Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-05-28
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
DR. TALMAeE breaches A SERMON
ON THE MENDINe OF NETS

order-some Hints That VIII BE of
Value.
BROOKLYN, May l1-If proof Of DR.. Tai
mage's immense popularity had been need
ed II would be amply furnished by the
promptitude with which the people have
availed themselves OF the increased accom-
mediation afforded by the new Tabernacle.
The vast edifice is as denaely crowded at
every service as the older and smaller
Tabernacle was. DR.. Talmage this morn
ing paid his attention to the theological
disputes which are agitating the churches,
and as usual gave sound practical advice
to both parties. His text was Matthew iv.
81: James the son Of Zebedee, and John
his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their
father, mending their nets"
al go a-fshing," cried Simon Peter to his
comrades, and the most of the apostles had
hands hard from fishing tackle. The fish
cries of the world have always attracted
attention In the Third century the queen
of Egypt had for pin money four hundred
andseventy thousand dollars, received from
the fisheries of Lake Moeris. And if the
time should ever come when the immen-
sity Of the worlds population could not be
fed by the vegetables and meats of the
land, the sea has an amount of animal life
that would feed all the populations of the
earth, and fatten them with food that by
its phosphorus would make a generation
brainy and intellectual beyond anything
that the world has ever imagined. My
text takes us among the Galilean fisher
men. One day Walter Scott, while hunt
ing in an old drawer, found among some
old fishing tackle the manuscript of his
immortal book "Waverley," which he had
put away there as Of no worth, and who
knows but that today we may find some
unknown wealth of thought while looking
at the fishing tackle in the text2
PUT YOUR NETS IN GOOD ORDER.
1t is not good day for fishing, and three
men are in the boat repairing the broken
fishing nets II you are fishing with a
hook and line and the fish will not bite it
is a good time toput the anglers apparatus
into better condition. Perhaps the last
fish you hauled in was so large that some
thing snapped. Or if you were fishing
with net there was mighty founder.
ing of the scales, or an exposed nail on the
side of the boat which broke some of the
threads and let part or all of the cap
tives of the deep escape into their natural
element. And hardly anything is more
provoking than to nearly land score or a
hundred of trophies from the deep and
when you are in the full glee of hauling in
the spotted treasures through some imper-
fection of the net they splash back into the
wave.
That is too much of trial of patience
for most fishermen to endure, and many a
man ordinarily correct of speech in such
circumstances comes to an intensity of
utterance unjustifable. Therefore no good
fisherman considers the time wasted that
is spent in mending his net. Now the
Bible again and again represents Christian
workers as fishers of men, and we are all
sweeping through the sea of humanity
some kind of net. Indeed, there have
been enough nets out and enough fisher
men busy to have landed the whole human
race in the kingdom Of God long before
this. What is the matter? The Gospel is
all right, and it has been a good time for
catching souls for thousands of years
Why, then, the failures2 The trouble is
with the nets, and most of them need to be
mended. l propose to show you what is
the matter with most of the nets and how
to mend them. In the text old Zebedee
and his two boys, James and John, were
doing good thing when they sat in the
boat mending their nets.
The trouble with many of our nets is
that the meshes are too large. If fish can
get his gills and half his body through the
network, he tears and rends and works his
way out and leaves the place through
which he squirmed tangle of broken
threads. The Bible weaves faith and works
tir,ht has ho Io1ry nnl ha
righteousness and forgiveness. Some of
our nets have meshes so wide that the sin
ner floats in and out and is not at any mo
ment caught for the heavenly landing. In
our desire to make everything so easy, we
relax, we loosen, we widen. We let men
after they are once in the Gospel net escape
into the world and go into indulgences
and swim all around Galilee, from north
side to south side and from east side to
west side, expecting that they will come
back again. We ought to make it easy for
them to get into the kingdom of God, and,
as far as we can, make it impossible for
them to get out
The poor. advice nowadays to many Isl
"Go and do just as you did before you were
captured for God and heaven. The net
was not intended to be any restraint or
any hindrance. What you did before you
were Christian, do now. Go to all
styles of amusement, read all the styles of
books, engage in all the styles of behavior
as before you were converted" And SO
through these meshes of permission and
laxity they wriggle out through this
opening and that opening, tearing the net
as they go, and soon all the souls that we
expected to land in heaven before we
know it are back in the deep sea of the
world Oh, when we go a-gospel fishing
let us make it as easy as possible for souls
to get in, and as hard as possible to get out
BE A CHRISTIAN EVERY DAY.
Is the Bible language an unmeaning
verbiage when it talks about self denial
and keeping the body under, and about
walking the narrow way and entering the
strait gate and about carrying the
CROSSE Is there to be no way of telling
whether man is Christian except by his
taking the communion chalice on sacra
mental dayi May man be as reckless
about his thoughts. about his words, about
his temper, about his amusements, about
his dealings after conversion as before con.
versionS One-half the Gospel nets with
which we have been scooping the sea have
had such wide meshes that they have been
all torn to pieces by the rushing out into
the world of those whom a tighter net
would have kept in. The only use of net
is to keep the fish from going back to
where they were before and taking them
where they could not have been taken by
any other means. Alas that the words of
Christ are so little needed when he said,
"Whosoever doth not bear his cross and
come after me cannot be my disciple" The