Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1892-10-08
REV. DR.. TALMAGH.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divinss Sum-
day Sermon.
Subject. "Iaunoh Out Into the Deep

worries conquest. was selecting His staff
officers. There were plenty of students
with high foreheads and white hands and
intellectual faces, and refined tastes in Roms
and in Jerusalem. Christ might have called
INTO the ap3stleship twelve book worms, or
twelve rhetoricians, or twelve artists. In
stead he takes group of men who had
never made a speech: never taken lesson
IN bellesiettres; never been sick enough to
make them look delicate-their hands broad
clumsy and hard knuckle1. He chose fisher
men, among other reasons / think, because
they were physically hardy. Rowing makes
strong arms and stout caests. Much climb
ing Ct ratlines makes ones head steady A
Galilee tempest wrestled men into gymnasts
The opening work of the church was rough
work. Christ did not want twelve invalids
hanging about Him, complaining all the
time how badly they felt. He leaves the
delicate students at Jerusalem and Rome
for their mothers and aunts to take care of,
and goes down to the seashore, aud out of
the toughest material makes an apostleship
The ministry neei more corporal vigor
than any other class Fine minds and good
intentions are important, but there must be
physical force to back them The intellectual
mill wheel may be well built and the grist
good, but there must be enough blood in
the mill race to turn the one and to grind
the other
He chose fishermen also because they were
used to hard knocks. The man who cannot
stand assault is not fit for the ministry. It
always has beer. and always will be rough
work. and the man who, at every censllre or
caricature, sits down to cry had better be at
some other work. 1t is no place for eccIes:-
astical doll babies. A man who cannot
preach because he has forgotten his manu-
script or lost his spectacIes ought not to
preach at all. Heaven deliver the church
from ministry that preach in kid gloves
and from sermons in black morocco coversl
These fishermen were rough and ready.
They had been in the sternest of all colleges.
When they were knocked over by the main
boom OF the ship they entered the Sophomore,
when washed off by great wave, they en-
tered the Junior; when floating for two days
without food or drink on plank they came
to the Senior, and when at last their ship
dashed on the beach in a midnight hurricane
they graduated with the first honor
My text finds Jesus came aboard with one
of these bronzed men, Simon by name. This
fisherman had been sweeping his net in shoal
water. Push OUT" says Christ; what is
the use of hugging the shore in this boat:
/ Here is lake twelve miles long and six wide
aud it is all populated just waiting for the
sweep of your net. Launch out into the
Deep"
The advice that my Lord gave to Simon
is as appropriate for us all in spiritual
sense. The fact is that most of us are Just
padding along the shore. We are afraid to
venture out into the great desps of God and
Christian experiences. We think that the
boat will be upset, or that we cannot s'ciew
down the mizzen topsail, and our cowardice
makes us poor fishermen. l think hear the
voice of Christ commanding us, as He did
Simon on that day when bright Galilea set
in among the green hills of Palestine, like
water flashing in an emerald cup Launch
out into the deep
IN
who are padding in the margin OF Bible re-
search. My father read the Bible throu yh
three times after he was eighty years of age
and without spectac.es-not for the mere
purpose of saying he had been through it 50
often, but for his eternal profit. John Wolby,
the brother-in law OF Daniel Webster,
learned to real after he was eightyfour
years Of age in order that he might become
acquainted with the Scriptures. There is
no book in the world that demands SO much
of our attention as the Bible. Yet nine-
tenths of Christian men get no more than
ankle deep. They think it is a good sign not
to venture too far. Tney never ask how or
why. and if they see soma Christian bscon-
ing inquisitive about the deep things of Col
they say: "3e careful: you had better not
go out so far from shoren
Ny answer is: The farther you go from
shore TIL better il you have tle right kind
of ship. IT you have worldly philosophy for
the hulk, AMI pride for sail, AMI self con-
eeit for the helm the first squat will destroy
you. But it YOU take the Bible for your
craft, the farther you go the better and
after You have gone ten thousand fuclongs
Christ will still command, Launch out into
the deep" Ask some such question as who
is God?' AMI 20 Oh for ten years asking 1t.
Ask it at the gate of every parable; amid
the excitement OF every miracle; by the sol-
tar'ness Of every patrarchal thrashing floor,
amid the waite faces of Sannacherib'S slain
turned up into the moonh ght; amid the hy-
ing charlots OF the Golden City.
Ask who J esus is, AMI keep on asking it
o; every Bloc liy of every raven, OF every
star, o. every craze1 brain cured, of every
blind man 20 ne to sunlight. of every coin
fiSn's mouth, of every loaf that got to
Ce five caves, of every wrathful sea
pacitie1, of every puiseless arm stretched
lorth III graduation; ask it of His mother,
o. Augustus, of Herod, of the Syro
ptoe lic,an woman of the dams9l that woke
up from the death siesp, o. Joseph, who had
Him huria !, of the angel poStei as sentinel
1t His tollo Of the dumb earth that shooi
and grolned aud thun ierei when He died.
missionary in France offered Bible in
an humble dwelling. The man took it tore
out dozen pages au1 with them began to
hght his pipe. Some years after the mission
airy happened in the same house The family
had lust lost their son in the Crimean war.
and his Bible had BEEN sent back home. The
missionary took it up and saw that it was
the very same Bible that he had left in the
mouse and from which the leaves had been
torn. The dying soldier had written on one
OF the leaves of the Bible, Rejected and
scoffed at, but finally believed in and saved ~
Inc Bible may be used to light the pipe Of
wltticism by some but for us it is a staff in
ME a pillow in death and our joy for eter-
nifty.
Walk all up and down this Bible domain
Try every path. Plunge In at the prophe-
cles and come out at the epistles Go with
the patrlarchs until you meet the evaugs-
lists. Rummage and ransack, as children
who are not satisfied when they come to a
new house until they know what is in every
room and INTO what every door opens Open
every jewel oasket. Examine the skylights.
Forever be asking questions. Put to a
higher use than was intended the oriental
proverb, Hold all the skirts of thy mantle
extended when heaven is raining gold"
Passing from Bonn to Coblentz on the
Rhine, the scenery is comparatively tame
But from Coblentz to Mayence il is euchant-
ing. You sit on deck and feel as if this last
flash of beauty must exhaust the scsne; but
in moment there is a turn of the river
which covers up the former view with more
luxuriant vinegar DIS, and more defiant
castles, and holder bluffs. vine wreathe4
and grapes 50 rips that if the hills be
away into the bowls of Bingen and Hook
heimer. Here and tn ere there are streams
OF water melting into the river, like smaller
joys swallowed in the bosom OF a great
gladuess.
And when night begins to throw its black
mantle over the shoulder of the hills, aud
you are approaching Decentralization at
Mayence, the lights along the shore fairly
bewitch the scene with their beauty, giving
one thrill that he feels but ouca vet that
lasts him forever. So this river Of Gld's
word is not a straight stream, but a winding
splendor-at every turn new wonders to at
tract, still ripper vintage pressing to the brink
and crowded with castles of strength-Stolz-
enfels and Johannisberger as nothing com.
pared with the Strong tower into which the
righteous run and are savei-and our disem-
barkation at last in the evening amid the
lights that CLEAN from the shore of heaven.
The trouble is that the vast majority of Bible
voyages stop at Coblentz, where the chief
g'ores begin.
The sea of Cots Word is not like Gem
nesslret twelve miles by six, but bound
less, and in any one direction you can sail
on forever. Why then confine yourself to
a short psalm or to few verses of an
epistle? The largest fish are not lear the
shore. Hoist all sad to the WINS OF heaven.
Take hold of both oars AMI pull away. Be
like some of the whalerS that went out from
New Bedford or Portsmouth to be gone for
two or three years. Yea, calculate on a
lifetime voyage. You do not want to land
until you land in heaven. Sail away. We
mariners, for eternity. Launch out into
the deep
The text is appropriate to all Christians of
shallow experience. Doubts and fears have
in our day been almost elected to the paria-
ment of Christian graces. Some consider it