Dodge City times., 1889-11-21
OFF FFORTHE HOLYLAND
fALAAGE GIVES SOME LESSONS
ARR0POs TO nIs TRIP ABROAD.
No Voyage from Time to Eternlty-Ihere
Host Be nm Anchor of Hope Sure and
0tsaAfast, Enthusiasm Must FIN the
sssls and Gods Holy Spirit Be the Pilot.


sssls and Gods Holy Spirit Be the Pilot
The Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, OF
Brooklyn, ON his embarkment for the
Holy Land by the steamer City of Paris,
addressed bis millions of friends
through the press, taking for his text
Acts II, %: And they accompanied him
1rfo the ship" His sermon 10 printed
below at full length:
To the more than twenty-five million
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, sd.
dress these words. l dictate them to q
stenographer on the eve ofmy departure
for the Holy Land, Palestine. When
you read this sermon will be mid-At-
lantic. go to be gone a few weeks on
areligious journey. go because l want
for myself and hearers and readers to
SEQ Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and Jeru-
salem, and Calvary, and all the other
places connected with the Saviour's life
and death, and SO reinforce myself for
sermons. 1 60 also because l am writ
ing the Life of Christ" and can be
moro accurate and graphic when I have
been an eyewitness of the sacred places.
Pray for my successful journeying and
my safe return.
wish on the eve of departure to pro-
nounce loving benediction upon 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 prailies and in mining
districts, upon all sick and invalid and
aged ones who cannot attend churches,
but to whom have long administered
through the printed page. My next SER
mon will be addressed to you from Rome,
Italy, for feel like Paul when he said:
So, as much as in me is, l 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 occupation,
but from frequency of travel. l think
he could have taken a vessel across the
Mediterranean rs we'll as some of the
ship captains. The sailors never scoffed
at him for being a land lubber." If
Paurs advice had been taken, the crew
would never have gone ashore at Melita.
Whom the vessel went scuddling un-
der bare poles Paul was the onlylself-
possessed man on board, and, turning
to the excited crew and despairing pas
sengers, he exclaims, in a 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 navigation.
Horace said that the man who first ven-
tured on the sea mast have had a heart
bound with oak and triple brass. People
then ventured only from headland to
headland and from islandto island, and
not until long after spread their sail for
\ voyage across the sea. Before start
ing, the weather was watched, and, the
vessel having been hauled up on the
shore, the mariners placed their shoul-
ders against the stern of the ship and
heaved it of, they at the last moment
leaping into it.
Versels were then chiefly ships of
burden-the transit of passengers being
the exception; for the world was not
then migratory as in our day. when the
first desire of man in one place seems
to be to get into another place. The
ship from which Jonah was thrown over
board, and that in which Paul was car
ried prisoner, went out chiefly with the
idea of taking cargo. As now, sothen,
vessels we're accustomed to carry flag,
In those times it was inscribed with the
name of q heather deity. A vessel
bound for Syracuse had on it the in
scription Castor and Pollux." The
ships were provided with anchors. An
chors we're Of two kinds; those that
we're 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 rs an anchor of
the soul, both sure and steadsast, and
which entereth into that within 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 find the
water fifty fathoms, and drop it again
and find it forty fathoms, and drop it
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
wintry blast they hied themselves
to the nearest harbor, although
now the worlds commerce prospers in
January as we'll as in June, and in mid
winter, all over the wide and stormy
deep, there float palaces of light, tramp.
ling the billows under foot, and show
ering the sparks of terrible furnaces on
the wild wind; aa6 the Christian pas
senger, tippeted and shawled, sits under
the shelter of the smokestack, looking
on upon the phosphOrescent deep, on
which Is written, in scrolls of foam and
IRE: Thy way, o God, is in the sea, and
Thy path in the great waters,"
1t is In those days of early navigation
that see group of men, women, and
children on the beach of the Mediterra-
mean. Paul is about to leave the con-
gregation to whom he had preached and
they are come down to see him off. 1t
Is q 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 mysteries
it holds in its bosomi A few counsels,
. hasty goodbye, - last look, and the
ropes rattle. and the sails are hoisted,
and the planks are hauled in, and Paul
as gone. expect to sail over some of
the same waters over which Paul sailed,
but before going want to urge you all
to embark for Heaven.
The church is the drydock where
sould are to be fitted for Heaven, In
making vessel for this voyage the first
need is sound timber. The floor timbers
ought TO be of solid stuff. For the want
of it, vessels that looked able to run
their jibbooms into the eye of any tenn
pest, when caught in the storm nave
been crushed like q wafer. The truths
OF Gods word are what I mean by floor
timbers. Away with your lighter nate
rials. Nothing but oaks, hewn in the
forest OF Divine truth, are stanch
Nnough foi this craft
Yon must have love for q helm, to
guide and turn the craft. Neither Pride
nor Ambition nor Avarice will do for
rudder. Love, not only in the heart,
but flashing in the eye and tingling in
the hand-Love married to Work, which
many look upon as SO homely bride
Love, not like brooks, which foam and
rattle. vet do nothing, but Love like a
river that runs up the steps of mill
wheels. and works in the harness of
factory bands-Love that will not pass
by on the other side, but visits the man
who fell amonp thieyes near Jericho