The Penn's Grove record., 1901-02-01
DIR. IALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject with siIken Cords-so Should
the FISHERS of Men Mend Their Nets
- Christians Warned Against Harsh
Criticism-GospeI Strife Deplored.

NV iHhtfh VI "tn VI enu lnRlF Net
- Christians Warned Against Harsi
critlcism-Gospei Strife Deplored,
copyright laof.1
WASHINGTON, D. C.-Tn this discourse
DR.. Talmage describes the gospel net anC
how it is to he repaired after being dam
aged; text, Matthew iv, 81. ",Tames, tn,
son OF Zebedee. and John. his brother, u
a ship with Iebedee, their father, mend
ing their nets"
81 go a.ishingl' cried Simon Peter tc
his comrades. and the most OF the amos
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 min money
100000 received from the fisheries Of Lake
Moeris. And, if the time should ever
come when the immensitv of the world
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 a food that by its phospho.
rus would make a generation brainv and
intellectual beyond anything that the
world has ever imagined. Nv text takes
us among the Gallilean fishermen. One
day Walter Scott, while hunting in an old
drawer, found among some old fishing
tackle the manuscript of his immortal
book, "Waverlev," which he had put
away there as of no worth, and who knows
but that to-day we may find some I'M
known wealth Of thought while looking at
the fishing tackle in the text.
1t is not a good dav for fishing, and
three men are in the boat repairing the
broken fishing nets. If you are fishing
with a hook and line, and the fish will
not bite, it is a good time to Dut the aug-
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 2 net, there was a
mighty laundering Of the scales or an oy-
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 nv
thing Is more provoking than to nearly
land a score or a 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
too much of a trial of patience for most
fishermen to endure, and many a man or.
dinarlly correct Of speech in such circum-
stances comes to an intensity of utterapce
unJustllable. Therefore no good fisher
man considers the time wasted that is
0lf'FN III ultliNlIbE his Itl. 4NIlN. lIt
Bible again and again represents Christian
workers as fishers OF men, and we are all
sweeping through the sea of humanity
some kind of net, Indeed there have
been enough nets out and enough fisher
men busy to have landed the whole hui
man race in the kingdom of God long be-
fore this. What is the natter The Cos
pei is all right, and it has been a good
time for catching souls for thousands Of
years; why: then, the failures The
trouble is with the nets. and most OF them
need to be mended. l propose to show
you what is the matter with most OF the
nets and now to mend them. In the text
9ld Aeoedee and his two boys, James aud
Iohn, were DONG a good thing when they
sat IN their boats mendlng their nets.
The trouble with many of our nets is
That the meshes are too large. Il a fish
get ms glls and halt his body through
the network, he tears and rends and
WORKS MS way out, and leaves the place
tnrough whlcn ne squlrmed a 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 word.
snd go INTO mdulgenees and win all
around Gallllee, from north side to south
and from east SIDE to west side eN-
bectlng that they VIII come back again.
ought to make 1t easy for them TO get
can, make 1t impossible for them to
get out. The poor advice NOWADAYS to
Is; 10 and do gust as YOU did be
lore YOU were captured for God andaiedV-
en-. The net was ~nQt-hftpnddu to he any
restraint pr qhy hindrance. What YOU
lid before you were a Christian do nov.
30 to all styles of amusement, read all
he styles of books, engage in all the
tyles of behavior as before you were con
And so, through these meshes
If permission and laxity they wriggle out,
this opening and that opening,
the net as they go, and soon all
he souls that we expected to land in
before we know it are back in the
leep sea OF the world. Oh. when we 90
gospel fishing. let us make it as EASY as
possible for souls to get in and as hare
IS possible to get out.
Is the Bible language an unmeaninc ver-
when it talks about self denial, and
keeping the BODY under. and abont waI;-
the narrow way. and entering The
straight gate. and about carving the
Is there to be no way of telling
a man is a Christian except bv
lis taking the communion chalice on sac
'amental day? May a man be as reckless
bout his thoughts. about his words about
lis temper, about his amusements, after
Inversion as before? Alas, the words of
Jhrlst are so little needed when He said,
WhosoeVer doth not pear his cross and
ONE after Me cannot be My disciple"
church is fast becoming as bad as the
Vorid, and when 1t gets as bad as the
World 1t VIII be worse than the world by
o much' as 1t Will add hypocrisy of a
most appalling KIND to ITS other defects.
Furthermore, many OF our nets are torn
o pieces by being e~ntangled with other
lets' IL Is a SAD sight to see fishermen
Ishting about sea room, and pulling in
'pp,oslte directions each to get his net,
10Th nets damaged by the struggle and
oslns all the hsh. In this land, where
mere are more than iO,U0O,OOO people,
mere are at least 3O,OOO,OOO not in the
,unday-schools and churches. In such an
Atlantlc ocean OF opportunity there is
oom Tor al the nets all the boats and
IL the hshermen and ior millions more.
mere should be no rivalry between
hurehes' Each one does a work peculiar
o Itself put there are cities IN this coun,
ny where there Is now gong on an awful
ana rendlng and tearing OF fishing
cts indeed, all over Chrlstendom at
ms Tune there Is a great war gong on be-
ween fishermen, ministers against minis
ers'
Now, / have noticed a man cannot fish
fight at the same time. He either
his net or his musket. Ii Is
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