The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-29
 DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
av THE REV. FRANK DE WITT rALmAeg. D. 2.

into his soul. Have nothing to do with
 that just man, for l have suffered many
 things this day in dream because of
 him That letter practically meant
 this; Dear Husband-Do not yield to those crafty Jews. The man before you
 must be more than mortal In my dreams
 hear a message from the heavens about him. l beg of you to protect him, lest
 the vengeance of God come upon you. Condemn him not Condemn him not!"
 mus with us. By the testimony of our
 fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, chill
 dren and friends pleadngs are contin-
 uaIly going on today with us. In great
 chorus our loved ones voices seem to
 be calling: Condemn him not Con demn him not We have had revela-
 tions of the power and the divinity of
 Jesus Christi Condemn him not" We cannot shut our eyes to what we have seen. We cannot stop our ears to what we have heard. Neither like Pilate, can we turn away from the Christian testi- monies which are being given by our loved ones concerning Jesus Christ. I ask you now the question which wavering and cowardly Pilate asked the Hebrew multitude, What l shall l do then with Jesus who is called Christi" Do you ac- | knowledge him as the Son of God? Yea. veal" you must all answer. T dol dol I dol"
 Yielding to His Will.
 Having intellectually acknowledged
 Christ as the Son of God the second question is more importunate. What will you do then with Jesus who is called Christ in reference to the will? Are you going to let him rule your mind, your thought and your actions? When Jesus comes to you and says, "I am Jesus wilt thou obey me?" are you going to | answer: Yea, Christ, l know that thot,
 art the Son of God, but l cannot ana Wilt not do as thou wouldst have me
 cannot yield my will to thlne.'
 Christ demanded of Pilate the sane kind of submission to his will thar thc tranciscan monks are compelled to give
 to the head of their order. The story Is
 told that many centuries ago a monl, refused to obey the great founder of .het9 order By the command of the elsder a grave was dug. The refractory monk was placed in a standing position inside the grave. Then by the order of St
 Francis the monks began to shovel in the dirt. The dirt came to the ankle, to
 the knee, to the hip. Are you dead yet" called St. Francis 'Is your self will broken? Do you yield to my will?r
 Then monk, with set jaw and sullen look
 refused to yield Higher and higher came
 the soil, HOW to the stomach, now to the
 chest, now to the shoulder. But still
 the refractory monk refused to yield. "a
 last the dirt came to the lip and to the
 nostril. Do you yield?' cried St. Fran
 cis "ls your self-will dead?" One
 shovel more and death was to be his
 Aye, and then the stubborn will broke,
 and the monk lifted up his beseeching
 eyes and with tremulous lip, called:
 Father, 1 am dead. My self will is dead
 l yieldl 1 yieldi" So Christ demands not
 only for us to acknowledge him king of
 our intelligences, but king of our wills
 We must submit our will to his will We
 must obey him even as the Franciscan
 monks obey their leaders. We must not
 yield Christ one-third or one-half or
 nine -tenths of our wills, but we must
 surrender unto him complete and abso-
 lute obedience.
 We must acknowledge Christ as king
 of the entire will. We have more reason
 to do so than had Pilate though he con
 ceded more than some of us are doing,
 In the first place. he yielded his will to
 Christ enough for d little while to defy
 the Hebrew mob. Then, in the next
 place, he tried to save Christ by a stub
 terfuge He placed alongside of Jesus
 one of the worst criminals of the east
 and then he said: According to the
 la~~eI must pardon one of these crmi-
 nals. Which shall it be-" He did this
 with the hope that the people would
 let him pardon Christ. Then when all
 means failed he took a basin of water
 and washed his hands before the people as he said: "l am nrocent of the blood of this just person See ye to it." An yes Pilate did much to save Christ but
 he did not do enough. With one word he could have said. Free, freei and Christ would have been free. He yielded his will to the divine will one-elghth one fourth, one-third, one-half, but he did not yield all. What will you do then with Jesus who is called Christ?" In
 every department of fife will you give to him complete obedience?
 Obeyed His Father.
 Would that Pilate could have realized that in full submission to Christ he would
 have found his own safety! I recall the story of the little child of a switchman
 on one of the German railroads. The fast mail was rushing down the track. The switchman at his post moved the switch to give 1t a clear track Suddenly. to the fathers horror, the man saw his little boy run upon the rails The father dared
 not throw the lever back. It would have
 meant the death of hundreds of persons. His own boy must be killed rather than
 that others should perish. So the father cried out to the child: Lie downl Lie flat down.' The boy dropped. The great engine and it's coaches swept past Then 1t was found that, because the boy ab- solutely yielded his will to his fathers and lay down Hat upon the ground, his life was saved. Oh. that Pilate had obeyed his divine Fathers commands as that little child obeyed his earthly par ent Would that we could surrender all our wills to God S will Pilates halfway attempts to rescue Jesus did no good. Pilate should have been man enough to have gone all the way, no matter what the temporary cost might have been He should have firmly said: Jesus, thou Son of God, thou art free. l. the govern or decree it."
 But to yield our wills to Christ is not enough. There Is another question which
 1 would put, What are you going to do with Jesus who Is called Christ in ref
 erence to your directions or y6ur hearts loving power?" To be obedient to Christ Is not necessarily to be a loving disciple of Christ. There is many clerk in d store who tries to be obedient and faith.
 ful to his employers interest who per
 sonally has no more use for his employ
 CT than weasel has for rat or q mon
 goose for hissing cobra There is many woman today trying to be a dutiful
 wife who years ago lost all love for her
 husband. That husband has again and again broken every one of his vows. She
 is true to him for her childrens sake alone. Thus l believe there are many men trying to obey Christ, and yet they
 are disciples who have not learned to
 love Christ.
 Pilot, in one sense, was trying to serve
 Christ, but Pllate did not love Jesus any more than some of us love him who
 have been trying to follow him for years
 Why are you a Christian? Why do you
 go to church and always contribute to
 ft,. ai,,,