The intelligencer., 1889-11-09
HEY. + Dewitt Tahmage Addresses
the Public Through the Press.
Vessels of the olden Time and the Present
The Christians Journey Over LIES
Billows The Voyage to Heaven
Farewell Greetings.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, d. D., OF
brooklyn, on his embarkation for the
Holy Land by the steamer City of Paris,
addressed his friends through the press,
taking for his text Acts XXX. SO: "And
they accompanied him unto the ship"
Following is the sermon:
To the more than %, 600, 900 people in
many countries to whom my sermons
come week by week, in English tongue
and by translation, through the kind
ness of the newspaper press, address
these words. dictate them to stem
ographer on the eve of my departure for
the Holy Land, Palestine. When you
read this sermon ! will be in mid-Atlan-
tic. go to he gone few weeks on a
religious journey. go because l want
Tor myself and hearers and readers to
see Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and Jeru-
sulem, and Calvary, and all the other
places connected with the Saviour's life
and death, and so reinforce myself for
sermons. go also because | am writ
Ing the Life of Christ" and can be
more accurate and graphic when 1 have
been an eye witness of the sacred places.
Pray for my successful journeying and
my safe return.
wish on the eve of departure to pro-
nounce a loving benediction unon all
my friends in high places and low, upon
congregations to whom my sermons are
read in absence of pastors. upon groups
gathered out on prairics and in mining
districts, upon all sick and invalid and
aged ones who can not attend churches,
Dut to whom have long administered
through the printed page. My next
sermon will be addressed to you from
Rome, Italy, for | feel like Paul when
he said: $50, 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 was an old sailor-not from occupa-
ton, but from frequency of travel. /
think he could have taken vessel
across the Mediterranean as well as
some of the ship captains. The sailors
never scoffed at him for being ''land
lubber." If Paul's advice had been
taken the crew would never have zone
ashore at Melita. When the vessel went
scudding under bare poles Paul was the ]
only self-possessed man on board, and,
turning to the excited crew and despair
ing passengers, he exclaims, in voice
that sounds above the thunder of the
tempest and the wrath of 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 naviga-
ton. Horace said that the man who
hrst ventured ON the sea must have had
heart bound with oak and triple brass.
People then ventured only from head
land to headland and from island to
island, and not long after spread their
sail for voyage across the sea. Before
starting, the weather was watched. and
the ship having been hauled up on the
shore, the mariners placed their shoul-
ders against the stern of the ship and
heaved it off, they at, the last moment
leaping into it. Vessels were then
rhiehy ships OF burden-the transit of
passengers being the exception; for the
world was not then migratory as in our
nay, 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 in which
Paul was carried prisoner, went out
chiefly with the idea of taking cargo.
As now, so then, vessels were accus-
toned to carry a flag. In those days it
was inscribed with the name of a
heather deity. A vessel bound for Syra-
cuse 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 hold the vessel fast. This last
kind was what Paul alluded to when he
said: (Which hope we have as an an
chor of the soul, both sure and stead
fast, and which entereth into that with
In the vail" That was what the sailors
call "hook anchor" The rocks and
sand bars, shoals and headlands, not
being mapped out, vessels carried
plumb line. They would drop it and
hnd the water fifty fathoms, and drop it
again and find it forty fathoms, and
drop 1t again and find it thirty 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
rrkntry blast they hied themselves to
The nearest harbor, although now the
worlds commerce prospers in Janu-
ary as well as in June, and in midwinter,
all over the wide and stormy deep, there
float palaces of light, trampling the bill
lows under foot, and showering the
sparks of terrible furnaces on the wild
wind; and the Christian passengers, ,,
tippeted and shawlcd, sit under the
shelter OF the smoke-stack, looking off
upon the phosphorescent 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 watersr'
1t is in those days of early navigation
that see group of men, women and :
children on the beach of the Mediter- }
ranean. Paul is about to leave the con-
gregation to whom he had preached and
they are come down to see him off 1t
Is solemn thing to part. There are so
many traps that wait for mans feet Z
The solid ground may break through,
ind the sea--how many dark mysteries L
{ hides in its bosom a few counsels, p
TASTY Rood-h last look, and the y
'opts fatts9FeEds tide SAILS are hoisted,
md thespianlrs are hauled in and Paul g
IS sgone. expect to sail over some of v
She same waters over which Paul sailed,
4
10 embark for Heaven.
The Church is the drydock where souls p
Ire to be fitted out for Heaven. Inmak- +
ng a vessel for this voyage, the first u
need is sound timber. The floor timber
ought to be of solid stIii. For the want G
If it vessels that looked able TO run a
heir jibbooms into the eye of any a
tempest when caught in storm have i
been crushed like a wafer The truths
,imbers. Nothing but oaks, hewn in t
he forest of divine truth, are stanch b
enough for this craft. g
You must have love for helm to Ii
5uide and turn the craft. Neither pride, II
Tor ambition, nor avarice will do for a
udder.F Love not only in the heart,
nut flashing in the eye and tingling in
he hand-loye married to work, which
many look upon as SO homely a bride
owe, not like books, which foam and
attle, yet do nothing, but love like
iver that runs up the steps of mill
1heels, and works in the harness of
actory bands; love that will not pass by q
n the other side, but visits the man OF
Tho fell among thieves near Jericho, al
Iot merely saying "PoOr follow! you are tt
earfully hurt" but, like the good 81
amaritan, pours in oil and wine and pays a,
is board at the tavern. There must m
lso be prov, arranged to cut and over rs
ide the billow. That ia Christian per- sc
everance. There are three mountain IL
urges that sometimes dash against a I'll