The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-05-01

BY TT

every degree are uIHed tor accept ' offer which Is made Hith a royal mag nanimity and completeness that put hu- man forgiveness to Aame by compari- son. The text is PsaHn It., :. Wash me- and I shall be whitd than snow"
 Absurd simile," you say; that state ment cannot be sci ikntifically true. There is nothing whiter than snow. any more than there is anything deader than death or blacker than black, or redder than arterial blood, o1l emptier than a vaeu- um."
 Snow, from a ehemist's standpoint has superlative wldteness. The purest Of all vapors is that found far up in the heavens. Along comes a sudden cold wave and it freezes that vapor into snowflakes. just as that cold wave can freeze falling raindrops into hailstones which batter lpon the pavement. Then as that snowi elxe slowly drops through the air it comes to us as white as it is
 possible for anything to be. And yet
 there is serse in which the psalmlst 1 is right in saying that God can wash
 away our sins until we become "whiter l than snow" thu pure snow, the spotless,
 wind driven snow
 The Poets License.
 What you state about the snow is lit | erally true. Scientifically, there can be
 nothing 'whiter tan snow" But you must interpret theSe words of my text
 with the figurative license of the poet When you see through poetic eyes and
 hear through poetic ears you can see sights and hear soundsAnever anaylzed in any laboratory or classified by any | apfa1 afa I some years ago in a sermon l described myself as walking through an orchard and lying down under the branches of an l old apple tree and listening to long conversation between two apples on the
 tree overhead. One apple wanted to hold
 on to that tree brA b until it's flush of l health died away and it became wrlnkled
 and brown and decayed and fell to the
 ground to be trampled uned foot by the
 swine. The other apple was willing to die in order that others might live. This second apple wanted to be pulled off to
 adorn the Thanksgiving banquet table,
 or to be carried as a gift to the invalid 8 | room, or to be slower away in the ship s sail for an arctic explorer, or to be crush
 ed in the press that the cider might
 sparkle and glow with life. As I describ-
 ed those two apples talking together | saw one of my dearest friends in the
 audience with a vexed look upon ms face He was a hard headed business
 man, without atom of poetry in his
 makeup. After the service he came up
 to me and said: 'Why did you speak Of
 all that nonsense about those two ap-
 ples? You never heard two apples talk ing Apples can't talk" 1 looked at him l for a moment and then said: "Didn 1 you ever hear the flowers talk and the birds talk and apples talk? l have. l 1 have heard them often talking to me If Isaiah could make mountains and the | hills break forth into singing and all the l trees of the fields clap their hands Tor l joy. surely I can hear two apples talk | know those apples talked, for l heard | them."
 The Drunkard's Sins.
 We do not bind the imagination of the poet with the rigid bonds of scientific accuracy He is accorded a license to see and hear with his spiritual eyes and ears scenes and sounds not scientifically true. Though these words of my text may not be litertally true, in the hgur- ative language of the psalmist they are poetically so. They may mean in the common language this: Though your past lives show stains that seem to you indelible as scarlet, though you have committed sins which have not only cor rupted your own soul but have laid the souls of others, like the human sacrifice I of Aztec sun wors, ipers, on the fiery all tars. yet even for you there are pardon I and cleansing, if you will accept them. l Like the prodigal in his rags and tatters, | there is a home for you in the Fathers house Though, like Paul, you have &C., knoWledged yourself the chief of sinners, like him you may find grace and have the honor of toiing in Christian service.
 Christ is ready to cleanse the drunk ards sins. These are neither few nor
 .Ir.. e.f,, 6tsor a man down so low that he will lose all sense of decency and respect. They can change a man into condition more im- bruted than that of a wild beast The drunkard after awhile seems to become as unuuenchable in his passions as the patient whose voracious appetite is insa- tiable after long attack of typhoid fe- yer. The drunkards craving will make a man lie and steal and desrtoy his home and his business. The drunkard's sins will eat out a mans heart as well as his brain The drunkards sins are like the legion of demons which took possess sion of the poor maniac who. naked and alone haunted the tombs of the Gada- renes. and, like them, they may be ex- orcised by the same divine power. They are the direct and indirect cause or countless other sins.
 Father Taylor, the sailors preacher of Boston, drew vivid picture of such a phenomenon He used to describe pirate ship attacking rich merchant man in the beginning of the last century. With his inmitable power of maritime description he pictured the terror of the peaceful seamen when the dreaded black flag was run up. He described with faith full realism the crowding on of the can vas and the pursuit by the rakish craft of the cutthroats, drawing nearer and nearer to it's prey, as the leaping tiger comes nearer and nearer to clumsy numbering buffalo. Then the whin Of smoke, then the murderers clambering over the gunwales of the doomed ship, then the wounded and dying men being pitched overheard; then with the dra- matic effect of contrast Father Taylor described how these cutthroats hesitated before striking down the last of those on the merchantman-the captains helpless wife and his innocent weeping child. What did the piratical leader then do2" said Father Taylor. "He ordered grog to be served Even those murderers of men had a heart until a gill of rum and mo- lasses apiece took it away No sooner was the rum swallowed than this mother and her child were struck down by the men. whose infamed hearts and brains wer without mercy" An. yes; the drunkard's sins are scarlet. They are sins which make men capable of fendish work, even to the death of a helpless mother and her innocent babe.
 Drink Destroys Spiritual Life.
 Some people will tell you that men drink to drown their sorrows. 1 tell you that when men drink they stain their souls. No sooner is the drunkards pois- onous draft taken into the blood than the man seems to be possessed with rabies and must go forth to scatter death wher-