The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-01-15
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.


Los Angeles, Cais Jan. s=The day lost by reckoning in B westerly voyage areuua the world furnishes the preacher in this sermon with an illustration by which he shows, days are continually being lest in the voyage ef life; text ix, 10, 'Whatsoever thy hand hndeth to do, do 1t with thy might
 what tragic significance there may be In that little word "Lest" We hear 1t In the aespnirlng cry of tho miners starv- ins ia the Death valley of the MoJRYe de- serf, Wa hear It in the bitter cry of the travellers bewildered in midwinter on the Montana prairies. It is hhriek of hor- TOT on the lips of the poor children on the General slocum burning on the sound of New York. It Ia | cry of disnny rom the crew of the Royal Charter wrecked on the Irish coast. It is a cry of agony from the man in the upper story of the Windsor hotel in New York, whose body with suppliant arms stretched in entreaty to the nremen falls Into the seethins furnace. He is lost" we cry as one of our number slides over the edge of Alpine Klacier. He is lostl" we said In sorrow when our friend, the Rev. Dr. Robert B. Taylor, of San Diego. made a false step from the deck of the sal boat and sank to rise no more. "Lost! cries the mother frantioally pacing the streets looking for her wandering child. Lost cries the gambler who has ventured his last coin on the turn of the wheel. Hor- TOT and dismay and agony and despair are heard in that thrilling word.
 There is another kind of loss of which want to speak to you today. At the be- ginning of a New Year 1t Is impressed upon us with solemn import. Looking backward over the year that is gone, how sad Is the thought of our lost days! Days there have been in which we might have done work for God which we have suffered to pass away In idlenesss days which can never be recalled which we have frittered away useless,y.
 We all know the old adage that time Is money" We are all ready to grant that this axiom Is true. "If man has no regard for the time Of other men, wrote Horace Greeley, why should he have for their money? What is the dlf- ference between stealing mans hour and stealing his $5? There are many men whom each hour of the business day is worth more than s5." But, though time means money to most Of us, time should mean more than that. It Is a sacred trust committed to us, for the right use of which we shall have to give account. Little enough Is the portion we can devote to our Masters service. If we waste 1t we defraud God.
 Losing the Minutes.
 We waste these days simply by vast ing here a minute and there minute. This thought was brought home to me in my tour around the world. In 1893 my father and l left our homes in the east and started on our journey. We fol- lowed the course of the setting sun We travelled from New York to Pitts burg, from Pittsburg to Chicago, from Chicago to St. Louis, from StLouis to Denver, and then to San Francisco. We zigzagged up and down, but always kept pushing toward the west. At San Fran cisco we set sail for the Sandwich ls- lands. Then we went on to Samoa. Some times we would stop two or three days in a town. sometimes a full week. It took us seven long months to encircle the globe. Each day as rule, was for us not twenty-four hours, but twenty-four hours and ten or fifteen or even thirty minutes long. Of course you grasp my meaning. We were lengthening our days, because we were travelling westward. How were we to straighten out our calendar This was the way we did it One night we went to bed on Wednesday. The next morning when we awoke it was Friday. There, in the middle of the Pacific ocean, we lost a full day. How did that day disappear?
 As I sat that Friday morning after Thursday was dropped out of my calen- dar. said to myself: "Yes, yes. This is the way many days are lost for Christ in our great journey of life. Here Is a