Greenfield Republican, Greenfield, Hancock County, 22 May 1891 — Page 6
.-1
MENDING NETS.
Christian "Woilfcers
threi the Ushi fish
I Are Fishers
ofMen.
Koi On* la the Hashes of the Gospel JEses^e—Christendom Arrayed Against Itwlf—Common Sense Needed—Be*.
Dr. Talmage's Sermon.
Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday. Text, Matthew iv, 21. After introductory remarks he said:
It lis not a good day for fishing and men are in the boat repairing roken fishing nets. If you are with a hook and line and the
Til not bite, it is a good time to he angler's apparatus into betndition. Perhaps the last fish
you hauled in was so large that something snapped. Or if you were fish tog with a net, there was a mighty floundering of the scales or an exposed nail on the side of the boat which broke some of the threads and let part or all of the captives of the deep escape into their natural element. And hardly anything is more provoking than to nearly land a score or a hundred trophies from the deep, And when you are in the full glee of hauling in the spotted treasures, .through some imperfection of the net they splash back into the wave. That Is too much of a trial of patience for most fishermen to endure, tnd many a man ordinarily correct
In such circumstances comes
an intensity of utterance unjustifiable. Therefore no good fisherman Considers the time wasted that is ent in mending his net. Now, the ible again represents Christian workers as fishers of men, and we •re all sweeping through the sea of umanity some kind of a net. Ineed, there have been enough nets Out and enough fishermen busy to hftve landed the whole human race in the kingdom of God long before this. What is the matter? The Gospel is all right and it has been a good time for catching souls for thousands of years. Why, then, the failure? The trouble is with the nets, and most of them need to be mended. I propose to show you what is the matter with most of the nets and how to mend them. In the text old Zebedee and his two boys, James and John, were doing a good thing when khey sat in their boat mending their ttets. The trouble with many of our ftets is that the meshes are too large. tt a fish can get his gills and half his body through the network, he tears and rends and works his way out and leaves the place through which he louirmed a tangle of broken threads. The Bible weaves faith and works ht together, the law and the Gosei, righteousness and forgiveness, me of our nets have meshes so Wide that the sinner floats in and out wd is not at any moment caught for the heavenly landing. In our desire _-to make everything so easy we relax, we loosen, we widen. We let men lifter they are once in the Gospel net escape into the world and go into indulgences and swim all around Galilee, from north to south side and from east to west side, expecting that they will come back again. We ought to make it easy for them to get into the Kingdom of God, and, as far as •re can, make it impossible for them to get out. The poor advice nowadays to many is, Go and do just as you did before you were captured for God and heaven." The net was not Intended to be any restraint or any hindrance. What you did before you were a Christian, do now. Go to all ityles of amusemens, read all the styles of books, engage in all the ptoyles of behavior as before you were Converted." And so through these laaeshes of permission and laxity they trriggle out, through this opening and lhat opening, tearing the net as they go, and soon all the souls that we expected to land in heaven, before we
Know it are back again in the world. Oh, when we go Gospel fishing let us make it as easy as possible for souls to get in and &3 hard as possible to get out.
Is tji§ Bible language an unmeanlp$"_vcrbiage when it talks about selfdenial and keeping the body under, and about walking the narrow way and entering the straight gate and •bout carrying the cross? Is there to be no way of telling whether a man is a Christian except by his taking the communion chalice on sacramental day? May a man be as reckless about his thoughts, about his 'words, about his temper, about his amusements, about his dealings after conversion as before conversion? One half the Gospel nets with which we have been scooping the sea have had such wide meshes that they have been all torn to pieces by the rushing out into the world of those whom a tighter net would have kept in. The only use of a net is to keep the fish from going back to where they could not have been taken by any other ,means. Alas, that the words of Christ are so little heeded when He said: "Whosoever doth not bear his *toss and come after Me can not be My disciple." The church is fast becoming as bad as the world, and when it gets as bad as the world it will be worse than the world by so much as it will add hypocrisy of a most appalling kind to its other defects.
Furthermore, many of our nets are torn to pieces by being entangled with other nets. It is a sad sight to see fishermen fighting about sea v- room and pulling in opposite direetr ions, each to get his' net, 'both nets .damaged by the struggle and losing all the fish. In. a city like this of vkore than 800,000, there are at least 800,000 not in Sabbath-schools or «trarch«a. And in this land where there are nor* than 64.000,000 peo
I
ple, there are at least 80, in the Sabbath-scP
OOOsot
la aod churches.
And in this woria of 1,400,000,000 people, there are at least 800,000,000 not in schools and churches. In such an Atlantic Ocean of opportunity, there is room for all the nets and all the boats and all the fishermen and for millions more. There should be no rivalry between churches. Each one does a work peculiar to itself. There should be no rivalry between ministers. God never repeats Himself, and He never makes two ministers alike, and each one has a work which no other man in the universe can accomplish. If fishermen are wise, they will not allow their nets to entangle or if they do accidentally get intertwisted, the work of extrication should be kindly and gently conducted. What a glad spectacle or men and angels when on our recent dedication day ministers of all denominations stood on this platform and wish for each other widest prosperity and usefulness. But there are cities in this country where there is now going on an awful ripping and rending and tearing of fishing nets. Indeed, ail over Christendom at this time there is a great war going on between fishermen.
Now, I have noticed a man can not fish and fight at the same time. He either neglects his net or his musket. It is amazing how much time some of the fishermen have to look after other fishermen. It is more than I can do to take care of my own net. You see, the wind is just right, and it is such a good time for fishing and the fish are coming in so rapidly that I have to keep my eye and hand busy? There are about two hundred million souls wanting to get into the Kingdom of God, and it will require all the nets and all the boats and all the fishermen of Christendom to safely land them. Oh, brethren of ministry! Let us spend our time in fishing instead of fighting. But if I angrily jerk my net across your net, and you jerk your net angrily across mine, we will soon have two broken nets and no fish. The French revolution nearly destroyed the French fisheries, and ecclesiastical war is the worst thing possible while hauling souls into the kingdom. I had hoped that the millenium was about to dawn, but the lion is yet too fond of lamb. My friends, I notice in the text that James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, were busy not mending somebody else's nets, but mending their own nets, and I rather think that we who are engaged in Christian work in this latter part of the nineteenth century will require all our spare time to mend our own nets. God help us in the important duty! In this work of reparation we need to put into the nets more threads of common sense. When we can present religion as a great practicality we will catch 100 souls where we now catch one. Present religion as an intellectuality and we will fail. Out in the fisheries there are set across the waters what are called gill nets, and the fish put their heads through the meshes and then can not withdraw them because they are caught by the gills. But gill nets can not be of any service in religious work. Men are never caught for the truth by their heads it is by the heart or not at all. No argument ever saved a man and no keen analysis ever brought a man into the kingdom of God. Heart work, not head work. Away with your gill nets! Sympathy, helpfulness, consolation, love are the names of some of the threads that we need to weave in our gospel nets when we are mending them.
When you are mending your net for this wide, deep sea of humanity, take out that wire thread of criti cism and that horsehair thread of hashness and put in a soft silken thread of Christian sympathy. Yea, when you are mending your nets tear out those old threads of gruffness and weave in a few threads of politeness and genialitv. In the house of God let all the Christian faces beam with a look that means welcome. Say "good morning" to the stranger as he enters your pew, and at the close shake hands with him and say "How did you like the music?" Why, you would be to that man a panel to the door of heaven you would be to him a note of the doxology that seraphs sing when anew soul enters.
The object in fly-fishing is to throw the fly far out, and then let it drop gently down and keep it gently rising and falling with the waters, and not plunge it like a man-of-war's anchor and abruptness and harshness of manner must be avoided in our attempt at usefulness. I know a man in New York who is more sunshinny and genial when he has dyspepsia than when he is not suffering from that depressing trouble. I have found out his secret. When he starts out in the morning with such depression, he asks for special grace to keep from snapping up anybody that day, and puts forth additional determination to be kindly and genial, and by the help of God he accomplishes it. Many of our nets need to be mended in these respects, the black threads and the rough threads taken out, and the bright threads and the golden threads of Christian geniality woven in.
Again, in mending our nets we need, also, to put in the threads of faith and tear out all the tangled meshes of unbelief. Our work is successful according to our faith. The man who believes in only half a Bible, or the Bible in spots, the man who halts, doubting about this and doubting about that, will be failure in Christian work show me the man who rather thinks that the Garden of Eden may have been an allegory, and is not quite certain but that there may be another chance- after death, and does not know whether the Bible is inspired, and tell you
that mini'" for soul-saving is a pooi stick. Faith in God, and in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost, and the absolute necessity of a regenerated heart, in order to see God in
successful fisher for men. Why, how can you doubt? The hundreds of millions of men and women now standing in the church on earth, and the hundreds of millions in heaven, attest the power of this Gospel to save. With more than the certainty of a mathematical demonstration, let us start out to redeem all nations. The rottennest thread that you are to tear out of your net is unbelief, and the most important thread that you are to put in it is faith, Faith in God, triumphant faith, everlasting faith. If you can not trust the infinite, the holy, the omnipotent Jehovah, who can you trust? Oh, this important work of mending our nets! If we could get our nets right we would accomplish more in soul saving in the next year than we have in the last twenty years. But where shall we get them mended. Just where old Zebedee and his two boys mended their nets—where you are. James, why don't you put your oar in Lake Galilee and hoist your sail and land at Capernaum, or Tiberias, or Gadara, and, seated on the bank, mend your net? John, why don't you go ashore and mend your net'r No, they sat on the guards of the boat, or at the prow of the boat, or in the stern of the boat, and they took up the thread and needle, and the ropes, and the wooden blocks, and went to work sewing, sewing trying, trying weaving, weaving' pounding, pounding until the net mended, they push it off in the sea and drop paddle and hoist sail, and the cut water went through amid the shoals of fish, some of the descend' ants of which we had for breakfast one morning while we were encamped on the beach of the beautiful Galilee.
James and John had no time to gc ashore. They were not fishing foi fun, as you and I do in summer time. It was their livelihood and that ol their families. They mended theii nets where they were, in the ship. "Oh," says some one, "I mean tc get my net mended, and I will go down to the public library, and 1 will see what scientists say about evolution and about the survival of th« fittest, and I will read up what theologians say about advanced thought. I will leave the ship awhile and I will go ashore and stay there till my net is mended." Do that, my brother, and you will have no net left. Instead of their helping you mend your net, they will steal the pieces that remain. Better stay in the Gospel boat, where you have the means for mending your net. Where are they, do you ask? I answer, all you need you have where you are namely, a Bible and a place to pray. The more you study evolution and adopt what is called advanced thought, the bigger fool you will be. Stay in the ship and mind your net. That is where James, the .son of Zebedee, and John his brother, stayed. That is where all who get their nets mended stay.
I notice that all who leave the Gospel boat and go ashore to mend their nets stay there. Or if they try again to fish they do not catch anything. Get out of the Gospel boat and go up into the world to get your net mended and you will live to see the day when you will feel like the man who, having forsaken Christianity, sighed: "I would give a thousand pounds to feel as I' did in 1820. "The time will come when you would be willing to give a thousand pounds to feel as you did in 1891. These men who have given up their old religion can't help you. It is my opinion that the most of those ministers who gave up their old religion are search of notoriety. They do' not succeed in attracting much attention. They are tired of obscurity. They must do something to attract attention, so they sit down on the beach and go to tearing to pieces the fishing nets instead of mending them. The staid old denomination to which they belong does not pay them enough attention, so they attract attention by striking their grandmother. They do not get enough attention by standin the pulpit, so they go to work and break the church windows*
The dear brethren of all denominations afflicted with, theological fidgetshad better go to mending nets instead of breaking them. Before they break up the old religion and try to. foist on us- anew religion, let them 0 through some great sacrifice fosr rod that will prove them
worthy
for
such a work, taking the advice-©f Talleyrand to a man who wanted to upset the religion of Jesus Christ and start a new one, when he said: 'Go and be crucified and then raise yourself from the grave on the third day."
Among the quadrillions of ages which shall roll on, what two occasions shall be to us the greatest? The day of our arrival there will be to us one of the two greatest. The second greatest, I think, will be the day when we shall have put in parallel lines before us what Christ did for us, and what we did for Christ, the one so great, the other so little. That will be the only embarrassment in heaven. My Lord and my God! What will we do and what will we say when on one side are placed the Savior's great sacrifices for us, and our small sacrifices for him, his exile, his humiliation, his agonies on one hand, and our poor, weak, insufficient sacrifices on the other. To make the contrast less overwhelming, let us quickly mend our nets, and, like the Galilean fishermen, may we be divinely helped to cast them on the right aide of the ship.
THE MASTER OF THE MINE.
peace, is one thread you must have: aunt. "Forty year we ha' dwelt to in your net, or you will never be a I gether this house, and he nevet
By Robert Buchanan.
CHAPTER XXXVII—CONCLUDED. "Ay, happy wi'God," sobbed my
ga\ He
ave me angry look or crass word, be §awn, where I'll soon gang too. Wait for me, my bonnie man, wait for me—wait for her that lovea 'ee, and is coming to 'ee soon!"
Why should I linger ovei this scene of sorrow, why should I turn to other scenes whioib followed it? Time and Death hav« healed all those wounds to speak ol them is to open them again.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. CONCLUSION.
A year after the flooding of th« mine and the death of John Pendra. gon, I married Madeline Graham. The ceremony took place quietly in London, whither we had gone to. gether, and when it was over w^ spent a brief honeymoon abroad. One spring morning, as I sat with my bride in a hotel by the lake ol Geneva, I read in the Times an announcement that filled my heart with surprise and pain. It was an advertisement of the approaching sale by auotion of Redruth House, St. Gur. lott's, Cornwall.
A short time before this the mining company had passed into liquidation, and I knew that George Redruth wag a ruined man. Little or no commui nication had passed between thq cousins, but when the crash came, Madeline, with my full consent and syrttpathy, had written to her aunt, offering a considerable portion of her fortune for George Redruth's use and enefit. This offer had been refused, he next thing we had heard was that mother and son were living together in London, and closely following on that had come the news of the mothers death, an event which filled my darling with no little distress. To the last Mrs. Rediuth had refused to forgive her niece, whom she unjustly held responsible for all thq misfortunes which had fallen upon her son.
I showed my darling the newspaper, and we forthwith determined journey down to Cornwall. Thus happened that, about a week later, we arrived in St. Gurlott's, where we found Annie and my aunt ready to receive us at the old cottage. I th§n ascertained that George Redruth had left England for America, where he intended to remain. Annie, who was my informant, told me that before leaving the village he had sought her out to say farewell.
And oh, Hugh," she cried, "he asked for my forgiveness, and I forgave him with all my heart. I think, if I had wished it, he would have taken me with him as his wife." "You did not wish it?"
She shook her head sadly. "No, Hugh. After what has happened it was impossible, and I know it was more in despair and pity than in. love that he spoke. I scarcely knew him no one would know him— he was like the ghost of his old self so worn, so broken with the trouble and shame which have come upon him, that my heart bled for him.' 'He is punished,' I said sadly. 'Annie, you did well. I acn glad that he is penitent, but never in the world could you two have come together.'
The reader already knows that, through my darlings goodness, I was a rich man. Now, of all men living, perchance, I best knew the cap&uilities of St. Gurlott's mine. Reckless neglect and ignorance had wrecked it, and it was still to some extent at the mercy of the sea but I had my own theory that more than one fortune was yet to be discovered there. I spoke to Madeline about it we went into the matter con amore and the result was an offer was made by me for the old claim to the official liquidator of the company. Things looked despairing, and as my offer was a liberal one, it was accepted. Within another year fresh company was formed with Hugh Trelawney, Esq., as projector, vendor and chief owner large sums were expended in the improvements, which, if carried out, would long be fore have saved the concern the sea wa^s gently persuaded to yield up possession and before long the old mine was flourishing prosperously, a source of prosperity to all concerned in it, and of blessing to the whole population.
Another fact remains to be chronicled. We bought Redruth House, and it became our home. There my aunt and Annie joined us, dwelling: happily with us, till in due season my
aunt
died. Annie lived on, and.
still lives, a pensive, gracions womaa, full of one overshadowing memory, and devoted to our children. The last time she heard of George Redruth, he was a well-to-do merchant, living in the far-away West,
Thus, through the goodness of God, I remained in the old home-, able to help those who in tiime of need had helped me. St. Gurlott's is now a happy, thriving place my dear wife is idolized by the simple
?ortunate
eople
and I, in the fulness of my days, am the Master of the
Mine.
THE END. 'x
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