The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-11-03
TALMAGE's SERMON.
The Brooklyn Preacher Talks
About Lifeboats.
Good Works and Christian Inconsisten,
cies and Their Defects-The One
Safe LIfeboat, with Room
for All.

Il. Dewitt Talmage with subject for
a recent sermon at the Brooklyn tab
ernacle. He took for his text:
Then the soldiers cut on the ropes OF the boat
and let her fan o1.-Acts xvii. 81.
While your faces are yet somewhat
bronzed by attendance on the interna-
liant and the Vallxyrie, l address you-
Good things when there is no betting
or dissipation, those outdoor sports.
We want more fresh air and breeziness
in our Compartments and our religion.
A stale and slow and 1ugubrious reli-
gion may have done for other times, yet
viii not do for these. But my text
calls our attention to a boat of a differ
ent sort. and instead of the Atlantic, it
Is the Mediterranean, and instead of not
wind enough, as the crews of the Wig
liant and Valkyrie the other day COM
planned, there is too much wind and
the swoop of a Euroclydon- / am
not calling your attention SO
much to the famous ship on which
Paul was the distinguished passenger,
but to the lifeboat of that ship which
no one seems to notice. For fort
night the main vessel had been tossed
and driven. For that two weeks, the
account says, the passengers had ICON
tinued fasting" / suppose the salt
water, dashing over. had spoiled the
sea biscuit, and the passengers were
seasick anyhow. The sailors said: at
is no use; this ship must go down." and
they proposed among themselves to
lower the Hfeboat and get into it, and
take the chances for reaching shore,
although they pretended they were
going to get over the sides of
the big ship and down into tile life
boat only to do sailors duty. That
was not sailor-lilxe, for the sailors that
have known were all intrepid fellows,
and would rather go down with the
ship than do such a mean thing as
those Jack Tars of my text attempted.
When on the Mediterranean last June
the Victoria sank under the. ram
of the CamperdOwn the most ma
jestic thing about that awful
scene was that all the sailors stayed at
their posts doing their duty. AS a
class all over the world sailors are
valorous, but these sailors of the text
were exceptional and pretended to do
duty while they were really preparing
for fight in the lifeboat. But these
marines" on board-sea soldiers
had in special charge a little mis-
sionary who was turning the
world upside down, and when these
marines saw the trick the sailors were
about to play they lifted the cutlasses
from the girdles and chop! chop! went
those cutlasses into the ropes that held
the lifeboat, and splashl 1T dropped
into the sea. My text describes it:
'"rhe soldiers cut off the ropes of the
boat, and let her fall off" As that
empty life-boat dropped and was cap
sized on a sea where for two weeks
winds and pillows had been in battle,
think that many on board the main
vessel felt their last hope of ever
reaching home had vanished. in that
tempestuous sea a small boat could not
have lived FIVE minutes.
My subject is Unsafe Lifeboats."
We can not eXaggerate the Importance
of the lifeboat All honor TO the mem
DRY of Lionel Lukin, the coach builder
of Long Acre, London, who invented
the first lifeboat, and l do not blame
him for ordering put upon his tomb
stone in Kent the inscription that you
may still read there:
This Lionel Lulxin was the first who
built libeboat, and was the original
inventor of that principle of safety, by
which many lives and much property
have been preserved from shipwrecl1;
and he obtained for it the kings pat
ent in the year 17S5."
All honor to the memory of Sir Will
liam Hillary, who living in the Isle of
Man, and after assisting with his own
hand in the rescue of three hundred
and five lives of the shipwrecked,
stirred the English parliament to quick
action in the construction of lifeboats.
Thanks to God for the sublime and pa
thetic and Divine mission of the life
boat. No one will doubt its impor-
tant mission who has read of the wreck
of the Amazon in the bay of Biscay; of
the Tweed running c,n the reefs of the
gulf of Mexico, or of the Ocean Mon
arch on the coast of Wales, or of the
Birkenhead on the cape of Good Hope,
or of the Royal Charter on the coast of
or of the Exmouth on the
Scotch breakers, or of the Cambria on
the Irish coast, or of the Atlantic on
the rocks of Nova Scotia, or of the
Lexington on Long Island sound To
add still further to the Importance of
the lifeboat, remember there are at
least three million men following the
sea, to say nothing of the uncounted
this moment ocean passengers.
We "land-lubbers," as sailors call US,
may not know the difference between
a marlinespilze and a ring bolt, or any
thing about heaving a log, or rigging
out flying jib-boom, or furling top
sail, but we all realize to greater or
less extent the Importance of life
boat in the matter of the souls rescue?
There are times when we all feel that
we are out at sea, and as many
and anxious questions
strike us as waves struck that
vessel against the sides of which
the lifeboat of my text dangled. Cues
tons about the church. Questions
about the world. Questions about God.
Questions about our eternal destiny.
Every thinking man and woman have
these questions, and in proportion as
they are thinking people do these
questions arise. There is no wrong in
thinking If God had not intended us
TO Think and keep on thinking, He
would not have built under this wheel
house of the skull this thinking ma
chine which halts not in its revolutions
from cradle TO grave. Even the mid