IAY HOLD OP CHRIST.
REV. DR. TALMAGE POINTS THE WAY
TO SALVATION.
Show the Helpfulness of Itellfflon
In Flshtlng Life's Battle Be Bold
For the Rlsht nd Trust In the Son
of God. ,
Copyright, Looi Klopsch, 1809. '
WAsnixoTO.Oct. 22. In this dis
course Dr. Tallage employs a very
bold figure of the Bible to bring out
the helpfulness of religion for all those
In any kind of struggle. The text Is
'Isaiah xxv, 11, "He shall spread forth
his hands In the mIdstof them, as he
that swlmmeth spreadeth forth his
bands."
iln the summer season multitudes of
people wade into the jwnds and lake
and rlvereand seas to dive or float or
- swim. In a world the most of which I
-wafer all men and women should learn
jto swim. Some of you have learned
the side stroke Introduced by George
Pewters in 1850. each stroke of that
kind carrying the swimmer a distance
of six feet, and some of you may use
the overhand stroke invented by Gar
dener, the expert who by It won the
500 yard championship In Manchester
In 1862, the swimmer by that stroke car
rying his arm In -the air for a more
lengthened reach, and some : of you
may tread the water as though you
bad been made to walk the sea, but
most of you usually take what Is call
ed the breast stroke, placing the hands
with the backs upward, about five
inches under the water, the Inside of
the wrists touching the breast, then
pushing the arms forward coincident
with the stroke of the feet struck out
'to the greatest width possible, and you
thus unconsciously Illustrate tne mean
ing of my text, "He shall spread forth
his hands in the midst of them, as he
that swlmmeth spreadeth forth his
hands to swim."
The fisherman seeks out unfrequent
ed nooks. You stand all day on the
bank of a river In the broiling sun and
fling out your line and catch nothing,
-while an expert angler breaks through
the Jungle and goes by the shadow of
the solitary rock and. In a place where
so fisherman has been for ten years,
, throws out his line and comes home at
night, his face shining and his basket
full. I do not know why we ministers
of the gospel need alwayskbe fishing In
the same stream and preaching from
the same texts that other people preach
from. I cannot understand the policy
of the minister who in Blackfriars,
london, England,-every week for 30
years preached from the Epistle to the
Hebrews. It is an exhilaration to me
when I come across a theme which I
feel no one else has treated, and my
text Is one of that kind. There are
paths In God's word that are well beat
en by Christian feet. When men want
to quote Scripture, they" quote the old
passages that every one has beard.
"When they -want a chapter read, they
read a chapter that all the other people
have been reading, so that the church
today Is ignorant of three-fourths of
the Bible.
Pmh Down Iniquity.
You go Into the Louvre at Paris. You
confine yourself to one corridor of that
opulent gaUery of paintings'. As-you
come butt your friend says to you,
Did you see that Rembrandt?" "No."
Did you see that Rubens?" "No."
"Did you see that Titian?" "No." "Did
you seethat Raphael?" "No." "Well,"
says your friend, "then you did not see
the Louvre." Now, my friends, I think
"we are too much apt to confine our
selves to one of the great corridors of
Scripture truth, and so much so that
there-is not one person out of a million
who nasi ever noticed the all suggestive
and powerful picture in the words of
my text. -
This text represents God as a strong
swimmer, striking out to push down
Iniquity and save the souls of men.
'He shall spread forth his hands In the
midst of them, as he that swlmmeth
spreadeth forth his bands to swim."
The-figure" Is bold and many sided.
Most of you know how to swim. Some
of you learned It in the city school.
"Where this art Is taught; some of you
In boyhood, in the river near your fa
ther's bouse; some of you, since you
came to manhood or womanhood, while
summering on the beach of the sea. It
is a good thing to know how to swim,
not only for yourself, but because you
will after awhile perhaps have to help
others.
I do not know anything more stirring
or sublime than to see some man like
Norman McKenzIe leaping from the
ship Madras into the sea to save
Charles Turner, who had dropped from
the royal yard while trying to loosen
the sail, bringing him back to the deck
amid the huzzas of the passengers and
crew. If a man has not enthusiasm
enough to cheer In such circumstances,
be deserves himself to drop Into the
sea and have no one help him. The
Royal Humane Society of England was
established In 1774, Its object to ap
plaud and reward those who should
pluck up life from thedeep. Any one
-who has performed such a deed of, dar
ing has all the particulars of that
bravery recorded In a public record
and on his breast a medal done In blue
and gold and bronze, anchor and mono
gram and inscription, telling to future
generations the bravery of the man or
woman who saved some one from
drowning. But If It Is such a worthy
thing to save a body from the deep 1
ask you If it Is not a worthier thing to
save an Immortal souL And you shall
v see this hour the Son of God step forth
for this achievement. "He shall spread
forth his hands In the midst of them,
as he that swlmmeth spreadeth forth
his bands to swim."
Most Dalef nl Word.
In order to understand the full force
of this figure, you need to realize that
our race Is In a sinking condition. You
sometimes hear people talklngof what
they consider the most beautiful words
in our language. One - man says It Is
home " another man says It Is the
word Smother," another says it Is the
word "Jesus," hut I tell you the bitter
est word in all our language, the word
most angry and baleful, the word sat
urated with the most trouble, the word
that accounts for all the loathsomeness
and the pang and the outrage and the
harrowing, and that word is "sin."
You spell It with three letters, and yet
those three letters describe the circum
ference and pierce the diameter of ev
erything bad In the universe. Sin Is a
sibilant word. You 'cannot pronounce
It without giving the siss of the flame
or the his of the serpent. Sin! And
then If yen add three letters to that
word It describes every one of us by
naturesinner. We have outraged the
law of God, not occasionally, or now
and then, but perpetually. The Bible
declares It. Hark! It thunders two
claDs: "The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked.1
"The soul that slnneth, It shall die.'
What the Bible says our own con
science affirms.
After Judge Morgan had sentenced
Lady Jane Grey to death his conscience
troubled him so mucbffor the deed that
he became insane, and all through his
insanity he kept saying: "Take her
away from me! Lady Jane Grey! Take
her away! Lady Jane Grey!" It was
the voice of conscience. And no man
ever does anything wrong, however
great or small, but his conscience
brings that matter before him, and at
every step of his misbehavior It says,
"Wrong, wrong!" .. Sin is a leprosy; sin
is a paralysis : sin is a consumption ;
sin is pollution; sin is death. Give It
a far chance, and it will swamp you
and me, body, mind and soul, forever.
In this world It only gives a faint Inti
mation ot its virulence. You see a pa
tient In the first stages of typhoid fe
ver. The cheek is somewhat flushed,
the hands somewhat hot, preceded by
a slight chlU. "Why," you say, "ty
phoid fever does not seem to be much
of a disease." But wait until the pa
tient has been six weeks under it. and
all his energies have been wrung out.
and he is too weak to lift his little
finger, and his Intellect gone, then you
see the full havoc of the disease. Now,
sin In this world Is an ailment which
is only In its first stages, but let it get
under full sway, and it is an all con
suming typhoid. Oh, if we could see
our unpardoned sins as God sees them,
our teeth would chatter and our knees
would knock together, and our respira
tion would be choked, and our heart
would break. If your sins are unforglv
en, they are bearing down on you, and
you are sinking sinking away from
happiness, sinking away from God.
sinking away from everything that Is
good and blessed.
High Water Mark.
Then what do we want? A swim
mer a strong swimmer, a swift
swimmer! And, blessed be God, In my
text we have him announced. "He shall
spread forth his hands in the midst of
them, as he that swimmeth stretchetb
forth his hands to swim". You have
noticed that when a swimmer goes to!
rescue any one he puts off his heavy ap
parel. He must not have any such Im
pediment about him If he Is going to do:
this, great deed. And when Christ step-j
ped forth to save us he shook off the:
sandals of heaven, and his feet were:
free, and then he stepped down Into
the wave of our transgressions, and it
came up over his wounded feet, and it
came above the spear stab In his side
aye, it dashed to the lacerated temj
pie, the high water mark of jmgulsbj
Then, rising above the flood, He
stretched forth his hands in the midst
of them, as he that swimmeth spread
eth forth his hands to swim." I
. If you have ever watched a swim
mer, you notice that his whole body Is
brought Into play. The arms are fiext
ed, the hands drive the water back!
the knees are -active, the head is
thrown back to ( escape strangulation
the whole body Is In propulsion. And
when Christ sprang into the deep to
save us he threw his entire nature Into
it all his godhead, his omniscience, his
goodness, his love, his omnipotence!,
head, heart, eyes, hands, feet. We
wt'iv far out on the sea and so deeb
i down in the waves and so far out from
ttre God could save us. Christ leaped
out for our rescue, saying, "Lo, 1 come
to do thy will!" and all the surges of
human and satanlc hate beat against
him, and those-who watched him from
the gates of heaven feared he would
go down under the waves and Instead
of saving others would himself perish;;
but, putting his breast to the foam
and shaking the surf from his locks, he
came on and on until he Is now within
the reach of every one here, eye om
niscient, heart Infinite, arm omnipo
tent, mighty to save, even unto the
uttermost. S ' - . ' jl
Oh, It was not" half a God that tram
pled down bellowing Gennesaret: It
was not a quarter of a God that niai
tered the demons of Gadara; it was not
two-thirds of a God that lifted up Laz
arus Into the arms of his overjoyed
sisters; It was not a fragment of a God
who offered pardon and peace to all
the race. No. This mighty swimmer
threw his grandeur, his glory, his
might, his wisdom, , his omnipotence
and his eternity into this one act. It
took both hands of God to save us-J-both
feet. How do I prove It? On the
cross were not both hands nailed? On
the cross were not both feet spiked?
His entire nature Involved In our re
demption! '
' Jeans Alone. ;
If you have lived much by the wa
ter, you notice also that If any one is
going out to the rescue of the drown-:
Ing he must be Independent, self rell-
ant. able to go alone. There may tjej
a time when he must spring out lio
save one. and he cannot get a lifeboat,
and If he goes out and has not strength
enough to bear himself up and beir
another up he will sink, and instead of
dragging one corpse out of the billows
you will have two to drag out. When
Christ sprang out into the sea to de
liver us, he had no life buoy. His
Father did not help him. Alone in the
wine press, alone In the pang, alone In
the darkness, alone on the mountain,
alone in the sea! Oh, If he saves us he
shall have-all the' credit, for "there
was none to help," no oar, no wing, no
ladder! 3 When Nathaniel Lyon fell in
the battle charge in front of his troops,
be had a whole army to cheer him.
When Marshal Ney sprang into the
contest and plunged m the spurs till
the horse's ) flanks - spurted blood, all
France applauded him. But Jesus
alone! Of.the people there was none
to help." "All forsook him and fled."
On, It was not a flotilla that sailed
down and saved us. It was not a clus
ter of gondolas that came over the
wave. It was one person. Independent
and alone, "spreading out his hands
among us as , a swimmer spreadeth
forth his hands to swim!"
1 1 1 Behold, then, the spectacle of a
drowning soul and Christ the swim
mer! I believe It was In 1848 when
there were, six English soldiers of the
Fifth fuslleers who were hanging to a
capsized boat a boat that had been
upset by a squall three miles from
shore. It was In the night, but one
man swam mightily for the beach,
guided by the dark mountains that
lifted their top through the night. . He
came to the beach. He found a shore
man that consented to go with him
and save the other men." and they put
out. It was some time before they
could find the place where the men
were, but after awhile they heard their
cry. "Help, help!" and they bore down
to them, and they saved them and
brought them to shore. Oh, that this
moment our cry might be lifted long,
loud and shrill till Christ, the swim
mer, shall come and take us lest we
drop a thousand fathoms under!
The Gospel Urgent.
If yon have been much by the water,
you know very well that when one Is
in peril help must come very quickly,
or It will be of no use. One; minute
may decide everything. Immediate
help the man wants or no help at all
Now, that is just the kind of relief we
want. The case is urgent, imminent.
Instantaneous. See that soul sinking!
Son of God, lay hold of him. Be quick,
be quick! Oh, I wish you all under
stood how : urgent this gospel Is.
There was a man In the navy at sea
Who had been severely whipped for
bad behavior, and he was maddened
by it and leaped into the sea. and no
sooner had he leaped Into the 'sea
than, quick as lightning, an albatross
swooped upon him. The drowning
man, brought to his senses, seized hold
of the albatross and held on. The flut
tering of the bird kept him on the
wave until relief could corned Would
now that the dove of God's convict
ing, converting and saying spirit might
flash from the throne upon your soul
and that you, taking hold of its potent
wing, might live and live forever.
! The world tyas had strong swimmers
besides the one of the text, perhaps the
greatest among them Matthew Webb
of the British mercantile marine serv
ice. . He leaped from the deck of the
Russia, the Cunard steamer, to save
the life of a sailor who had fallen over
board. No wonder the passengers sub
scribed ,f or him a large reward and the
Royal Humane Society of London dec
orated him with honors. A mighty
swimmer was he. by the strength of his
own arm and foot pushing through the
waters from Blackwall pier to Graves
lend pier, 18 miles, and from Dover to
Calais, 39 miles, where he crossed, yet
he was drowned at last in our Ni
agara's whirlpool. But the strong
swimmer of my text put out alone to
swim a wrathier sea and for vaster
distance, even from world to. world, to
save us who were swamped in guilt
and woe. and brought us to the shore
of safety, although he at last went'
down into the whirlpool of human and
satanlc rage. "He descended into hell!"
Not a. New Invention.
New modes have been Invented for
rescuing a drowning body, but there
has been no new invention for rescuing
a drowning sotil. In 1785 Lionel Lukin,
a London coach builder, fitted up a
Norway yawl as a lifeboat and called
it the Insubmerglble, and that has
been Improved upon until from all the
coasts of the round world perfect life
boats are ready to put out for the relief
of marine disasters. In 1C years the
French Society For Saving Life From
Shipwreck, by their lifeboats and gun
apparatus saved 2,129 lives. The Ger
man Association For the Rescue of
Life From Shipwreck, the Royal Na
tional Lifeboat institution and our
United States life saving service
have done a work beyond the power
of statistics to commemorate. What
rocket lines and sling life buoys and
tally boards and mortars and ham
mocks and cork mattresses and life
saving stations filled with machinery
for saving the bodies of the drowning!
But let me here and now make It plain
that there has been no new way. in
vented for the moral and eternal res
cue of a struggling soul. Five hundred
attempts at such contrivance have been
made, but all of them dead' failures.
Hear It! "There Is none other name
under heaven given 'among men where
by we must be saved" than the name
of Jesus. The mighty swimmer of my
text comes down off the beach of heav
en and through the breakers, comes
buffeted and bruised, and. reddening
the wavi-s from his own lacerations, he
cries: "Lay hold of my arm! Put your
head on my shoulder! Hear the beating
of my loving heart! Be ye saved, for I
am God. and there Is no other!"
I want to persuade you to lay hold
of this strong swimmer. "No." you
say; "It Is always disastrous for a
drowning man to lay hold of a swim
mer." There Is not a river or lake but
has a calamity resultant from the1 fact
that when a strong swimmer went out
to save a sinking man the drowning
man clutched him. threw his arms
around him, pinioned his arms, and
they both went down together. When
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on are faying a man In the J water
you do not want to come up by his
face. You want to come up by his
back. You do not want him to hold
you while you take hold of him. But,
blessed be God, Jesus Christ is so
strong a swimmer he comes not to our
back, but to our face, and he asks us
to throw around him the armsj of our
love and then promises to take us to
the beach, and he will do it. Do not
trust that plank of good works. jDo not
trust that shivered spar of your own
righteousness. Christ only can give
you safe transportation. Turn . your
face upon him, as the dying jmartyr
did in olden times when be cried out:.
"None but Christ! None but Christr
Jesus has taken millions to the land,
and he Is willing to take yoii there.
Oh. what hardness to thrust him back
when be has been swimming all the
way from the throne of God. where
you are now. and Is ready to swim all
the way back again, taking your 're
deemed spirit!
Don't Stmsrerle.
I have sometimes thought what a
spectacle the ocean bed will present
when In the last day the water Is all
drawn off. It will be a line of wrecks
from beach to beach. There is where
the harpoohers went down. There Is
where the line of battle ships went
down. There is where the merchant
men went down. There Is where the
steamers went down, a long line of
wrecks from beach to beach. What a
spectacle In the last day, wien the
water Is drawn off! . But, oh, how
much more solemn If we bad an eye
to see the spiritual wrecks and the
places where they foundered!- You
would find thousands along our roads
and streets. Christ came down in their
awful catastrophe, putting out jfor their
souls, "spreading forth his hands as a
swimmer spreadeth forth his hands
to swim." but they thrust 'him In the
sore heart, 'and they sm&e his fair
cheek, and the storm and darkness
swallowed them up. I ask you to lay
hold of this Christ and lay hold of him
now. You will sink without him.
From horizon to horizon not 'one sail
In sight, only one strong swimmer,
with head flung back and arms out
spread. I hear many saying: "Well, I would
like to be a Christian. I am going to
work to become a Christian." My
brother, you begin wrong. When a
man is drowning and a strong swim
mer comes out to help him, he saysjto
him: "Now, be quiet. Put your arm on
my arm or on my shoulder, but don't
struggle, don't try to help yourself, and
I'll take you ashore. The more you
struggle and the more you try to help
yourself the more you Impede me.
Now, be quiet, and I'll take you
ashore." When Christ, the strong
swimmer, comes out to save a' soul,
the sinner says: "That's right. I am
glad to see Christ, and I am going to
help him in the work of my redemp
tion. I am going to pray more, and
that will help him, and I am! going to
weep extravagantly over my sins, and
that will help hlm.fv No; it will not.
Stop your doing. Christ will do all or
none. You cannot lift an ounce, you
cannot move an inch, in this matter of
your redemption. i '
lm.T Hold of Christ, j
This is the difficulty which keeps
thousands of souls out of the kingdom
of heaven. It is because they cannot
consent to let Jesus Christ begin and
complete the work of their 1 redemp
tion. "Why." you say, "then is there
nothing for me to do?" Only one
thing have you to do, and that is to
lay hold of Christ and let him achieve
yonr salvation and achieve it alL I
do not know whether I make the mat
ter plain or not 1 simply 'want to
show you that a man cannot save him
self, but that the Almighty, Son of
God can do it and will do it If you ask
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him. Oh, fling your two arms, the
arm of your trust and the arm of
your love, around this omnipotent
swimmer of the cross!
"Have you ever stood by and seen
some one under process of resuscitation
after long submergence? The strong
swimmer has put him on the beach aft
er a struggle In the waters. To excite
breathing In the almost lifeless body
what manipulation, what friction of
the cold limbs, what artificial move
ment of the lungs, what breath of the
rescuer blown Into the mouth of the
rescued! And when breathing begins,
and after awhile the slight respiration
becomes the deep sigh, and the eyes
open, and the blue lips take on a smile,
what rejoicing, what clapping of
hands all up and down the beach, what
congratulation for the strong swimmer
and for all who helped In the restora
tion, what shouting of "He lives, he
lives!" Like this is the gladness when
a soul that has been submerged In sin
and sorrow Is "coming to." What de
sire on the part of all to help, and,
when under the breath of God 'and un
der the manipulation by the wounded
hands of Christ, the life eternal of the
soul begins to show Itself, all through
the ranks of spectators, terrestrial and
celestial, goes the cry: "He lives! Re
joice, for the dead Is alive again!" May
the living Christ this moment put out
for your rescue, "spreading his hands
in the midst of you. as a swimmer
spreadeth his hands to swim!"
Tbe Conversion of China.
.William Elliott Griffis, a writer on
Chinese matters, says: "If Christian
missions In China advance in the next
35 years In the same ratio as In the
past 35 years, there will be at the end
of that time 2G.000.000 of communi
cants and a Christian community of
100,000,000 people, .one-fourth of the
Chinese nation."
A Long Service.
In remote parts of Scotland the old
Covenanters' love for ion? services on
the bare hillside still linger. At Ding
wall a recent communion service In the
open air lasted from 10 a. m. until 4 p.
m. without exhausting the staying pow
er of the congregation.
v Lifting the Hat
The custom of lifting the hat had
its origin during the days of chival
ry, when it was customary for
knights not to appear in public ex
cept in full armor. It became tbe
rule, however, for a knight, upon
entering an assembly of friends, to
remove bis helmet, the act signi
fying "I am safe in the presence of
fri-nds."
The age of chivalry passed away
with the 15th century, but among
the many acts of courtesy which
can be traced back to its influence
none is more direct than that of
lifting the bat to acknowledge the
presence of a friend.
Lots o' men," said Uncle Eben,
"who has great forethought an'
brilliant afterthoughts fails to git
along case dey ain' got no timelef'
for de right-now thoughts."
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- IN EFFKCT PKCEMHr li.
This condensed schedule i Vw.tf;:r,w!i
formation and in-Mibjvct to tint
notice to tbe public.
Trains leaTe Greensboro, X. C:
7:05 a. nv-Na 87 dailr. W-iBft. I
western Limited for Charlotc. At
i ll ..ki. Mrnf crmilfrT, JJ ' j
m- V.ll ll l Lcn
to Atlanta. 1
7:37 a. m.-Xo. 11 daily, T r CI-ne.
and all joints .South. Con ne t- it rO
Abbeville. Knoxville and CM .' t
sleeper ew ir to rf
8:10 a. m.-Xo. 8 daily, for Inv..
and locul station". t
Southern l'aciflc. .San rr.ir. -
p. m. -o. lD i ' t
South ami wui- J.-.,rsh. Jrtl
10J43 p. -v.
Southwestern Lnnite t , 1..
faints North. Vj'York
Washington and NcJ - sJ
6:15p.m.-No:7d'ly'f:rU ,,,
points.
8:
and
for'
Vo. 16 leave unr"- .
R;iSgh,Goid,U,ondM ,t,V-
and points east, fu.iro
to Norfolk.
(is i. in. N
and local -in. ft.nr
ff I 4 t I V I-
n.ilrexceut Minus . t
12:20 p. .-o.
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7 $
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11 :0C irm.-Xo. an da y . t ' , , :
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for Colombia. auom.
and local atation,. ru" i vr
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7:32X0.-- u!,,;-3::
First section 'i1
Traffic Manspcr- A