know nothing of the
perils OF ancient navigation. Horace said
that the man who first ventured on the sea
must have had heart bound with oak and
triple brass. People then ventured only
from headland to headland, and from
island to island, and not until long after
4l,ns-
the sea. Before 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 hea ed it of, they at the last
moment leaping into it. Vessels were then
chiefly ships of ourden-the transit of pas
sengers being the exception; 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 another place. The ship
from which Jonah was thrown overheard,
and that which Paul was carried prisoner,
went out chiefly with the idea of taking
cargo.
NAVIGAToRs' OLD APPLIANCES.
As now. so then, vessels were accustomed
to carry flag. In those times it was in
scribed with the name of heather deitv.
A vessel bound for Syracuse had on it the
inscription 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 up
onto the rocks to mold 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 steadfast, and which
entereth into that within the veil" That
was what the sailors call "hook anchor
The rocks and sand bars, shoals and head
lands not being mapped out, vessels carried
plumb line. They would drop il and find
the water so fathoms. ani drop it
again and find 1t 40 fathoms, and
drop it again and find it 80 fathoms, thus
discovering their near approach to the
shore. In the spring, summer and autumn
the Mediterranean Sea was white with the
wings of ships, but at the first wintry blast
they hied themselves to the nearest harbor,
although now the worlds commerce pros
pers in January as we'll as in June, and in
midwinter, all over the wide and stor nv
deep, there float palaces of light. tramp
ling the billows under loot, and shoWering
the sparks of terrible furnaces on the wild
wind; and the Christian passenger, tippeted
and shawled, sits under the shelter of the
smokestack, looking off upon the phos-
phorescent deep, on which is written. in
scrolls of foam and fire: "Thy way, o God,
is in the sea, and Thy path in the great
Waters!
1t is in those days of early navigation
that l see group Of men, women and chill
dren on the beach of the Mediterranean.
Paul is about to leave the congregation
to whom he had preached and they are come
down TO see him off 1t is
A SOLEMN THING TO PART.
There are so many traps that wait for a
mans feet. The solid ground may break
through, and the sea-how many dark mys-
teries it hides in its bosoml A few coun-
sells, hesty goodby, a last look, and the
ropes rattle, and the sails are hoisted, and
the planks are hauled in, and Paul is gone.
I expect to sail over some of the same
waters over which Paul sailed, but before
going I want to urge you all to embark for
heaven.
The church is the drydock where souls
are to be fitted out for heaven. In making
q vessel for this voyage, the first need is
sound timber. The floor timbers ought to
be of solid stqf. For the want of it, vessels
that looked able to run their jibbooms into
the eve of any tempest, when caught in a
storm have been crushed like a wafer. The
truths of Gods Word are what 1 mean by
floor timbers. Away with your lighter ma
tsrials Nothing but oaks, hewn in the
forest of divine truth are stanch enough
for this craft.
You must have love for a helm, to guide
and turn the craft. Neither pride nor am
bition nor aEariee will do for a rudder.
Love, not only in the heart, but flashing in
the eve and tingling in the hand-love mar
ried to work, which many look upon as so