The Russellville Democrat., 1889-08-29
PHARMACIES SERMON.
The Brooklyn Preacher Discourses
 on the "Strong Swimmer"
The Many Lessons to he Learned From Ills Doings-The Likeness to Christ In the Power to
 Save His Fellow Men.


 Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage took for the subject of a sermon recently delivered at Seattle, " T., the "Strong Swimmer" ] Eis text was
 He shall spread forth His hands in the midst Of them. as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swlm.-Isaiah XIV, Il. At this season of the year multitudes of people wade into the ponds, and lakes, and rivers and seas. At first putting out cautiously from the shore, but having learned the right stroke of arm and foot, they let the waters roll over them, and in wild glee dive, or float, or swim. So the text will be very suggestive:
 He shall spread forth His hands in the midst Of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hunds to swim.
 The fisherman seeks out unfrequented hooks. You stand all day on the bank of @ river in the broiling sun and fling out your line and catch nothing, while the ex- pert angler breaks through the jungle and goes by the shadow of the solitary rock, and in place where no fisherman has been for ten years, throws out his line and comes home at night, his face shining and his basket full. l do not know why we ministers of the Gospel need always be fishing III the same stream and preaching from the same text that other people preach from. l can not under- stand the policy of the minister who, in Blackfriars, London, En- gland, every week for thirty years preached from the Epistle to the He- brews. It is an exhilaration to me when I come across a theme which I feel no one else has treated, and my text is one of that kind. There are paths in G od's word that are well beaten by Christian feet. When men want to quote Script ure, they quote the old passages that every one has heard. When they want a chapter read, they read chapter that all the other people have been reading, so that the Church to-day is ignorant of three-fourths of the Bible. You go into the Louvre at Paris. You confine your- self to one corridor of that opulent gall lery of paintings. As you come out your friend says to you:
 'sDid you see that Rembrandt2"
 oNo."
 'Did you see that Rubens?"
 s,No.o
 Did you see that Titan"
 "No.n
 "Did you see that Raphael?"
 eNo."
 
 didn't see the Louvre"
 Now, my friends, I think we are too much apt to confine ourselves to one of the great corridors of this Scripture truth, and so much so that there is not one person out of a million who has ever noticed the all-suggestive and powe rful picture in the words of my text
 This text represents God as strong swimmer, striking out to push down in- iauity and save the souls of men.
 He shall spread forth His hands in the midst of them, as he that swmmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim.
 The figure is bold and many sided. Most of you know how to swim. Some of you learned in the city school, where this art is taught; some of you in boy hood in the river near your fathers house; some of you since you came to manhood or womanhood while summer ing on the beach of the sea. You step down in the waves, you throw your head back. you bring your elbows to the chest you put the palms of your hands downward and the soles of your feet outward, and you push through the water as though you had been born aquatic. Ii Is great thing to know how to swim, not only for youself, but because you will after awhile, perhaps, have to help to save others.
 do not know any thing more stirring or sublime than to see some man like Nor man Mckenzie leaping from the ship Madras into the sea to save Charles Fur ner, who had dropped from the royal yard while trying to loosen the sail, bringing him back to the deck amid the huzzas of the passengers and crew. If a .l,r ol.a in such circumstances he deserves him. self to drop into the sea and have no one help him. The Royal Humane Society of England was established in 1774; its ob- feet to applaud and reward those who should pluck up life from the deep. Any one who has performed such deed of daring has all the particulars of that bravery recorded in a publlo record, and on his breast medal done in blue and gold and bronze, anchor and monogram and inscription, telling to future genera tions the bravery of the man or woman who saved some one from drowning. But, my friends, if it is such worthy thing to save body from the deep, I ask you if it is not a worthier thing to save an immortal, soul? And you shall sec this hour the Son of God step forth for this achievement.
 He shall spread forth His hand in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim.
 In order to understand the full force of this figure, you need 10 realize, first of all, that our race is in a sinking condi- ton. You sometimes hear people talk ing of what they con sider the most beau tiful words in our language. One man says it is "home," another man says 1t is the word "mother," another says it is the word "Jesus," but l will tell you the bitterest word in all our language, the word most angry and baleful, the word saturated with the most trouble, the word that accounts for all the loathsome- ness, and the pang, and the outrage, and the narrowing, and that word is "sin." You spell it with three letters, and yet those three letters describe the oircum- ference and pierce the diameter of every thing bad in the universe. Sini it is a sibilant word. You can not pronounce 1t without giving the siss of the flame or the hiss of the serpent. Sini And then if you add three letters to that word it describes every one of us by nature sinner. We have outraged the law of God, not occasionally, or now and then, but perpetually. The Bible declares 1t. Harkl It thunders two claps: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desper- ately wicked" ''The soul that sinneth, it shall die."
 What the Bible says our own conscience affirms. After Judge Morgan had sem tenced Lady Jane Grey to death hig con- science troubled him so much for the deed that he became insane, and all through his insanity he kept saying; "Take her away from me! Lady Jane Grey. Take her away; Lady Jane Grey p' It was the voice of his conscience. And no man ever done any thing wrong, how ever great or small, but his conscience brings that matter before him, and at every step of his misbehayior 1t says: Wrong, wrong" Sin is a leprosy, sin is paralysis, sin is consumption, sin is pollution, sin is death. Give it a fair nhanca and it ,rill awau,n vot4 hodry