The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-02-09
 DIR. TALMACE'S SERMON  TALatAGE D. D.

Los Angeles. Cal, F ebruary 2-fn this sermon the preacher describes the noblest of passions, the pursuit of which he as- sdres us will bring to us more satisfaction and enduring happiness than anything else on earth. The text is Proverbs xi 30, He that winneth souls is wise"
 Every man wants to make the most out Of his life As the blossom changes to the bud and the bud opens into the flower, SO man wants the latest buds of his better life to mature and ripen and then spread their leaves far and wide that he may scatter their fragrance everywhere. The heart is not silent tomb filled only with the decomposing corpses of dead memo ries. It is great hall in which myriads or voices are chanting in chorus. And all these voices are sounding clarion call to the higher life, which God bids all his children live.
 Of course man does not always obey these calls to the higher life. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh is very weak. This means in plain English that our good intentions are often like the seed Christ described in the gospel of Mark: And some fell by the wayside and the fowls came and devoured 1t up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth, and immediately it sprang up, be- cause 1t had no depth of earth, but when the sun was up it was scorched, and be- cause 1t had no root it withered away.
 
 thorns grew up and, choked it." In other words, our good intentions, like the good seed in the hand of the sower, are in our hearts, but no sooner are they planted than the thorns of temptation rise up and choke them, and instead of our lives be- coming flower garden they are nothing but barren waste. But that does not disprove the fact which I have already asserted-namely, that our hearts are great music nails in which myriads of voices united. in chorus are sounding forth the clarion calls for us to lead the better life.
 Soul Winning Versus Gold.
 King Solomon in my text tells us how we can make good use of our lives. He says: Soul winning is the greatest of all work open to us on earth. It is better than seeking gold. It is better than seek ing fame. It is better than having high political positions. It's returns oyertop those of all other mental and physical and spiritual endeavors. No matter what your brain or worldly opportunities may be, the grandest, the best and the happiest work on earth is the work of bringing men and women to the cross." s'He that winneth souls is wise,'' or to put this truism in another way, Solomon Is saying, No matter what man may be accomplish ing, If he is not soul winner for Christ he is missing the greatest opportunity of his life"
 And this assertion Is the more amazing because we find it in the book of Prov z erbs. Of all the writers of the two testa- ments there is not one who represents worldly wisdom in it's clearest type as did King Solomon. A man may not believe in the rest of the Bible, but he must believe in the truth of nose of these proverbs. Indeed, it has been asserted,that Solomon could not have written the book of Prov erbs, but must have collected the proverbs of many lands and ,sonlbined them in one book: And yet right i'm the midst of those valuable nuggests of worldly ad- vice he wrote these words of my text: He that winneth souls is wise" Let us study for little while why the occupa- tion of soul winning is the greatest and the most important and the happiest bus, mess in which any man can engage.
 In the first place, when Christian wins soul for Christ he deals with the only part of man that is immortal. He deals with the only part of a man that will never die. The soul is that unweighable, unanalyzabe something in the human body which dwells in the fish, but which springs out of the flesh when that flesh dies. And then, taking upon itself the pinions of immortality, it flies away to another realm, another world, another place of existence, where it lives and con- tinues to live after the worlds themselves shall be no more. The soul will never die,
 The Soul the Vital Part.
 Now, if the soul is the only part of man that-is going to live on through the com ing ages the wsest act of our lives must be to put the chief emphasis of our work upon the part of man which alone has immortal life. You surely are not going to expend all your energies of mind upon the physical body which at most can live only a few years. while the soul is going to live forever. You may say you love the body, and so you do. But you merely love the body because the soul is in it. When the soul is gone then that body will soon become a mass of decomposition 1 was talking about this matter the other day to a friend of mine who had lately , lost his mother. Her body, according to her expressed wish, was cremated. Her ashes only few days before had been brought home and deposited in bronze urn on the parlor table. That is un- canny" l said, that a fine strong wo- man like your mother should be brought home a little handful of ashes. For my own part, believe there is a sacredness in the use of a family plot, A holy rev erence comes over us when we realize that the sacred dust of our parents is sleep Ing in Gods acre" "Oh, mo-" answered my friend, that should not be- If l in- jure my leg and have it cut off, do not want to preserve my leg because it is part of me When my leg is cut off it ceases to be me. It is then only dead piece of heSh And when the soul Of my loved one leaves the body all that l loved and clung to is gone. It makes very little difference then what we do with that body. The soul is the vital and the be- loved part-the soul and not the body.
 could understand my friends attitude. It is not the body of my dear mother whose memory cherish. I love that soul which took wings and flew away from her poor suffering body on August 5, 1895. It Is that soul, which for years impelled that poor suffering. pain racked body against It's will to labor for me, that l venerate and love When her body in suffering was srying: Let me lie down Let me sleepl Let me resi-" her soul reminded her of