Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-19
A STRONG SWIMMER.
Christ Alone Can Rescue Man From
Sinking in the Sea of Sin.
HELP FOB A DROWNING WORLD.
Talmage Says That Ministers of the Cos
pei Should Not
ALWAYS PREACH ON THE SAME THEME
HELP FOR A DROWNING WORLD.
ALWAYS PREACH ON THE SAME THEME


SEATTLE, WASH. T., August 1S.-The
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., of
Brooklyn, preached here to-day. His text
was Isaiah XIV, IL: "He shall spread forth
his hands in the midst of them, as he that
swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to
swim" The preacher said:
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 hand in the midst of them, as he
that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to
SWIM
The fisherman seeks out unfrequented
hooks. You stand all day on the banks Of
a 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 bas-
L
of the Gospel need always be fishing in the
same stream, and preaching from the same
gext that other people preach from. 1 can
not understand the policy of the ministers
who, in Blackfriars, London, England,
every week for 80 years preached from the
Epistle to the Hebrews. 1t is an exhilara-
ton to me when come across a theme
which feel no one else has treated, and my
text is one of that kind. There are paths
in Gods Word that are we'll beaten BY
Christian feet When men want to quote
Scripture, they
QUOTE THE OLD PASSAGES
that every one has heard. When they want
a chapter read, they read a chapter that all
the other people have been reading, so that
the church to-day is ignorant of fthree-fourths
of the Bible. You 60 into the Louvre at
Paris. You confne yourself to one corridor
OF that opulent gallery of paintings As
you come out your friend says to you, "Did
you see that Rembrandt" "No." "Did
see that TItian?" "No." ssDid Won see
that Raphael?" "No." "Well." saws
your friend, "then you didn't see the
Louvre" Now, my friends, think we are
too much apt to confne ourselves to one of
the great corridors of this Scripture truth,
and so much so that there is not one person
out of million who has ever noticed the all
suggestive and powerful picture IN the words
of my text.
The text represents God as strong SWIM
mer, striking out TO push down iniquitv
and save the souls of men. "He shall spread
forth His.hands in the midst of them, as he
that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to
SWIM" The figure is bold and many sided.
Most of you know how to swim. Some of
you learned it in the city school, where this
art is taught; some of you in boyhood, IN
the river near your fathers house; some of
you since you came to manhood or woman
hood, while
SUMMERING ON THE BEACH
Of the sea. You step down in the wave, 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
1t is grand thing to know how to swim,
not only for yourself, but because you will
after while, perhaps. have to help others. |
do not know anything more stirring or
sublime than to see some man like |
Norman Mckenzie leaping from the |
ship Madras into the sea to save !
Charles Turner, 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 |
man has not enthusiasm enough to cheer in |
such circumstances he deserves himself to |
drop into the sea and have no one to help |
him. The Royal Humane Society of En- |
gland was established in IVA, its object to |
applaud and award those who should pluck |
up life from the deep. Anyone who has |
performed such a deed of daring has all the |
particulars of that deed of bravery recorded |
in a public record, aud on his breast a |
medal done in blue and gold and bronze, |
anchor and monogram and inscription, tell |
ing to future generations the bravery OF the |
man or woman who saved someone from |
drowning. But, my friends, if it is such a
worthy thing to save body from the deep,
ask you If it Is not a worthier thing to |
save an immortal soul? And you shall see |
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 SWIM |
meth spreadeth forth his hands to SWIM"
SINKING IN SIN.
In order to understand the full force of |
this figure, you need to realize. first of all, |
that our race is in sinking condition. You |
sometimes hear people talking of what they |
consider the most beautiful words in our |
language. One man says it is "home," an |
other man says it is the word mother"
another says it is the word Jesus" but 1 |
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 itwith three letters, and yet those three
letters describe the circum ference and pierce
the diameter of everything bad in the
Sinl il is sibilant word.
You cannot pronounce it without giving
the siss of the fame or the hiss of the
serpent. Sinl And then if you add
three letters to that word it de-
scribes everyone of us by nature
sinner. We have outraged the law of God,
not occasionally. or now and then, but per-
The Bible declares it. Harki 1t
thunders two claps: ''The heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked"
The soul that sinneth, it shall die" What
the Bible says our own conscience afirms.
Alter Judge Morgan had sentenced Lady
Jane Grey to death his conscience troubled
him SO much for the deed that he became
insane, and all through his insanity he kept
saying: Take her away from mel Lady
Jane Grey. Take her awayl Lady JaEe
Grey" 1t was the voice of his conscience.
And no man ever does anything wrong,
however great or small, but his conscience
brings that matter before him, and at every
step Of his misbehavior il says: "Wrong,
wrong" Sin is leprosy, sin is a paralysis,
sin is consumption, sin is pollution,
SIN Is DEATH.
Give it fair chance and it will swamp
you, body, mind and soul forever In this
world it only gives faint intfmation of its
vIrulence. You see patient in the first