The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-10-23
CHRISTINE RESCUER
REV. DR. TALaAoE's LESSON or the
STRONG SWIMMER.

| Pilot Trnst In the saviour.
| copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1891
| WASHINGTON. Oct. 22-In this dis
course DR.. Talmage employs very bold
figure Of the Bible to bring out the help
fulness Of religion for all those in any
kind of struggle. The text is Isaiah XIV,
| II, He shall spread forth his hands In
F.! the midst Of them, as he that swimmeth
spreadeth forth his hands"
In the summer season multitudes of
people wade into the ponds and lakes and
, rivers and seas to dive or float or swim.
In q world the most Of which Is water
all men and women should learn to swim.
Some Of you have learned the side stroke
introduced by George Pewters In 1850,
each stroke of that kind carrying the
swimmer distance of six feet, and some
Of you may use the overland stroke in
vented by Gardener, the expert who by
1t won the 500 yard championship In Man
chester In 1862. the swimmer by that
stroke carrying his arm in the air for
more heightened reach, and some Of you
may tread the water as though you had
been made to walk the sea, but most of
you usually take what is called the breast
stroke, placing the hands with the backs
upward, about FIVE inches under the wa.
ter, the inside of the wrists touching the
breast. then pushing the arms forward
coincident with the stroke Of the feet
struck out to the greatest width possible,
and you thus unconsciously illustrate the
meaning Of my text. HE shall spread
forth his hands in the midst Of them, as
he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his
hands to SWIM"
The fisherman seeks out unfrequented
hooks. You stand all day on the bank Of
river in the broiling sun and fling out
your line and catch nothing, while an
expert angler breaks through the Jungle
and goes by the shadow of the solitary
rock and, In place where no fisherman
has been for ten years, throws ont his
line and comes home at night, his face
shining and his basket full. I do not
know why we ministers of the gospel
need always be fishing in the same stream
and preaching from the same texts that
other people preach from. ! cannot I'M
derstand the policy Of the minister who |
In Blackfriars, London, England, every |
week for 30 years preached from the |
Epistle to the Hebrews 1t il an exhil.
aration to me when l come across a
theme which feel no one else has treat
uuu lcAt AS Uuc VI ludL hluus |
There are paths in Gods word that are
well beaten by Christian feet When
men want to quote Scripture, they quote
the old passages that every one has
heard. When they want chapter read
they read a chapter that all the other
people have been reading so that the
church today is ignorant Of three-fourths
of the Bible.
! You 60 into the Louvre at Paris. You
confne yourself to one corridor Of that
opulent gallery of paintings. As you
come out your friend says to you, did
you see that Rembrandt" mo" "DiJ
you see that Rubens?" mo" ibid yoi
See that TitianT' NO" ibid you see
that Raphaely" mo" "Well," says
your friend, then you did not see the
Louvre" Now, my friends, l think we
are too much apt to coutine ourselves to
one Of the great corridors of Scripture
truth, and SO much SO that there is not
one person out of million who has ever
noticed the all suggestive and powerful
picture In the words of my text.
Pushing Down Iniquity.
This text represents God as n strong
swimmer, striking out to push down in
iquity and save the souls Of men. "He
shall spread forth his hands in the midst
Of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth
forth his hands to SWIM" The figure is
bold and many sided. Most Of you know
how to swim. Some Of you learned 1t In
the city school. where this art is taught;
some of you in boyhood, in the river near
your fathers house; some of you since
you came to manhood or womanhood,
while summering on the beach of the
sea. 1t Is a good thing to know how to
swim, not only for yourself, but because
you will after awhile perhaps have to
help others.
l do not know anything more stirring
or sublime than to see some man like
Norman Mckenzie leaping from the ship
Madras into the sea to save Charles
Turner, who had dropped from the royal
yard while trying to loosen the sail,
bringing him back to the deck amid the
huzzas OF the passengers and crew. If
a man has not enthusiasm enough to
cheer in such circumstances, he deserves
himself to drop into the sea and have
no one help him. The Royal Humane
Society Of England was established in
l774, its object to applaud and reward
those who should pluck up life from the
deep. Any one who has performed such
deed of daring has all the particulars
Of that bravery recorded in public rec
ord and on his breast n medal done in
blue and gold and bronze, anchor and
monogram and inscription, telling to fu-
ture generations the bravery of the man
or woman who saved some one from
drowning. But II it Is such worthy
thing to save a body from the deep
ask you IL 1t is not worthier thing to
save an immortal soul. And you shall
see this hour the Son of God step forth
for this achievement. "He shall spread
forth his hands in the midst of them, as
he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his
hands to SWIM"
In order to understand the full force of
this figure, you need to realize that our
race is In a sinking condition. You some
times hear people talking of what they
consider the most beautiful words in our
language. One man says 1t Is "home."
another man says 1t is the word moth
err" another says it is the word Jesus"
but tell you the bitterest word in all
our language, the word most angry and
baleful the word saturated with the
most trouble, the word that accounts for
all the loathsomeness and the pang and
the outrage and the narrowing, and that
word Is "sin." You spell it with three
letters, and yet those three letters de-
scribe the circumference and pierce the
diameter of everything bad in the uni
verse. Sin Is sibilant word. You can
not pronounce it without giving the siss ,
of the flame or the hiss of the serpent
Sin! And then II you add three letters
to that word it describes every one of us
by nature sinner. We have outraged the
law of God, not occasionally, or now and ,
then, but perpetualy. The Bible de- {
rlares It. Hark! 1t thunders two claps: 8
"The heart is deceitful above all things $
and desperately wicked" "The soul that t
sinneth. it shall die" What the Bible =,
says our own conscience atirms. q
After Judge Morgan had sentenced La
ly Jane Grey to death his conscience ,
roubled him SO much for the deed that
lie became insane, and all through his In
anity he kept saying: Take her away
rom me! Lady Jane Grey! Take her c
way! Lady Jane Grey!' 1t was the /
'oice of conscience. And no man ever d