Connecticut western news., 1893-10-26
UNSAFE LIFEBOATS.
REV. DR. TALMAGE STILL FINDS NEW i SUBJECTS AND NEW THOUGHTS.

REV. DIR. TALMAGC STILL FINDS NEW
 SUBJECTS AND NEW THOUGHTS. The Recent Yacht Raco-Importance of the LIfeboats--One That Can Live In
 Any sea-A Sure Refuge In the storm
 of Life.
 . BROOKLYN, Oct. 2o.-Aftcr preaching on nearly 4,000 different subjects and being closely followed by the printing press for about 9 years Rev. Dr. Tal- mage still seems to find new subjects that have never been preached on. This forenoon he chose for his subject "Un- safe Lifeboats," the text being Acts xvii, 8, "Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off,"
 While your faces arc yet somewhat bronzed by attendance on the interna- tional boat contest between the Vigilant and the Valkyrie I address you. Good things when there is no betting or dissi- patton, those outdoor sports. We want more fresh air and breeziness in our temperaments and our religion. A stale and slow and lugubrious religion may have done for other times, yet will not do for these. But my text calls our at tention to boat of different sort, and instead of the Atlantic it is the Mediter- ranean, and instead of not wind enough, as the crews of the Vigilant and Valky- rie the other day complained, there is too much wind and the swoop of a Eu- roclydon.
 I 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 fortnight the main vessel had been tossed and driven. For that two weeks, the account says, the passengers had continued fasting" I suppose the salt water, dashing over, had spoiled the sea biscuit, and the pas sengers were seasick anyhow.
 The sailors said, "It is no use; this ship must go down." and they proposed among themselves t0 lower the ffeboat 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 the lifeboat only to do sailors duty. That was not sailorlike, for the sailors that I have known were all intrepid fellows and would rather go down with the ship than do such 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 majestic thing about that awful scene was that all the sailors staid at their posts doing their duty. As class all over the world sail ors are valorous, but these sailors of the text were exceptional and pretended to do duty while they were really preparing for flight in the lifeboat But these "ma- rines" on board-sea soldiers-had in es- pecial charge little missionary 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 girdle and chop! chopi went those cutlasses into the ropes that held the lifeboat, and splashl it dropped into the sea.
 My text describes it, "The soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off," As that empty lifeboat dropped and was capsized on sea where for two weeks winds and pillows had been in
 
 main vessel felt their last hope of ever reaching home had vanished. In that tempestuous sea small boat could not have lived five minutes.
 My subject is Unsafe Lifeboats." We cannot exaggerate the importance of the lifeboat All honor to the memory of Lionel Lukin, the coach builder of Long Acre, London, who invented the first lifeboat, and do not blame him for ordering put upon his tombstone in Kent the inscription that you may still read : there:
 ''This Lionel Lukin was the first who built ifeboat and was the original in- ventor of that principle of safety by which many lives and much property have been preserved from shipwreck, and he obtained for it the kings patent in the year 17s5."
 WORD or CAUTION.
 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 805 lives of the shipwrecked, stirred tho English parlia- ment to quick action in the construction of lifeboats. Thanks to God for the sublime and pathetic and divine mission of the lifeboat. No one will doubt it's important mission who has read of the wreck of the Amazon in the bay of Bis cay, of the Tweed running on the reefs of the gulf of Mexico, or of the Ocean Monarch on the coast of Wales, or of the Birkenhead on the Cape of Good Hope, or of the Royal Charter on the coast of Anglesea, 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 Lexing- ton on Long Island sound.
 To add still further to the importance of the lifeboat, remember there are at least 8,000,000 men following the sea, to say nothing of the uncounted millions this moment ocean passengers. We ''land- lubbers," as sailors call us. may not know the difference between marline, spike. and .ringbolt, or anything about heaving log, or rigging out Q flying jibboom, or furling topsail, but we all realize to greater or less extent the i'm portance of lifeboat in every marine equipment.
 But do we feel the importance of a lifeboat in the matter of the souls rescue? There are times when we all feel that we are out at sea, and as many disturbing and anxious questions strike us as waves struck that vessel against the sides of which the lifeboat of my text dangled. Questions about the church. Questions about the world. Questions about God. Questions about our eternal destiny. Every thinking man and woman has these questions, and in proportion as they are thinking people do these ques- tions 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 wheelhouse of the skull this fhinlrincr rnachira which ht1ts not In ita