The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-19
TALMAGES SERMON
BY THE REV FRANK DEWITT TALmAeE. D. D.

New York, April 12.-In this sermon
 the preacher refers to the wonderful | Providence which preserves men amid
 countless dangers on every side and shows | us that it is Gods way of admonishing
 US to better lives and greater activity | in his service. The text is Acts xvii, A. l And so it came to pass that they es-
 capped all safe to land.''
 What an awful catastrophe is threaten | ing the Alexandrian corn ship on which | Paul, the great apostle, is being carried
 a prisoner to Romel You may picture | the heaving, rocking pillows; you may l talk about shrieking Euroclydon; you | may illustrate for me the poor sailors aud | the frightened soldiers and the terrified | passengers for many days in the dark ness of the tornado and in the blackness | of the night tossed about upon these | Mediterranean waters without compass | and without guide. But, after all, the | most impressive part of this chapter. which proves to me the horror or thls l cyclone, is the latter part of the tWen- | tieth verse, And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared and no small | tempest lay on us, all hope that we should | be saved was taken away" It is a sefi- l ous matter for all on board when officers | and crew lose hope. 1 suppose that in l such circumstances the captain ceased to give orders to his sailors, and the cen | turion ceased to give orders to his sol l diers, and the passengers and crew alike | said: What is the use? We are gong
 to drown anyway. It does not matter
 what we do.'' When a rough band of | soldiers and sailors fall into that reck- | less mood one never knows what eX- l eesses they may be guilty of. And all | hope was taken away"
 | Now, that sentence means even more | to a militaryi or a naval man than 1t | does to a civilian. In the army or the | navy so rigid Is the discipline that a. ] soldier or a sailor is not supposed to stop | and think, but to do simply as his com l manding officers bid him. He is capable 1 of heroic conduct so long as discipline $ ! maintained
 l Perhaps you have read the story of 1 the sinking of the Japanese cruiser | Takasago off Port Arthur. The ship was
 under the command of Captain Ishibashi. 1 Of the 800 men in that crew only l33 were | saved. The cruiser was steaming along | doing patrol duty. Suddenly the hull | grated upon mine The mine exploded l and made hole in the ships bottom about six feet in diameter under the water l line. The crew tried to stop the inflow 1 ing of the water. It was impossible. The wind was blowing a gale It was bit | terly cold. The snow was falling heavily. i Captain Ishibashi called the men to him l and said: Sailors, no man must leave 1 the ship until she sinks. He will together
  l sailor grimly stood at his post. Then 1 they raised a rousing banzai for their | emperor and. began to sing the national l air of Gallant Sailor."1 And while scores and hundreds of those men were sinking | into a watery grave the sailors stood silently at their posts of duty, martyrs | to the naval discipline of Japan.
 All Hope Gone.
 | But here on this Alexandrian corn ship | all is confusion. All hope is gone. Then | 1t was in the darkest hours of their | voyage that Paul stepped forward and uttered words of encouragement. Then it was that he said, And now l exhort l you to be of good cheer, for there shall | be no loss of any mans life, but of | the ship" Then, as a fulfillment of. this l prophecy, we read the cheering words | of the chapter And so it cannes to pass | that they escaped all safe to land. It 1 was a wonderful escape from destruction 1 that seemd inevitable. l wonder if they | all felt thankful to God when they stood 1 safe on dry land. Would they remember l their deliverance and their obligations to | Him during their later lives or would
 they live as carelessly and wickedly as 1 before? How do men act generally? or, | to come closer, how have we acted when l God has interposed to save us from calam- l ity or death? It is a strange fact that l though we felt grateful to God at the
 
 1 forgotten our obligation afterward L
 want to refresh your memories in refer | ence to these past dangers and renew 1 your gratitude to God for his loving and l tender care. How often have we, like the
 passengers and crew who were with St. l Paul in the Alexandrian corn ship, es- | capped safe to land?
 We have had, in the first place, nar-
 row physical escapes. Oh, how many there have beeni The crew and the 1 passengers and the soldiers of the Al 1 exandrian corn ship struggling in the
 surf were not in any gerater physical l danger than some of us have been at
 times. People have often said to me; l Tt is an outrage that many human l lives are sacrificed every year by acci-
 dents." My answer is always this.
 "The wonder of wonders to me is not
 that we have as many accidents as we | do, but that each year thousand times l more men are not killed in railroads l and steamh oats and cyclones and earth 1 quakes and in fires than are killed at 1 the present time"
 Must Be on Time.
 Just consider what it means to cross l the North American continent. You l buy your ticket in the Grand Central depot of New York City. You step into l the train. The conductor calls: "Al l aboard! All aboard!" He holds his watch in his hand, and at the very 1 second the door is slammed shut and 1 the train starts. What is the matter?"
 you ask the conductor "Why are sou l in such a hurry to be off" He says:
 We must go through the tunnel on the | very minute of the schedule. There | are hundreds of trains passing over 1 these tracks every day. The variation 1 of few minutes in passing might l mean collision and the loss of thou 1 sands of lives" An they talk about
 the outrageous number of people killed
 in railroad accidents, but it is perpet- 1 ual wonder to me that the number is i not much larger.
 The most stringent precautions have 1 to be taken to keep the railroad sch ed | ules correct. The ether day I was in a l jewellers store in this city. While 1 stood by the counter young man came l in and said: How about that watch l of mine? Can it stand the railroad 1 test?" What do you mean by thato" l asked. 'Is the railroad mans watch any different from any other persons l watch?" ''Yes," the jeweler answered. 1 Every railroad man must own per 1. feet watch. It must not vary in it's time a quarter of a second a week. Each day the time is sent over the rail- road lines. And each railroad, like the Santa Fe, has an official called the watch tester, whose business is to do tant is his position that this official is