Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1903-05-30
TALMAGE
SERMON
BY Rev.
FRANK DE WITT TALMACE. DID,.
Pastor of Jefferson Park Presby-
terian Church, Chicago

Chicago, May 24.-In view OF the
approaching celebration Of Memorial
day and the decoration of soldiers
graves DR.. Talmage recalled in his SER
mon this morning the services rendered
to the nation by American sailors and
pleaded that they, too, be remembered
in the patriotic tribute. His text was
Isaiah xxxlli, 81, "Neither shall gallant
ship pass thereby"
The old Brooklyn navy yard used to
have many interesting sights. There
were its museum and its antiquated
cannon mounted in the yards and its
piles of empty shells. There were its
famous dry dock and the great sheds
under which lay the keels and the
skeleton ribs of those massive frames
that were laid and knit together to-
ward the close of the civil war, but
never finished. There were also Its
uniformed sailors and marines and its
filled with food and clothing
soon to be sent to the different naval
stations of the world. There often lay
the training ships and the great men
of-war just In from foreign ports. But
TO me the most interesting place of all
in the Brooklyn navy yard, where
used to play as a boy, was Rotten
row." Alongside of its wharfs were
tied some Of the decaying vessels that
had helped to make Americas valor
respected and admired around the
world These ships were too old to
VOYAGE the sea and too weak to defy
the enemy's shells. They were also
too sacred to be split up for kindling.
Thsre they lay, with a sentimental but
not an intrinsic value. Their decks
were deserted, their hulls empty, their
masts cut down. But there they float
ed at the docks, magnificent reminders
Of a glorious past.
Isaiah has been walking in imagina-
ton along the "Rotten row. of a mill
Iennial dawn. With prophetic vision,
he has been looking ahead to the time
when all the navies Of the world shall
90 out of commission; when every
quarter deck of every man-of-war shall
be a playground for the patterlng feet
Of the little children; when the war
ships decks shall no longer be slippery
with human blood Neither shall gal
liant ship pass thereby" translated
into the language Of ordinary life,
means Neither shall gallant men-of-
war ever again sail to destroy life"
And yet Isaiah, speaking Of this glad
some day. cannot refrain from paying
! ,atTioottiic sailors WHO have always been
willing to fight and. if necessary. to
lie for their country's cause. He
speaks of the man-of-war in words
IF martial praise. He calls the naval
vessel a gallant ship"
Heroic Deeds of Eluejnckets.
Ought the jack tars of old to be
more honored than those of the present
time? Cannot we afford, on this Me-
mortal Sunday, to praise the heroic
deeds of ..merican bluciackets who
fought undnr John Paul Jones In the
Ranger an, the Bonbomme Richard
under Captain Hull in the Constitution,
under James Lawrence in the Chesa-
peake. under Decatur in the United
States. under Farragut in the Hart
ford. under Dewey in the Olympia III
the most conspicuous monument IN all
7 .ondon was reared in Trafalgar
souare to the memory of Admiral Mel
son. surely We on this last Sabbath
preceding our annual Memorial day,
should dedicate at least one sermon to
the noble tars who, in the American
wars. won immortal fame upon the
high seas. Gallant ships" Is a term
we can well apply TO the great nun-
bor of man-of-war vessels which have
the American navy from
177G down to the present time.
The American navy was always Will
ING TO fight our wars with the material
It had on hand. It's officers in the past
did not estimate the strength Of the
enemy. They gathered together what
vessels and men they could, and then
they went forth to battle, no matter
how great the odds were against them.
We are all able 10 recognize this klnd
of valor when it is found beating under
the breast of an American. When some
wears ago a tourist was being shown
about the heights of Quebec a French
guide tauntingly said, And these are
the cannon we captured on Bunker
Hill" "Yes." answered the American
"you got the guns, but we have the hill
And we finally got possession Of Bun
ker Hill with soldiers who wore no uni
form and, for the most part, had nc
military education. We Won with
farmers boys, led by farmers like Put
nam and Nat Greene" But is the Rev
olutionary soldiers bravery to be prals
ed more than that of the Revolutionary
sailors? Were the most heroic DEEDS OF
Lexington and Princeton and Saratoga
and Valley Forge any more brilliant OF
heroic than that of Captain Paul Jones
who with an old tub set sail for Eng
land and set fire to the British ship
ping at White Haven on November
1777? Was George Washington cross
ing the Delaware a more glorious ne
ure than Captain Jones standing upol
the deck of the Bonhomme Ricnar1
and fighting on until his own ship wa
n wreck. and then. when the Scraps
had struck her colors, sailing away II
the captured prize. while bis own ship
with a swift plunge, went down TO
watery grave?
Perry and Decatur.
Then. passing by the war OF lol'
and the deeds of Perry and Decatur
we would come down to the war O
1861. We would speak in the SAM
breath Of the deeds Of the northern ant
southern sailors. We certainly wer'
brothers before the war; we have beer
brothers since the war; we were broth
ers during the war, though for tina
short time we had a family difference
Was there ever braver deed recorded
than when Commodore Franklin Buch