Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-18
DIR. TALMAGE'S ADVICE
To the Participants in the Present
DOctrinal Disputes.
HAVE THEOLOGICAL FIDGETS,
They Should Stop Fighting and Push the
Gospel Work.
THE NEED OF BROTHERLY KINDNESS.

IMAGES immense popularity had been needed
it would be amply furnished by the prompti-
tude with which the people have availed
themselves of the increased accommodation
afforded by the new Tabernacle. The vast
edifice is as denselv crowded at every service
as the older and smaller Tabernacle
was. DR.. Talmage this morning paid his at
tention 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"
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 fishermen 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 failures?
The trouble is with the nets and most of
them need to be mended. 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 gilk and half his body through the net
work, he tears and rends and works his way
out and leaves the place through which he
Equirlned tangle of broken threads. The
Bible weaves faith and works tight together,
the law and the gospel, righteousness and
forgiveness. Some OF our nets have meshes
so wide that the sinner floats in and out and
is not at any moment caught for the
heavenly landing. In our desire to make
everything so easy we relax, We loosen, we
widen.
The Church Fast Getting Bad.
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 cross? Is there to
be no way Of telling whether a man is
Christian except by his taking the COM
munion chalice on sacramental day? May
man be as reckless about his thoughts, about
his .amusements, about his dealings after
conversion as before conversion? 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 ont 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. The church is fast |
becoming as bad as the world, and when it |
gets as bad as the world it will be worse |
hypocrisy of most appalling kind to its |
Other defects.
Furthermore, many of our nets arc torn to |
pieces by being entangled with other nets. |
IL is sad sight to see fishermen fighting |
about Sea-rOom and pulling in opposite di-
each to get his net both nets dam
aged by the struggle and losing ell the fish.
In city like this of more than s00,000 there
are at least 500, 900 not in Sabbath schools or
churches. And in this land where there are
more than 81, ,O00,0 900 people, there are at least
2 10000 not in the Sabbath schools or
churches. And in this world of more than
looO0 0oo, there are at least 500 900 600 not in
schools and churches. In such an Atlantic
pecan of opportunity, there is room for all
the nets and all the boats and all the fisher
men and for millions more. There should
be no rivalry between churches Each one /
1oes work peculiar to itself. There should |
De no rivalry between ministers. God never
repeats himself, and he never makes two |
ministers alike, and each one has a work /
which no other man in the universe can ac-
oon1plish. If fishermen are wise, they will
not allow their nets to entangle; or, if they
DO accidentally get inter-twisted, the work
Df extrtcation should be kindly and gently
conducted.
Cannot Fish and Fight.
Now have noticed man cannot fish and |
fight at the same time He either neglects
his net or his musket 1t is amazing how
much time some of the fishermen have to
look after other fishermen. 1t is more than
l
see the wind is just right and it is such a
rood time for fishing and the fish are COM
ing in so rapidly that have to keep my eve |
and hand busy. There are about a000O0,0o0
souls waiting to get into the kingdom of God
and il will require all the nets and all the
boats and all the fishermen of Christendom
TO safely land them. o, brethren of ministry!
Let us spend our time in fishing instead
Of fighting. But if L angrily jerk my net
across your net, and you Jerk your net
lngrily across mine, we will soon have two |
luton nearly destroyed the French fisher
ess ana ecclesiastical war is the worst thing
possible while hauling souls into the king
lon. had hoped that the millennium was
about to dawn, but the lion is yet too fond of
amb. My friends, / notice in the text that
James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his
brother, were busy not mending somebody
9lse's nets, but mending their own nets, and
rather think that we who are engaged in
christian work in this latter part of the
nineteenth century will require all our spare
ime to mend our own nets. God help US in
he important dutyl
In this work of reparation we need to put
nto the nets more threads of common sense
When we can present religion as a great
we will catch a hundred souls
where now we catch one. Present religion
is an intellectually and we will fail. Out in
he fisheries there are set across the waters |
What are called gill nets and the fish put
heir heads through the meshes and then
dnnot withdraw them because they are
,aught by the gills. But gill nets cannot be
If any service in religions work. Men are
never caught for the truth by their,heads: it
5 by the heart or not OF all. No argument
yer saved a man and no keen analysis ever
brought man into the kingdom of God.
our gill nets Sympathy, helpfulneSs, con-
'olation, love, are the names of some of the
threads that we need to weave in our gospel |
lets when we are mendfng them
BrotherIy Kindness Needed.
When you are mending your net for this
vide, deep sea Of humanity, take out that
wire thread of criticism and that horse-hair
hread of harshness and put in soft silken
hread of Christian sympathy. Yea, when
'ou are mending your nets tear out those
I'D threads of gruffness and weave in a few
hreads of politenesS and geniality. In the |
louse of God let all the Christian faces beam
Nth look that means welcome. Say Ngood
to the stranger as ne enters your
,ew and at the close shake hands with him
nd say ''How did you like the music?"
Nhy, you would be to that man a panel of
he door of heaven; YOU would be to him n
Iote of the dOXology that seTaphs sing when
new soul enters That nan is a thousand
1iles from home and he has Just heard
" telegraph that his child is sick with scar
et fever and his boy at college has got into |
isgrace, and he has had business troubles |
nd he is so homesick he can hardly keep |
rom crying. just one word of brotherly
-indness from You would lift him into a |
mall heaven. have in other days entered |
pew in church and the woman at the other |
nd of the pew lOozedat me as much as to |
ay; How dare you? This is my pew and pay
be rent for ir!'' Well, 1 crouched in the |
ther corner and made myself as small as !
ossible and felt as though had been steal
ng something, So there are people who
ave a sharp edge to their religion and they
CT as though they thought most people had |
cen elected to be damned and they were |
lad of it. Oh, let us brighten up our man.
er and appear in utmost gentlemanliness |
L ladyhood.
In addition to this we need to mend our |
cts with more threads of Datience If is no |