The times., 1898-02-21
Rev. DR.. TaImage Pays a Touch
ing Tribute.
THE NAMES DEAD SEAMEN
This the Text the Divine Uses TO
Make Feeling References to tue
Martyrs in Havana Harhor
Debt to the American Navy-He-
roes who Walked the Decks,

| the First Presbyterian Church on the
subject 1.-The Dead Warship,' with sDe-
cial reference to the recent destruction of
the battleship Maine DR.. Talmage took
his text from James ill.,, 4, Behold also
! the ships He spoke in part as follows:
''The nation is stunned by the destruc-
ton of our warship. The heart of the
world is wrung with sympathy for the
wounded and dying and for the bereft
households.
''Is IL not appropriate, under these cir
cumstances. that L show YOU the debt
this nation owes 10 our American navy
and speak of the heroism of some of
those who have walked the decks?
eff in the first century. when war ves-
sells were dependent on the oars that
padded at the side of them for propul-
sion, my text was suggestive. with how
much more emphasis and meaning and
overwhelming remniscence we can cry
out, as we see the Kearsatge lie across
the bows of the Alabama and sink it,
teaching foreign nations that they had
better keep their hands off our American
fight
ship captain, has the world seen such a
miraculous creation that of the Amer
lean navy in 1861. There were about 30
available men in all the naval stations
and receiving ships, and here and there
an old vessel: yet orders were given to
blockade 500 miles of sea coast, greater
than the whole coast of Europe, and be-
side that the Ohio, Tennessee, Cumber-
land. Mississippi and other great rivers,
covering an extent of 1000 more miles.
were TO be patrolled. No wonder the
whole civilized world burst into 'guffaw
of laughter at the seeming impoSsibility.
But the work was done, done almost inn
mediately. done thoroughly, and done
with speed and skill that eclipsed all the
history of naval architecture.
THE deeds of most of our naval heroes
have never yet received appropriate rec
ognition You know the names OF TWO
or three of the officers of the sunken
steamship Maine How many of the crew
could you call by name?
I'VE win not know what our national
prosperity is worth until we realize what
il has cost. ] recall the unrecited fact
that the men OF the navy in the past and
in the present have run and are running
now especial risks. They have rot only
the human weaponary TO contend with,
but the tides. the fog. the storm. Not
like other ships could they run into har-
bor at the approach of an equinox. or
cyclone or a hurricane because the har-
bors We're hostile. A miscalculation of
a tide might leave them on a bar, and
a fog might overthrow all the plans of
the wiSest commodore and admiral, and
accident might leave them, not ON the
land ready for an ambulance, but at the
bottom OF the sea. as when torpedo
blew up the Tecumseh in Mobile Bay and
nearly all on board perished. Every
where at the mercy of the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, which have no mercy.
Such iempestS as wrecked the Spanish
Armada might any day sweep upon the
squadron. No hiding behind the earth
works; no digging in of cavalry spurs q
the sound of retreat. Mightier than all
the fortresses of all the coasts is the
ocean when ii bombards fiotilla.
1T looks picturesque and beautiful to
see a war vessel going out through the
Narrows. sailors in new rig singing, a
Life on the Ocean Wave, a Home on the
Rolling Deep the colors gracefully dip
ping TO passing ships. the decks immacu-
lately clean, and the guns at quarantine
firing a parting salute. But the poetry
is gone out of that ship as it comes out
of that engagement its decks red with
pile of shattered mirrors and destroyed
furniture. steering wheel broken. smoke
stack crushed, a 100-pound Whitworth ri
fie shot having left its mark from port to
starboard, the shrouds rent away, ladders
shattered. moke-blackened and scalded
corpses lying among those who are gasp
ing their last gasp far away from home
and kindred whom they love as much as
We love ours.
TO bring before the American people
the debt they owe to the navy | go out on
the Atlantic Ocean. where there is plenty
OF room, and in imagination review the
of our three great conflicts
lac, 1872 and 1860. Swing into line all
ye frigates. iron-clads. fire rats, gun
boats. and men-of-war. There they come.
all sail set and all furnaces in full blast.
sheaves of crystal tossing from their cut
ting prows. That is the Delaware an old |
craft, commanded by Com |
mo6ore Decatur; yonder goes the Con-
Commodore Hull commanding: /
there is the Chesapeake, commanded by /.
Captain Lawrence. whose dying words .
were. Don't give up the ship and the .
Niagara of 1872 commanded by Commo- I
dore Perry. who wrote on the back OF +
an old letter resting on his navy cap:
We have net the enemy and they are
ours yonder is the flagship Wabash, /
Dupont commanding; yonder i: /
the flagship Minnesota. Admiral Colds ;
borough commanding; yonder the flagship /
Philadelphia, Admiral Dahlgren COM
mander; yonder the flagship San Jacinto /
Bailey commanding: yonder the !
flagship Black Hawk Admiral Porter |
yonder flle fag-steamer
Benton, Admiral Foote commanding:
ronder the Hartford. David T.. Farragut
''The memory of man is poor. But God
never forgets. lie remembers the swing.
ng hammock, the forecastle. the frozen
opes of that January tempest. the ampu-
alton without sufficient anaesthetics. the
horrors of that deafening night when
orts from both sides belched on you
heir fury and the heavens glowed with
he ascending and descending missiles OF
leath, and your ship quaked under the
ecoil of the 100-pounder. while the gun
lers. according to command. stood on
iptoe. with mouth wide open, lest the
of the ship shatter hearing
,r brain. He remembers il all better
han YOU remember it. and In some shape
eward will be given. God is the best of
I'll paymasters.
In the cemeteries for Federal and Con-
ederate dead are the bodies of most OF
hose who fell on the land. But where
hose dead are who went down in war
-esselS win not he known until the sea
yives up its dead. The Jack tars know
hat while loving arms might carry the
nen who fall on land and bury them with
solemn liturgy and the honors of war
or the bodies of those who dropped from
he ratlineS into the sea or went down
With all on board under the sfroke of a