Connecticut western news., 1892-10-06
DEEP SEA FISHING.
DR. TALMAGE TELLS WHY CHRIST
 CHOSE FISHERMEN.

They Were Used to Hard Knocks and
 Possessed Intellectual and Physical
 vfEor-Great Congregations Assemble
 at the Tabernacle.
 BROOKLYN, Oct. 2.-Since his return from Europe Dr. Talmage has faced audiences unusually large and enthu- siastic, who are attracted to the Taber- nacle no less by the potent eloquence of the preacher than through a desire to hear from his own lips the message of thanks intrusted to him by the cZar to the contributors of The Christian Herald famine cargo, which he and Mir. Klopsch conveyed to Russia in the steamer Leo. It is understood that Dr. Talmage has in preparation full account of the mis- hon to Russia, as we'll as his own preach ing tour to Germany, England, Scotland and Ireland. The text this morning was taken from Luke V, 4, Launch out into the deep"
 Christ, starting on the campaign of the worlds conquest, was selecting his staff officers. There were plenty of stu dents with high foreheads, and white hands, and intellectual faces, and refined tastes in Rome and in Jerusalem. Christ might have called into the apostleship twelve bookworms, or twelve rhetori- clans, or twelve artists. Instead he takes 8 group of men who had never made a speech; never taken lesson in belles- lettres; never been sick enough to make them look delicate-their hands broad, clumsy and hard knuckled. He chose fishermen, among other reasons, think, because they were physically hardy. Rowing makes strong arms and stout chests. Much climbing of 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, and out of the toughest material makes an apostleship. The ministry need more corporeal 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 we'll 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 been and always will be rough work, and the man who, at every censure or caricature, sits down to cry had better be at some other work. It is no place for ecclesiastical doll babies. A man who cannot preach because he has forgotten his manuscript or lost his spectacles ought not to preach at all. Heaven deliver the church from ministry that. preach in kid gloves and from sermons in black morocco covers! These fishermen were rough and ready. They had been in the severest of all col leges.
 When they were knocked over by the main boom of the ship they entered the Sophomore; when washed off by a great wave they entered the Junior; when floating for two days without food or drink on a plank they came to the Senior, and when at last their ship dashed on the beach in midnight hur- ricane they graduated with the first honor.
 JESUS ON sHIPBoARD.
 My text finds Jesus on shipboard with one of these bronzed men-Simon by name. This fisherman had been sweep ing his net in shoal water. "Push out," says Christ; "what is the use of hugging the shore in this boat? Here is 8 lake twelve miles long and six wide, and it is all populated just waiting for the sweep of your net. Launch out into the deep."
 The advice that my Lord gave to Si- mon is as appropriate for us all in spiritual sense. The fact is that most of us are just paddling along the shore. We are afraid 4o venture out into the great deeps of God and Christian ex- perience. We think that the boat will be upset, or that we cannot "clew down the mizzen topsail," and our cowardice makes us poor fishermen. think hear the voice of Christ commanding us, as he did Simon on that day when bright Galilee set in among the green hills of Palestine, like water flashing in an emerald cup, "Lapnch out into the deep."
 This divine council comes first to all those who are padding in the margin of Bible research. My father read the Bible through three times after he was eighty years of age and without specta- sles-not for the mere purpose of saying xe had been through it SO often, but for his eternal profit. John Colby, the brother-in-law of Daniel Webster, learned to read after he was eighty-four years of age in order that he might be- come acquainted with the Scriptures. There is no book in the world that de- mands 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. They never ask how or why, and If they see some Christian becoming in- quisitive about the deep things of God they say, ''Be careful; you had better not go out so far from shore."
 My answer is: The farther you go from shore the better if you have the right kind of ship. If you have mere worldly philosophy for the hulk, and pride for sail, and self conceit for the helm, the first squall will destroy you. But if you take the Bible for your craft, the farther you go the better, and after you have gone ten thousand furlongs Christ will still command, "Launch out into the deep" Ask some such question as "Who is Gody and go on for ten years asking it. Ask it at the gate of every parable; amid the excitement of every miracle; by the solitariness of every pa triarchal thrashing floor; amid the white faces of Sennacherib's slain turned up
 into the moonlight; amid the flying
 chariots of the Golden City,