Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-05-27
SIN ANDSNOW WATER.
DR.. I. De Witt Talmage DiscOurSes
on Our Need of Cleansing.
APOLOGIES FOR OUR EICKEDNESS
insufficient 10 Wash Out the Dark Stains
of SinfulReSS.
THE POWER OF GOOD RESOLUTIONS
PREPARED FOR THE p1srArcH.l

PREPARED FOR THE DIsPATcRl
will take for the text of this discourse
the words of job, ''1f wash myself with
snow water, and should cleanse my hands
in slkali. yet shalt thou plunge me in the
ditch, and mine owa clothes shall abhor
me- Albert Barnes-honored be his name
on earth and in heaFen-went straight back
to the original writing of my text, and
translated il as have now quoted it, giving
substantial reasons for so doing. Although
we know better, the ancienIs 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 alkah and mix it with
oil, and under that preparation they felt that
the last impuTity 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 dead failure, and that,
unless are abluted by something better than
earthly liquids and chemical preparations we
are loathsome and in the ditch. 4.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
ne"
A FAITHFUL PHoToGRAPH.S
You are now sitting for your picture. L turn
the camera obscura of Gods word full upon
You, and 1 pray that the sunshine falling
through the skylight may enable me to take
you just as you are. Shall it be a fattering
picture, or shall it be a true one? You say:
LET it be true one" The first profile that
was ever taken was taken, $50 years before
Christ of AntigCnus. He had blind eye, and
he compelled the artist to take his profile SO as
10 hide the defect in his vision But since that
invention, $50 years before Christ there have
been great many prohles. Shall to-day give
You q one-sided view of yourselves. profile,
or shall it be full1ength portrait, showing
you Just what you are? If God will help me
by Bis almighty grace shall give you that
last kind of picture.
When first entered the ministry L used to
write my sermons all out and read them, and
run my hand along the line lest l should lose
my place. / have hundreds of these manu-
scripts Shall ever preach them? Never; for
in those days was somehow overmastered
with the idea heard talked all around about
of the dignity of human nature. and adopted
the idea, and evolved it, and i illustrated it,
and / argued it; but coming on in life, and
having seen moretof the world, and studied
better my Bible, l find that that early teaching
was faulty, and that there is no dignity in
human nature until it is reconstructed by the |
grace Of God. Talk about vessels going to |
pieces on the SkerTies, off Ireland! There |
never was such a shipwreck as in the Gihon |
and Hiddekel, rivers of Eden, where our first |
parents foundered. Talk of a steamer going |
down with 500 passengers on boardi What is |
that to the shipwreck OF L 400 000, 600 souls? |
We are by nature mass of uneleanneSs and |
putrefaction, from which it takes all the ON
impotence and infinitude of Gods grace to ex- |
tricate US. IF wash myself with snow water,
and should cleanse my hands in alkali, yet |
shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and my own |
clothes shall abhor me-"
INSUFFICIENT APOLOGIES.
1 remark, in the first place, that some people |
try to cleanse their soul of sin in the snow water
off fna Sc ,,rl,o
81 am sinner; confess that; but inherited |
this. Ny father was sinner, my grandfather,
my great-grandfather AMI all the way back to
Adam. and 1 eouf help myself" My
brother. have you not. every day your life,
added something to the original estate of sin
that was bequeathed to you? Are you not
brave enough to confess that you have some
times surrendered to sin, which you ought to
havS conquered2 ask you whether it is fair
plar TO pht upon our ancestry things for which |
we ours-. res are personally responsible? If
your naturs was askew when you got il, have
you not sometimes given it an additional twist
W III all the tombStoneS OF those who have pre-
ceded us make harrlcade high enough for
eternal defense? 4? l know deVouts man who
had blasphemous parentage. know an honest
man whose father was thief. 1 know pure
man whose mother was await of the street.
The hereditary tide may be very strong. but
there is such thing as stemming it. The fact
that have corrupt 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 insufficient apology.
Still further, says someone: ''If l have gone
into sin. it has been through my companions,
my comrades and my associates; they ruined
me. They taught me to drink. They took me
TO- 70 ehe bg gam4nng 40 ing nell Iney plunged me- INTO
not believe it. God gave to no one the power
TO destroy you or me. If a man is destroyed
he is self-destroyed, and that is always SO.
Why did you not break away from them? If
they had tried to stead your purse you would
have knocked them down: if they had tried to
purloin your gold watch, you would have rid
died them with shot: but when they tried to
steal your immortal soul, you plaeidly sub
mited to it. Those bad fellows have a cup of
nre TO drink; do not pour your cup into it. In
tins matter of the soul,
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF.
That those persons are not fully responsible
for your sin, prove by the fact that you still
consort with them. You cannot get off by
blaming them. Though you gather mp all these
apologies; though there was a 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
.helr Sits by saying: I'VE are great deal bet
ter than some people. You see people all
around about us that are great deal worse
than we" You stand up columnar in your in
egr1ty, and look down upon those who are
DrOstra1e in their habits and crimes. What of
hat, my brOther7 II 1 failed through reckless
1ess and wicked 1mprudence for $4,000, is the ,
natter alleYiated at all by the fact that some-
BODY else has failed for the sum of $l00O OO0 and
somebody else for $4,000? Oh no. If have {
he neuralgia, shall refuse medical attend
Ince because my neighbor has virulent typhoid
ever? The fact that his disease is worse than J
nine-dOes that cure mine? If ], through my
leap off into ruin, does it break
he fail to know that Others leap of higher
cliff into deeper darkness2 When the Hudson
River Railroad train went through the bridge at 6
ipuyteR Duyvil did it alleviate the matter at
Ia that instead of two or three people being
lurt there were IS mangIed and crushed? Be-
ause Others are deprayed, is that any excuse I
or my depravity? Am / better than they?
'erhRps they had worse temptations than / l
ave had Perhaps their surroundings in life
TeTe more overpowering. Perhaps, o man, if s
GU had been under the same stress OF tempta- |
ion. instead OF sitting here to-day. you would
lave been looking through I
THE BARS OF A PENITENTIARY. !
Perhaps, o woman, if you had been under !
be same power of temptation, instead of sitting
lere to-day, you would be tramping the street O
be Laughing stock of men and the grief of the S
ngels of God, dungeoned. body, mind and soul I
D the blackness Of despair. All, do not let us 9
olace ourselves with the thought that other !
eople are worse than we. Perhaps in the fu- :
ure, when our fortunes may change, unless :
3od prevents il, we may be worse than they
re- Many man after 80 years, after 40 years,
fter so years. after 60 years, has gone to pieces
n the sand bars. Oh instead of wasting our
ime in hgpercriticism about Others let us ask