Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1901-02-14
Dr.TALMAGE SERMON
THE GREAT DIvINE'S ELOQUENT
MRSSA0R

THE GREAT DIvINE'S ELOQUENT
MESSA0R
Subject: With Silken Cords-So Should
the Fishers OF Men Mend Their Nets
Christians Warned Against Harsh
critielsm-Gospel Strife Deplored.
Copyright lem.l
WASHINGTON, .. C.--In this discourse
DR.. Talmage describes the gospel net and
how it is to be repaired after being dam
aged; text, Matthew iv, II, James. the
son Of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in
q ship with Zebedee, their father, mend
ing their nets"
81 go a-fshing!' cried Simon Peter to
his comrades, and the most of the apos-
ties had hands hard from fishing tackle.
The fisheries of the world have always at
tracted attention. In the third century
the Queen of Egypt had for pin money
$47O, 600 received from the fisheries OF Lake
Moeris. And, if the time should ever
population could not be fed by the vege-
tables and meats of the land, the sea has
an amount of animal life that would feed
all the populations of the earth and fat
ten them with food that by its phospho-
rus would make generation brainy and
intellectual beyond anything that the
world has ever imagined. Ny text takes
US dulOA1A t1tC NTRlulC8n nS0GCJnGn. ()Qe
day Walter Scott, while hunting in an old
drawer, found among some old fishing
tackle the manuscript of his immortal
book, "Waverley," which he had put
away there as OF no worth, and who knows
but that to-day we may find some un-
known wealth of thought while looking at
the fishing tackle in the text.
1t is not good day for fishing, and
three men are in the boat repairing the
broken fish1nu netc Jf Won Eob;v,rr
with hook and line, and the fish viii
not bite, it is good time to put the ang-
ler's apparatus into better condition. Per-
haps the last fish you hauled in was so
large that something snapped. Or, if you
were fishing with net, there was a
mighty fioundering of the scales or an ex-
posed nail on the side Of the boat which
broke some of the threads and let part or
all of the captives Of the deep escape into
their natural element. And hardly any
thing is more provoking than to nearly
land score or hundred of trophies from
the deep, and when you are in the full
glee of hauling in the spotted treasures,
through some imperfection Of the net
they splash back into the waves. That is
fishermen to endure, and many a man or
dinarily correct OF speech in such circunl-
stances comes to an intensity of utterance
unjustifable. Therefore no good fisher
man considers the time wasted that is
spent in mending his net Now, the
Bible again and again represents Christian
workers as fishers of men, and we are. all
some kind of net. Indeed there have
been enough nets out and enough fisher
men busy to have landed the whole hu-
man race in the kingdom Of God long be-
fore this. What is the matter? The gos-
pei is all right, and it has been good
time for catching souls for thousands of
years; Why; then, the failures? The
need to be mended. I propose to show
you what is the matter with most Of the
nets and how to mend them. In the text
old Zebedee and his two boys, James and
John, were doing good thing when they
sat in their boats mending their nets.
| The trouble with many. of our nets is
that the meshes are too large. If fish
can get his gills and half his body through,
the network, he tears and rends and
works his way out, and leaves the place
| through which he squirmed tangle of
| broken threads. In our desire to make
everything so easy we relax we loosen, we
widen. We let men after they are once
in the gospel net escape into the world,
and go into indulgences and swim all
around Callilee, from north side to south
side, and from east side to west side, ex-
pecting that they will come back again.
We ought to make it easy for them to get
into the kingdom of God, and, as far as
we can, make it impossible for them to
get out. The poor advice nowadays to
many is: "Go and do just as you did be-
fore you were captured for God and heav-
en-. The net was not intended to be any
restraint or any hindrance. What you
did before you were Christian do now.
Go to all styles of amusement, read all
the styles of books, engage in all the
styles of behavior as before you were con-
verted." And so, through these meshes
of permission and laxity they wriggle out,
through this opening and that opening.
tearing the net as they go, and soon all
| the souls that we expected to land in
heaven before we know it are back in the
deep sea of the world. Oh, when we 20
a-gospel fishing, let us make it as easy as
possible for souls to get in and as hard
as possible to get out
! Is the Bible language an unmeaning YER
biage when it talks about self denial, and
keeping the body under, and about walk
/ ing the narrow way, and entering the
cross? Is there to be no way of telling
whether man is a Christian except by
his taking the communion chalice on sac
ramental day? May man be as reckless
about his thoughts, about his words, about
his temper, about his amusements, after
conversion dS DeIOre. Alas, Cne words OF
Christ are SO little needed when He said,
.eWhosoever doth not bear his cross and
come after Me cannot be My disciple
The church is fast becoming as bad as the
world. and when it gets as bad as the
world it will be worse than the world by
so much, as it will add hypocrisy of q
most appalling kind to it's other defects
Furthermore, many of our nets are torn
to pieces by being entangled with other
nets. 1t is a sad sight to see fishermen
fighting about sea room, and pulling in
opposite directions each to get his net
both nets damaged by the struggle and
losing all the fish. In this land, where
there are more than 7O,0O0, 900 people
there are at least 10000 600 not in the
Sunday-schools and churches. In such on
Atlantic Ocean of opportunity there is
room for all the nets and all the boats and
all the fishermen and for millions more
There should be no rivalry between
churches. Each one does work peculiar
to itself. But there are cities in this coun
try where there is now going on an awful
ripping and rending and tearing of fishing
nets. Indeed, all over Christendom al
this time there is great war going on be
tween fishermen, ministers against minis
| ters.
Now, I have noticed a man cannot fish
| op1 t,rbt at the Same time He either