The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-05-01
DIR. fALMAGE'S SERMON.
FRANK DE WITT TALMAeE. D. D.

ls,ahd continent The rabbits were hunt ca with guns and dogs and entrapped ev- l eryWhefe but still their numbers grew. Ae length. as last resort some rabbits l were caught and lnoeulated with the latai serum of hydrophobia. Then a greater danger than before menaced | these southern colonsts These mad rab- l pits not only bit other rabbits, but they Dlt dogs and sheep and cattle, and even 1 plt men and women and children. So | When the drunkards blood is once In oculated with the poison 1t sems to ere ate in its victim a mad passion to de- stroy life. It seems to make a man ab- | solutely indifferent how he might crush l out the heart of his wife his child or his friend. A man drinks to drown sorrow? !? 1 Oh, no! He drinks to satisfy his insa- tfable craving, reckles Of the conse- l quences, though they may involve his be- coming recreant tv his duty to the help les woman and the innocent children who are dependent on his exertions and have the strongest of all claims on his loyalty, his truth and his honor
 Reddest of All Sins.
 The drunkard's sins. without doubt must be cassed among the reddest of all scarlet sins. Now comes the practical 1 question: Will God cleans the drunkard s sins? When we say he is a loathsome, 1 heartless. good for nothing drunkard. do we mean, There is no hope for the l drunkard2 Some of us have such lack of faith that we do mean this; but God never meant nor said it. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" is a l direct refutation of the charge that 1 Christ will not forgive the drunkard 8 ] sins. Oh. man, though by drunkenness [ you have sold your home under the sher- 1 frs hammer, though you have wrecked your business and had your eyes horror l struck with the kaleidoscope of delirium tremens. yet there is even pardon and l peace for you There is the same mes sage of salvation and rescue for you that there was for Francis Murphy or Cough, l or Captain Barbour or as there is for the scores and hundreds upon hundreds of reformed drunkards who every night l are found testfying to the glorious res cuing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ "Though your drunkards sins be as scarlet. they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.''
 An Appeal to Young Men.
 Young man, you who today are hav- | ing your lfes blood squeezed out of you by the upper and the neither mill stones of drunkards sins, will you not accept this salvation for your emancpa- ton from evil? Will you not seek Christ as a refuge from the destruction of the drunkard, which seems to be going on everywhere? How general the drunkard S eternal overthrow is few people stop to realize. Many years ago these sardonc l lines fell into my hands; let me read | them to you
 There was an old decanter, and its mouth was gaping wide;
 The rosy wine had ebbed away and left
 it's crystal side,
 And the wind went humming. humming-
 up and down the sides it flew, And through the reedlike, hollow neck
 the widest notes it blew | l placed it in the window, where the blast
 was blowing free
 And fancied that it pale mouth sang the queerest strains to me: "They tell me. puny conquerors. the plague mas slain his ten. And war hundred thousands of the very best of men.
 But T'-'twas thus the bottle spake-'but
 I have conquered more
 Than all your famous conquerors, so
 famed and feared of yore.
 Then come, ye youths and maidens all-
 come, drink from out my cup The beverage that dulls the brain and
 burns the spirit up,
 That puts to shame the conquerors who
 say their scores below,
 For I have deluged millions with the lava tide of wool
 Though in the paths of battle darkest
 waves of blood may roll,
 Yet while I killed the body l have also damned the soul
 The cholera. the plague, the sword, such
 ruin never wrought
 As I. in mirth or malice, on the innocent
 have brought.
 And still l breathe upon them, and they shrink before my breath.
 And year by year thousands tread the
 dismal road of death"
 From this awful doom of the drunkard will you not escape and in christ's name escape now? Will you not, o drunkard, promise with Gods help to let your scar let sins be cleansed whiter than : the driven snow?
 Christ Ready to Forgive. Christ is ready to cleanse also the de- bauchees sins. By that l mean Christ is ready to forgive those who have immor- ally broken up the sanctity of the home. He forgave the sins of Rahab, who con cealed the Hebrew spies; He forgave the sins of David, who stole the poor man eve; He forgave the sins of the dissolute woman who talked with Him at the Sa- maritan well; be forgave the sins of the woman denounced by the scribes, to whom he turned and said: woman, where are thine accusers? Doth no man condemn thee? Neither do l condemn thee? Go and sin no more.' Christ IS ready to forgive the social outcasts sins, as He was ready to forgive the scarlet sins of the dying thief and the murderer.
 But though the Bible declares there Is but one unpardonable sin. and that IS 1 the sin against the Holy Ghost yet strange to say most people are not will ing to forgive the sins of libertinsm es- pecially if the social outcast belongs to ] the female sex Alas. alasi Even the best of men. the leaders in our churches l and pulpits, are often ready to look upon the breakers of the seventh command ment as moral degenerates who have no chance for ultimate rescue either in this world or in the next. Many people are apt to look upon immoral outcasts In the same way that the stern old Scottish elder looked upon the actions of his way ward daughter in the beautiful story Ill Ian Maclaren's "Bonne Brier Bush. 1 He professed to believe in the unlimited power of Gods forgiveness yet when his only daughter, his motherless girl, 1 his one child, who was all to him, had l been led into sin he turned to the clerk of the village kirk and said; Aye, blot her name off the books! She Is my child, 1 but blot her name off the books. l But. oh, my brother and sister though man is hard upon fallen man, and wo- | man especially hard upon fallen woman | yet God today offers pardon and peace for every penitent Magdalene. Though | your sins against morality may be as | scarlet, they shall be whiter than the | driven snow.
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