The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-14
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
BY THE REV. FRANK DE WITT TALMAeE. D. D.

matter how low he might be in the so- cial scale. woulu exchange places with him. Naaman was prince. Naaman was a mighty military potentate, a statesman, ruler He was practically greater than a king, "but he was a leper."
 The disease of leprosy has often been Biblically used as the symbol of sin. It is the most impressing and appalling symbol. We in America cannot realize all that is implied by comparing any mans spiritual condition to this horrible disease. In the far east I have seen with loathing some of the awful ravages of this disease. I would describe in sym bol some of the horrors of sin by telling what my own eyes have seen and what my own ears have heard among those poor creatures physically doomed.
 Leprosy, humanly speaking, is an in- eurable disease. Scientists ever since history began have been studying the onward march of this fatal destroyer. Although most prevalent in the east 1t Is confined to no climate and Is peculiar to no age race or condition. Nearly 2OO0 years before Christ was born in Bethlehem we read that Miriam. who led the Hebrew maidens in triumphant dance when Pharoahs s host was submerged in the Red Sea, was afflicted with leprosy be- cause she became sinfully jealous. Ml- riam was jealous because her brother Moses, eighty years of age, fell in love and wanted to take a wife. Clear back in 1516 Holbein, the artist, painted a pie ture of Elizabeth distributing bread to the unclean lepers of Augsburg Lepers among the icebergs of the north, lepers basking in the torrid heats about the equator, lepers in Europe. lepers in Asia, lepers in Africa lepers in America, lep- CTS in the islands of the seasl But though leprosy has been found by the scientists everywhere, yet one fact Is universally recognized about the disease 1t Is incurable. A man who has the leprous poison in his system has no hope from medicine. He mus. W worse and worse until he come, to the grave. It is as incurable as that disease which we call cancer and which is only a little less fatal in it's hideous and repulsive re- suits than leprosy. When General Grant was suffering from an affection of the throat, the family physician feared a cancer. But, to be upon the safe side, in their diagnosis, they took to a special ist a small part of the excrescence from tie throat Now" the doctors said to that specialist, this excrescence is from man of very great national influ- ence. We will not tell you his name, as 1t might bias your judgment" The spe- cialist placed the excrescence under the microscope. After carefully examing it he said: "lt is a fatal cancer. Who's throat did 1t come from?" General U. S. Grants" was the answer. Then" said the great bacteriologist, General Grant is doomed He must die"
 The Souls Affiction.
 How terrible are these diseases that physicians confess themselves unable to curel How startling, then, is the divine statement that the soul may be afflicted with such a disease similarly beyond hu- man medicament. Sin Is a leprosy Sin is the cancer of the soul gnawing at its vitals Sin is the forerunner of eternal death. There are men today within the sound of my voice who in their own strength have been fighting sin for the last twenty or thirty years. But as you grow weaker the power of your sin is growing stronger. God have pity upon you, for you are doomed leper. You are doomed by leprous sin.
 But though from our standpoint lep- rosy is incurable, yet the leprous scales were cleansed by divine power. There fore it is to Christ and to Christ alone that we must look for the cure of sin. The mortal may go with confidence to