The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1891-05-20
MENDING THE NETS.
Why There is Not Better Luck In
Fishing for Souls.
Some Of the Threads We Need to Weave
In Our Gospel Nets When We are
Mending Them-Sermon by Rev.
~ T. Dewitt Talmage, d. d.

Al ulS nernOu dU Une brooklyn ldDcr-
nacle last Sunday, DR.. Talmage 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
w., 81: "James, the son of Zebedee,
and John, his brother, in a ship with
Zebedee, their father, mending their
nets" The sermon follows:
II go,n-fshing," cried Simon Peter to
his comrades, and the most of the apos-
ties had hands hard from fishing tackle.
The fisheries of the world have already
attracted attention. In the third cen
fury the Queen of Egypt had for pin
money four hundred and seventy thou
sand dollars received from the fisheries
OF Lake Moeris. And II the time should
ever come when the immensity 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 population Of
the earth and fatten them with O food
that by Its phosphorus would make a
generation brainy and intellectual be-
yond anything that the world has ever
imagined. My text takes us among the
Galilean fishermen. One day Walter
Scott, while hunting in an old drawer,
found among some old fishing tackle the
manuscript Of his immortal book
.tWaverly," which he had put away
there as of no worth, and who knows
but that to-day we may find some un-
known wealth of thought while looking
at the fishing tackle In the text
II Is not good day for fishing and
three men are in the boat repairing the
broken fishing nets If you are fishing
with hook and line and the fish will
not bite, 1t is good time to put the an
gler's apparatus into better condition.
Perhaps the last fish you hauled in was
so large that something snapped. Or II
you were fishing with net, there was
q mighty Aoundering 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 captives of the
deep escape into their natural element
And hardly anything is more provoking
than to nearly land a score or hun
dred Of trophies of the deep and when
you are in the full glee of hauling in
the spotted treasures, through some i'm
perfection OF the net they sp ash back
into the wave. That is too much of a
trial Of patience for most fisher men TO
endure, and many man ordinarily cor
rect Of speech in such circumstances
comes to an intensity of utterance un-
justihable. Therefore no good fisher
man considers the time wasted that is
spent in mending his net. Now, the
Bible again and again represents Chris
tian workers as fishers of men, and we
are all sweeping through the sea of hu.
manity 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
matter9 The Gospel is all right, and II
has been good time for catching souls
for thousands Of years. Why, then, the
failure? 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
q good thing when they sat in their
boats mending their nets.
The trouble with many OF our nets is
that the meshes are too large. If fish
N N ~I Lnl l..
through the network, he tears and
rends and works his way out and leaves
the place through which he squirmed q
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 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 90
into indulgences and swim all around
Galilee from north side to south side
and from east side to west side, ex.
pecting that they will come back
again. We ought to make 1t easy for
them TO get into the kingdom OF
God, and, as far as we can, make II
impossible for them to get out. The
poor advice nowadays TO many is: "Go
and do Just as you did before you were
captured for God and heaven. The net
was not intended to be any restraint OF
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 be.
hayior as before you were converted"
And so through these meshes of permis.
sion and laxity they wriggle out, through
this opening and that opening, tearing
The net as they 90, and soon all the
souls we expect TO land In heaven, be.
fore we know IL are back In the deep
sea of the world. o, when we go a-gos.
pel-fshing, let US make It as easy as
possible for souls to get in and as hard
rs possible TO get out. COMO
Is the Bible language an unmeaning
when II talks about self-denial
and keeping the body under, and about
the narrow way and entering
she strait gate and about carrying the
,ross? Is there TO be no way of telling
man is a Christian except by
his taking the communion chalice on
'acramentai day? May a man be as
reckless about his thoughts, about his
words, about his temper, about his
about his dealings after
lis conversion as before conversionp
the gospel nets with which we !
lave been scooping the sea have had
uch wide meshes that they have all