REV. ML TALMA6R
jThe Eminent New York Divine's Son
day Sermon.
"The Unpardonable Sln.
S Texts: ''All manner of Kin art TfJ a ervVi am
shall be forgiven unto men. but the blas
phemy against the Holy Ghost shall not b
forgiven unto men. And whosoever gpeaketh
a word against the Son of Man it shall be for
ttiven him. but whosoever snpAV-pfh notginst-
the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him,
neither in this world. nMth
T MV TTSA'4 fcV
come." Matthew adi., 31, 32.. "He found no
place of repentance, though he sought it
carefully with tears." Hebrews xii., 17.
As sometimes vou pathr fh wTinlA fomita
around the evenincr stand ta h
read, so now we gather, a great Christian
family group, to study this text, and now
Ixnay one and the same lamp cast its glow on
'all the circle.
You see from the first passaee that I read
that there is a sin against the Holy Ghost for
iwhich a man is. never pardoned. Once
jhaving committed it, he is bound hand and
'foot for the dungeons of despair. Sermons
ijaay be preached to him, songs may be sung
0 him, prayers may be offered in his behalf,
rout all to no purpose. He is a cantive for this '
(world and a captive for the world that is to
come. Do you suppose that there is any one
ihere who has committed that sin? All sins
iare against the Holy Ghost, but my text
tepeaks of one especially. It is very clear to
my mind that the sin against the Holy Ghost
"was the ascribing of the works of the spirit
to the agency of the devil in the time of the
apostles.
Indeed the Bible distinctly tells us that. In
other words, if a man had sight given to
him, orit another was raised from the dead,
and some one standing there should say,
f'This man got his sight by satanic power;
the Holy Spirit did not do this; Beelzebub
accomplished it," or "This man raised from
the dead was raised by satanic influence","
the man who said that dropped down under
the curse of the text and had committed the
'fatal sin against the Holy Ghost.
j Now, X do not think it is possible in this
;day to commit that sin. I thi nk it wa3 pos
sible only in apostolic times. But it is a very
terrible thing ever to say anything against
Jthe Holy Ghost, and it is a marked fact that
jOur race has teen marvelously kept back
(from that profanity. You hear a man swear
!by the name of the eternal God, and by the
oAauio ui iiesus L.nnsT, put you never hear a
scan swear by the name of the Holy Ghost.
JThere are those here to-day who fear they
.re guilty of the unpardonable sin. Have
you such anxiety? Then I have to tell you
positively that you have not committed that
Bin, because the very anxietv is a result of
the movement of the gracious Spirit, and
Vour anxiety is proof positive, as certainly as
anything that can be demonstrated in math
ematics, that you have not committed the
Bin that I have been shaking o'. I cau look
off upon this audience and feel that there is
salvation for all. Ir is not like when they
put out with those lifeboats from the Loch
Earn for the Ville de Havre. They knew
there was not room for all the passengers,
tut they were going to do as well a? they
could. But to-day we mac the lifeboat of
the gospel, and we cry out over the sea,
Room for all!" Oh, that the Lord Jesus
Christ would this hour bring you all out of
the flood of sin and plant you on the deck of
the glorious old gospel craft!
' But while I do not think it is possible for
lis to commit the particular sin spoken of in
the first text I have, by reason of the second
text, to call your attention to the fact that
there are sins which, though they may be
pardoned, are in some respects irrevocable,
and you can find no place for repentance,
though you seek it carefully with tears.
Esau had a birthright given him. In olden
times it meant not only temporal but spirit
ual blessing. One day Esau took his birth
right and traded it off for sjmething to eat,
Ob, the folly! But let us not be too severe
Upon him, for some of us have committed
the same folly. After he had made the trade
he wanted to get it back. Just as though
you to-morrow morning should take all your
fc notes and bonds and Government securities
and should go into a restaurant and in a fit
of recklessness and hunger throw all those
securities on the counter and ask for a plate
of food, making that exchange. This was
the one Esau made. He sold his birthright
for a mes3 of pottage, and he was very sorry
about it afterward, but "he found no place
for repentance, though he sought it care
fully with tears."
i There is an impression in almost every
man's mind that somewhere in the future
there will be a chance where he can correct
all his mistakes. Live as we may, if we
only repent in time God will forgive us, and
then all will be as well as though we had
never committed sin. My discourse shall
come in collision with that theory. I shall
how you, my friends, as God will help me,
that there is such a thing as unsuccessful
tepentanoe; that there are things done wrong
that always stay wrong, and for them you
. may seek some place of repentance and seek
It carefully, but never find it.
Belonging to this class of irrevocable mis
takes is the folly of a misspent youth. We
may look back to our college days and think
tow we neglected chemistry or geology or
Jbotany or mathematics. We may be sorry
tabout it all our days. Can we ever get the
discipline or the advantage that we owould
bave had had we attended to those duties in
eariy life? A man wakes up at forty years
of age and finds that his youth has been
wasted, and he strives to get back his early
(advantages. Does he get them back the
days of boyhood, the days in college, the
Jdays under his father's roof? "Oh," he savs
"if I could only get th03e times back again,
how I would improve them!" My brother,
you will never get them back. They are
gone, gone. You may be very sorry about
it, and God may forgive, so that you may at
last reach heaven, but you will never get
over some of the mishaps that have com 3 to
your soul as a result of your neglect of early
duty. You may try to . undo it; you cannot
.undo it. When you had a boy's arms, and a
boy's eyes, and a boy's heart, you ought to
have attended to those things. A man says
'at fifty years of age, "I do wish I could get
'over these habits of indolence." When did
.you get them? At twenty or twenty-five
lyearsofage. You cannot shake' them off.
iThey will hang to you to the very day of
your death. If a young man through a long
jcourse of evil conduct undermines his physi
cal health and then repents of it in after lifei
the Lord may pardon him, but that does not
bring back good physical condition. I said
!to a minister of the gospel one Sabbath at the
! close of the service, "Where are you preach-
ing. I am suffering from the physical effects
of early sin. I can't preachnow; I am sick."
A consecrated man he now is, and ho mourn?
bitterly over early sine, but that does not
arrest their bodily effects.
f The simple fact is that men and women
; often take twenty years or their me to Duiia
iup influences that require all the rest of
their life to break down. Talk about a man
'beginning life when he is twenty-one years
I of age; talk about a woman beginning life
when she is eighteen years of age! Ah, no!
I In many respects that is the time they close
(life. In nine cases out of ten all the ques
tions of eternity are decided before that.
'Talk about a majority of men getting theii
fortunes between thirty and forty yeurst
They get or lose fortunes between ten and
twenty. When you tell me that a man is
just beginning life. I tell you he is just clos
ing it. The next fifty years will not be of as
much importance to him as the first twenty.
Now. why do I say this? Is it for the
annoyance of those who have only a baleful
retrospection?. You know that is. not my
way. I say it for the benefit of young men
and women. I want them to understand that
eternity is wrapped up in this hou. that the
sins of youth we never get over; that you are
now fashioning the mold in which your
great future is to run; that a minute, in
stead of being sixty seconds' long, is made
up of everlasting ages. You can see what
dignity and . importance this gives to the
life of all our young folks. Why, in the
ugui oi rnis subieat lifo i - c
oe frittered away, not something to ba
smirked about, not something to b dance 1
out, but something to be weighed in the
balances of eternity. Oh, young man, the
am of yesterday, the sin of to-morrow will
reach over 10,003 years-aye. over the graat
and unending eternity. You may after
awhile say; "I am very sorry. Now I have
got to be thirty or forty years of age. ani t
ao wis.i I had never co nmttted tho?e sin?."
what does that amoaut to? GdI may par
don you, but undo tho39 things you nevr
will, you never can.
In this same category of irrevocable mis
takes I put ail parental neglect. We b via
the e lu?ation of our children too late. By
the time they get to be ten orflfteaawe wVe
up to our mistakes and try to eralicate this
bad habit and change that, bui t i3 too late.
That parent who omits in tne Ilr3t ten years
of the child's life to make an eternal imoras
sion for Christ never makes it. The child
will probably go on with all the disadvan
tages, which might have been avoided by
parental faithfulness. Now you see what a
mstake that father or mother makes who
puts off to late life adherence to C'arist.
Here is a man who at fifty years of age sayr
to you, " must be a Christian," and h'3
yields his heart to God ani sits in the placi
of prayer to-day a Christian. None o! U3
can doubt it. He goe3 home, and he says:
"Here at fifty years of age I have given my
heart to the Saviour. Now I must establish
a family altar." What? Where are your
children now? One in Bo3ton,another in
Cincinnati, another in New Or leans, and you,
my brother, at your fiftieth year going to
establish your family altar? Very well, bet
ter late than never, but alas, alas, that you
did not do it twenty-five years ago!
When I was in" Chamounl, Switzerland.
I saw in the window of one of th shops a
picture that impressed my mind very much.
It was a picture of an aceident that occurred
on the side of one of the Swiss mountains.
A company of travelers, with guides, went
up some very steep place3 place3 which but
few travelers attempted to go up. They
were, as all travelers are there, fa3ten9 1 to
gether with cords at the waist, so that if on9
slipped the rope would hold him, the rope
fastened to the others. Passing along the
most dangerous point, one of the guide
slipped and they all started dowa the pre2i- -pice.
But after awhile one more muscular
than the rest struck his heels into the ic3
and stopped, but the rope broke, and down,
hundreds and thousands of feet, the rest
went.
And so I see whole families bound to
gether by ties of affection and in many case
walking on slippery places of worldlinesi
and sin. The father knows it, and the
mother knows it, and they are bound all to
gether. After awhile they begin to slide
down steeper and steeper, and the father
becomes alarmed, and he stops, planting h'is
feet on the "rock of ages." Ha stops", but
tha rope breaks, and tho who were once
tied fast to him by moral an I soiritual in
fluences go over the precipice. Oh, there is
such a thing as coming to Christ soon enough
to save ourselves, but not soon enough to
save others.
How many parents wake up in the latter
part of life to find out the mistake! The par
ent says, "I have been too lenient," or "X
have been too severe in the discipline of my
children. If I had the iittle ones around me
again, how different I would do!" You will
never have theai around again. The work L
done; the bent to tho character is given, tne
eternity is decided. I say this to young par
ents, those who are twenty-five and thirty
or thirty-five years of age have the family
altar to-night. How do you suppose that
father felt as he leaned over the couch of his
dying child, aa l tha expiring son said to
him: "Father, you havd been very good to
me. You have given me a fino education,
and you have placed me in a fins social pw
sition: you have done everything for me in
a worldly sense; but, father, you never told
me how to die. Now I am dyinj, ani I am
afraid."
In this category of irrevocable mistakes I
place also tho unkindnesses don1 the de
parted. When I was a ooy, my mother used
to say to me sometimes, "De Witt, you will
be sorry for that when I am gene." And I
remember just how she looked, sitting there
with cap and spectacles and the old Bible in
her lap, and she nefer said atruerthingthan
that, for I have often been sorry since.
While we have our friends with us we say
unguarded things that wound the feelings of
those to whom we ought to give nothing but
kindness. Perhaps the parent, without in
quiring into the matter, boxes the child's
ears. The little one, who has fallen in the
street, comes in covered with dust, and as
though the first disaster were not enough she
whips it. After a while the child is taken,
or the parent is taken, or the companion is
taken, and those who are left say: "Oh.
if we could only get back those unkind
words, those unkind deeds! If we could
only recall them!" But you cannot get
them back. You -might bow down over
tft rfvn-z-h sv 1 .3 1 1
gitkvu iuai iuvcu uue nua cry ana i
cry and cry. The white lips would make no I
answer, xne stars saau De piuckea out of
their sockets, but these influences shall not
be torn . away. The world shall die, but
there are some wrongs immortal. The
moral of which is. take care of your friends
while you have them. Spare the scolding.
Be economical of the satire. Shut up in a
dark cave from which they shall never swarm
forth all the words that have a sting in them.
You will wish you had some day very sooa
you will, perhaps to-morrow. Oh, yes.
While with a firm hand you administer par
ental discipline also administer it very
gently, lest some day there be a little bh
Sn the cemetery and on it chiseled, "Oar
Willie." or "Our Charlie," and thougii yoa
bow down prone in the grave and seek a
place of repentenoe and seek it carefully
with tears, you cannot find it.
There is another sin that I place inth9
class of irrevocable mistakes, and that is
lost opportunities of getting goo 1. I never
come to a Saturday night but I can ee dur
ing that week that I have missed opportun
ities of getting good. I never come to my
birthday but I can see that I have wasted
many chances of getting better. I never go
home on Sabbath from the discussion of a
religious theme without feeling that I might
have done it in a more successful way. How
is it with you? If you take a certain number
of bushels of wheat and scatter them ovtra
certain number of acres of land, you expect
a harvest in proportion to the amount of
seed scattered. Aud I ask you now, Have
.the sheaves of moral and Spiritual harvest
corresponded with the advantages given?
How has it been with you? You may make
resolutions for the future, but past opportun
ities are gone. In the long procession of future
years all those past moments will march, but
the archangel's trumpet that wakes the dead
will not- wake no for you one oi those privi
leges. Esau has sold his birthright, and there
is not wealth enough in the treasure houses
of heaven to buy it back again. What does
that mean? It means that if you are going to
get any advantage out of this Sabbath day
you will have to get it before the hand wheel?
around on the clock to 1 to-night. It means
that every moment of our life has two wings,
and that it does not fly like a hawk ia cir
cles, but in a straight line from eternity to
eternity. It means that, though other
chariots may break down or drag heavily,
this one never drops the brake and never
ceases to run. It means that while at other
feasts the cup may be passed to us and we
may reject it, and yet after awhile take it,
the cupbearers to this feasi never give us but
one chance at the chaliae, and rejecting that
we shall "find no place for repentance
though, we seek it carefully with tears."
There is one more class of sins that I put
in this category of irrevocable sins and that
is lost opportunities of usefulness. Your
business partner is a proud man. In ordi
nary circumstances say to him. "Believe in
Christ," and he will say. "iTou mind your
business and I'll mini mine." Bat there ha?
been afflietiou in the household. His heart
is ten ier.. He is looking arouu I for sym
pathy an I solase. Now is your time. Speak
speak, or forever hold your peae. There is
a time in farm life when you plant the corn
and when you sow 1h3 seed. Let that go by
and the farmer will wring his hands while
other husbandmen ara gathering in the
sheaves. You are in a relici
and there is an opportunity for you to speak
a word for Christ. You say, "I mu3t do it." I
Von I nVtoalr flnclioa nrk v.- . '
- -'- ii imu c.uu.irrii'wuiclic.
You ris9 half way. but you tower before men
whose breath is in their nostril?, and you
ur back, ani the opportunity is gone,
and all eternity will feel the effect
of your bilence. Try t get back
that pportunity! You cannot find it
You might as well try to find the fleece that
Gideon watched, or take in your hand the
dew that came down on the locks of the
Bethlehem shepherds, or to find the plume of
the first robin that went across paradise. It
is gone 't is gone forever. When an oppor
tunity for personal repentance or of doing
good parses away, you may hunt for it; you
cannot find it. You may fish for it; it will
not take the hook. Yoa may dig for it you
cannot bring it up. Remember that there
are wrong3 ani sins thai can never b3 cor
rected ; that our privileges fly not in circles,
but in a straight line; that the lightnings
havenot as swift fart a3 our privilege? wh-a
they are gone, aad let an opportunity
vahon gobyus an inch-the ocr
part of an inch, the thousaalth H
inch, the millionth part of an in-hl,1 1
man can overtake it. Firewine P fi
cannot come up with it. Th eternfW
.Himself cannot catch it. G-i
I stand before those who hav a i
birthright. Esau's! was not so rfe j ? Jt0
Sell it once, and you sell it former t
member the story! of th3 lad on tha rv
some years ago the lad. Stewart Hn
A vessel crashed into the Arctic in thl h
of a fog, and it was found tha tht
must go down. iSome of the paJL m
got off in the lifeboats, some hoT
rafts, but 300 went to the bottoaZ d 03
all those hours Of calamity Stewart"?11?
land stood at the signal gun and
across the sea-boom, boom! The hew
man forsook his place; the engineer
gone, and some fainted, and some nraSf
and some blasphemed, and the powder W
gone, and they could no more set off the Sr
nal gun The lad broke in the magazfiSS'
brougnt out more powder, and again the S
boomed over the sea. Oh, my friends tcS
on the rough seas of life, some have tS
the warning, have gone off in the lifeboat
and they are safe, but others are not maW
any attempt to escape. So I stand at thisd
nal gun of the gospel, sounding the alarST
beware, beware! fNow is the acoepted tim
Now is the day of salvation." Haar it W
.your soul may live.
PROMINENT PEOPLE.
M. Faure is the most popular Pres est
France has had in many years.
Throe large rooms were needed to hold all
the eightieth-birthday presents recently
given to Bismarck, j
When Dr. W. G. Grace, the English crickft
champion, makes a1 run he carries with hia
250 pounds of flesh.
Joseph B. Stearns, the inventor of tb3ria.
plex system of telegraphy, died at Camdec
Me., aged sixty-five. '
. Crispi'scoat of mairrecalls the fact that
Bismarck wore a steel shirt for some time af-
tflrllft '!r:if1 TiTVm in "Rarlin n-or.. .
ago. .
Three eminent German artists celebrato
their eightieth birthdays this year Sohrader.
Menzel and Achenbach, the father of Max
Alvary. j
cept the appointment of Commander-in-Chief
of the British Army, to succeed th
Duke of Cambridge.
Henry M. Stanley' will run for tho British
Parliament again, j When he was last a can
didate he was defeated, and the voters hissed
him and his beautiful wife.
The ex-Empress Frederick Las a special
scrap-book in which sh9 collects all the cur
rent anecdotes relating to members of tua
Prussian and English royal families.
Dr. F. E. Clark, founder of the Christian
Endeavor, is said to dislike very much tha
name "Father Clark," as it gives the impres
sion of an old man, whet eao ne onjy jorty.
four, i
Lord Kelvin, the distinguished English
mathematician, always carries in his pocket
a little green book; in which he works out
his problems in omnibuses and on railway
trains.
Count Tolstoi, the Russian novelist, is an
enthusiastic bicyclist, and has joined the
Moscow Cycling j Club, which numbers
among its members many locally famous
"scorchers."
The Rockefellers 'never carod much about
showing off to the public. The whole family
would rather stay at home and fiddle. They
are musicians, all of them, and could brin?
out a family orchestra that would astonish
Seidl.
Years agon Lalf-starveJ literary hack lay
wasting away with typhoid fever in a garret
In Paris. A poor actress took pity on him,
.nursed him back to life, introducel him to
her manager and married him becoming the
wife of Victorien Sardou.
It is said that $2.,5O,O00 is the amount of
the fee paid by the Chinese Government to
ex-Secretary of State Foster for his services
in securing the treaty with Japan. He was
also offered, it is reported, any decoration in
the gift of the Emperor of China, but decline!
this honor. j .
Alexander Hosier, who is said by photo
graphers to ha7e ben the greatest dauerro
typist America has produced, died a fe
days ago at his home in Evanston. 111. He.
it is said, was primarily responsible for the
inspiration which i moved Longfellow to
write "Hiawatha."
Joaquin Miller passa? a grcat de.il of bis
time in tho wild canon of Dry Ferns, which
is near his mountain home in California. It
is his playground, so to speak, and some
times he spends a woek there at a time. At
night he lies down on a couch of bay tree
branches, with nothing but a blanket for
covering.
The new Attorney-General, Judson Har
mon, is a great lover of hunting, and his
close friends say that next to unraveling the
intricacies of a difficult legal case he pre
fers getting on an old suit of clothes, I
slouch hat, negligee shirt and walking
through a wild woods looking ior some
thing to shoot, j
-exports and immigration in tne Las: Ier.
Figures compile by the Treasury Bareai
o: Statistics for thej last fiscal year show the
oJprts merchandise to have been "3I -Ivi
-I9' Eees of exports over import',
S75. ,32,942; gold coin and bullion. S66.1S1.-lo-
J?r c8 of beports over imports oi
tS?''9' silver Coin and bullion. U'
ft' - ' or excess exports over imports of
5,3.7t7,45; immigration, 276,135, aqjis