Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1895 — TALMAGE'S SERMON. [ARTICLE]

TALMAGE'S SERMON.

HE PREACHES ON WRONGS THAT CANNOT 8E RIGHTED. His Opinion of “the Unpardonable Sin”—Not Possible To-day to Commit It—Some Irrevocable Mistakes Enumerated—Signal Guta of the Gospel. - r 1 ~~ Too Eate "to Recall. In his sermon for last Sunday Rev. Dr. Talmage, who is still in the West on his annual summ?r tour, chose a subject which has been a fruitful theme of theological disputation for centuries past—viz, “The Unpardonable Sin." The texts . selected weff»: “All manner of sin aiuU blasphemy shall be forgiven auto men, but the blasphemy against the 1 loly Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speakoth a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgi ceil him, but whosoever speakerii against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgi ea him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” —Matthew xii, 111, S 2. “He found no place of - repentance,though lie sought it carefully with tears.” —h —Hebrews xii, 17 —, As sometimes you gather the whole family around the evening stand to hear some book read, so now we gather—a great Christian family group —to study this text, and now may one and the same lamp cast its glow on all the circle! The Unpardonable Sin, Yon see from the first passage that I read that there is a sin against the Holy Ghost for which a man is never pardoued, LjQnca-luudnk ..committed it, he is bound hand and foot for the dungeons of despair. Sermons may be pre acted to him, songs may bo sung to him, prayers may be offered in liis behalf, but all to no purpose. He is a captive for this world and a captive for the world that is to come. Ho you suppose that there is any one here who has committed that siu? All sins are against the Holy Ghost, but my text speaks of one especially. It is very clear to my own mind that the sin against the Holy Ghost was the ascribing of the works of the Spint to the; agency of the devil in the time of the apostles. Indeed, the Bible distinctly tells us that. lit other words, if a man had sight given to him, or if another was raised from the dead, and some one standing there should say: “This man got his sight by sntanic power. The Holy Spirit did not do this. Beelzebub accomplished it,” or, “This man raised from the dead \y,as raised by satanic influence,” the man who said that dropped under the curse of the text and had committed the fatal siu against the Holy Ghost.

Now, I do not think it is possible in this day to commit that sin. I think it was possible only in apostolic times. But it is a very terrible thing ever to say anything against the Holy Ghost, and it Is a marked fact that our race has been marvelously kept back from that profanity. You hear a man swear by the name of the Eternal God and by the nanjg of Jesus Christ, but you never heard a man swear by the name of the Holy Ghost. There are those here to-day who fear they are guilty of the unpardonable sin. Have you such anxiety? Then I have to tell you positively that you have not committed that sin, because the very anxiety is a result of the movement of the gracious spirit, and your anxiety is proof positive, as certainly as anything that can be demonstrated in mathematics, that you have not ■committed the sin'that I have been speakT" ing of. I can look off upon this audience and feel that there is salvation for All. It is not like when they put out with those lifeboats from ~the Loch Earn for the Yille ■du Havre. They knew there was not room for all the passengers, but they were going to do ns well as they could. But to-day we man the lifeboat of the gospel, and we cry out over the sen, “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 glorijas old gospel craft! Sins to Guard Against. * But while I have said I do not think it is possible for us 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 arc sins which, though they may be pardoned, are in some respects irrevocable, and you cun Cud 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 hut spiritual blessing. One day Esau took this'hirthright and traded it off fo'r something to eat. Oh, the folly! But let us not bo too severe upon him, for some of us have committed the same folly. Aftqr he had made the trade, lie wanted to get it back. Just ns though you to-morrow morning should take all your 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 n plate of food, making that exchange. This was the one Esau made, lie sold his birthright for a mess of pittage, and be was very sorry about it afterward, but ‘lie found no place for repentance, though lie sought it carefully with tears.” There is an impression hi almost every man’s mind tliut somewhere in vhe future there will bo n chance where he can correct all his mistakes. Live as we may, if we only repent in time, God will forgive us, and then nil will be ns well as though we had never committed sin. My discourse shall come in collision with that theory. I slinll show you, my friends, as God will help me, that there is each a thing as unsuccessful repentance; that there are things done wrong that always stay wrong and for them you may seek myne place of repentance and seek it carefully, but never find it. A Misspent Youth. Belonging Jo this class of irrevocable mistakes is tne folly of a misspent youth. We may look back to our < ollege days and think how we neglected chemistry, or geology, or botany, or mathematics. We may be sorry about it ail our days. Can Sc ever get the discipline or 'lu- advantage mt we would have had had we attended to. those duties in early life? A man wakes up at 40 years of age and finds that his youth has been wasted, and he strives to get back his early advantages. Does lie get them back—the days of boyhood, t the days in college, the days under his father’s roof? “Oh,” he says, “if I could only get those times -hack again, how I would Improve them!” My brother, you will never get them back. They are gone, goitfc. You may bo vefy sorry about it and God may forgive, so that you may at least reach heaven, but yoyl will never get over some of the mishapk that have come to your soul as a result of Vmir neglect of early duty. You may try to undo it; you oannot undo it. When you had a boy’s

arms and a eyes and a boy’s heart you ought to have attended to those things. A man says, at 50 years of age, “I do wish I could get over these habits of indolence,” When did you get them? At 20 or 25 years of age. You cannot shake them off! They will hang to you to the very day of your death. —If a young man - through a long course of evil eouduct undermines his physical health, and then pardon him, but that does not bring back good physical condition. I said to a min-" ister of the gospel, one Sabbath, at the close of the service, “Where are you preaching now?” “Oh,” he says. “I am not preaching. I am suffering from the physical efTects of early sin. I can’t preach now; I am sick.” A consecrated ntfiu he now is, and he mourns bitterly over early sins, but that does not arrest -their bodily- effects, —’ ; ~ 1 he simple fact is, that men and women often take twenty years of their life to ■taild up influences that require all the Jest.of their life to break down. Talk About a man beginning life when be is 21 years of age; talk about a woman beginning life when she is IS years of age! Ah. no! In many respects that is the time they should close life. In nine cases cut of ten all the questions of eternity are decided before that. Talk about ft majority of men getting their fortunes between 30 and 40! They get or lose fortunes between 10 and 20. When you tell mo -that a man is just beginning life, I tell you he is just closing it The next fifty years will not be of as much importance to him as the first twenty.

Parental Neglect, 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 wbgren: 1 want them to understaml that eternity is wrapped up in this hour; that the sins of youth we.never get over; that you are now fashioning the mold in which 3'our great future is to run; that a minute, instead of beingOO seconds, long, is made up of everlasting ages. You see what dignity and importance this gives to the life of all young folks. Why, in the light of this subject, life is not something to b away; not something to be smirked about, not something to be danced out, but something to bo weighed in the balances of eternity. Oh, young man, the sin of yesterday, the sin of to-morrow, will reach over 10,000 years —aye, over the great and une.uditig eternity. You may, after awhile, say: “I am very sorry. Now I have got to be 30 or 40 years of age, and I do wish I ha,d never committed those sins.” What does that amount to? God may pardon you, but undo those things you never will, you never can.

In this same category of irrevocable mistakes I put all parental neglect. We begin the education of our children too late. By the time they get Jo be 10 or lu we wake up to our mistakes and try “to eradicate this bad habit and change that, but it is too late. That parent who omits, in the,first ten years of the child’s life, to make an eternal impression for Christ, never makes it. The child will probably go on with all the disadvantages, which might have been avoided by parental faithfulness. Now you see what a mistake that father qr mother makes who puts off to late life adherence to Christ. Here is a man who at 50 years of age says to you, “I must be a Christian,” and lie yields Ills heart to God and sits in the place of prayer to-day a Christian. None of us can doubt it. He goes li-ouie and lie says: “Here at 50 years of age I have given my heart to the Savior. Now I must establish a family altar.” What? Where are -your children now? One -in - Boston; another in Cincinnati; another in New Oideans, and you, -ny brother, At your fiftieth year going to establish your family altar? Very well; better late than never, but alas, alas, that you did not do it twenty-five years ago! When I was in Chamouni, Switzerland, I saw in the window of one of the shops n picture that impressed my iuirul very much. It was a picture of an accident that occurred on the side of one of the Swiss mountains. A company of travelers, with guides, went up some very steep places—places which but few travelers attempted to go up. Tln-y were, ns all travelers are there, fastened together with cords at the waist, so that if one slipped, the rope would hold him—the rope fastened to the others. Passing along the most dangerous point, one of the guides slipped, and they all started down the precipice, but after awhile one more muscular than the rest struck his heels into the lee and stopped, but the rope broke and down, hundreds and thousands of feet, the rest went. And so I see whole families bound together by ties of affection and in many cases walking on slippery places of worldliness and silt The father knows it, and the mother knows it, and they are bound all together. After awhile they begin to slide down steeper and steeper, and the father becomes alarmed, and he stops, planting his feet on the “Rock of Ages.” lie stops, but the rope breaks,. and those who were once tied fast to him by moral and spiritual influences go aver the precipice. Oh, there is such n thing ns 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 parent says, "I have been too lenient,” or “I have been too severe in the. discipline of my children. If I had Iho little ones around me again, how different I would do!” You will never have them around again. The work is done, the bent to the character is given, the eternity is decided. I say this to young parents—those who are 25 or 30 or 35 years of ugi—have the family altar tonight. How do you suppose that father felt as he leaned over the couch of his dying child and the expiring son said to him: “Father, you huve been very good to me. You have given me a fine education, and you have placed me in a fine s..cial position you have done everything for mo in a worldly sense; but, father, you never toil me how to die. Now lam dying and I am afraid,” Cannot Uc Recalled. In this category of irrevocable mistakes I place, also, the uukindness done the departed. When I was a boy, my e-other used to sny to nie sometimes, “De Witt, you will be sorry for that when I am gone.” And I remember just how she looked, sitting there, witli cap and spectacles, and the old fiiblo in her lap, and she never said a truer thing than that, for 1 have often been sorry since. While we have our friends tyitli us, we say unguarded' things that wound the feelings of those to whom we ought to give nothing but kindness. Perhaps the parent, without inquiring into the matter, boxes the child’s ears. The little one, who Ims fallen in the street, comes in mverefi'with

f dust, and, ai though the first disaster were not enough, she whips it. After awhile the child is taken, or the parent te taken, or the companion is taken, and those who are left bay, “Oh, if we could only gel back those unkind words, those unkind deeds; if we could only recall them!”—But-you cannot get them, back. You might bow down over the grave of that loved one and cry : nd cry and^crj—the whiteiipß would make tio answer. The stars shall be plucked out of their sockets, but these influences shall not be torn away. The world t hall die, but there are some wrongs iqimortnl. The moral of which is, take care of your friends while you have them. Spare the scolding; be economical of the satire; shut up iu a dark cave, from which they shall never swarm forth, all <he words that have a sting in them. You will wish you had some day—very soon you will—perhaps to-morrow. Oh, yes. While with a firm hand you administer parental discipline, also administer it very gently, lest some day there be a little slab in the cemetery, and on it chiseled “Our Willie” or “Our Charlie,” and though you bow down prun'd in the grave and seek a place of repentance and seek it carefully with tears you cannot find it. There is anotHer sin that I place in the irrevocable, mistakes, and that is lost opportunities of getting good. I never come to a Saturday night but I can see during, that week that I have missed opportunities of getting good. I never come to my birthday but I can see that 1 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 1 scatter them over a certain number of acres of land, you expect a harvest in proportion to the amount of seed scattered. And 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 opportunities are gone. In the long proc3ssion of future years all those past moments will march, but the archangel’s trumpet that wakes the dead will not wake up for you one of those privileges. Esau lias sold his birthright, and there is not wealth enough in the treasure houses of Leaven to -buy it back again. What does that moan? It means that if yon are going to get any advantage out of this Sabbath day, you will have to get it before the hand wheels around on the clock to 12 to-night. It means that every moment of our life lias two wings, and that it does not fly, like a lawk, in circles, 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 t> 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 feast never give us but one chance at the chalice, and, rejecting that, we shall “find no place for repentance, though we seek it carefully with tears.”

Lost Opportunities. There is one more class of sins that I put in thifc category of irrevocable sins and that is lost opportunities of usefulness. Your business partner is a proud man. In ordinary circumstances, say to him, “Believe in Christ,” and he will say, “Y'ou mind your business and I’ll mind mine.” But there has been affliction in the household. His heart is tender. He is looking around for sympathy and solace. Now is your time. Speak, speak, or forever hold your peace. There is a time in -farm .life when you plant and when you sow tile seed. Let that go by, and the farmer will wring his hands while other husbandmen are gathering in the sheaves. You are in a religious meeting, and there is an opportunity for you to Speak a word for Christ. You say, “I must do it.” Your cheek flushes with embarrassment. You rise half way, but you cower before men Whose breath is in their nostrils, and you sag back, and the opportunity is gone and all eternity will feel the effect of your silence. Try to get back that opportunity! 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; it is gone forever. When an opportunity for repentance or of doing good passes away, you may hunt for it; you cannot find it. You may fish for it; it will not take the hook. You may dig for it; you caunot bring it up. Remember that there are wrongs and sins that can never be corrected; that our privileges fly not in circles, but in a straight line; that the lightnings have not as swift feet as our privileges when they are gone, and let an opportunity of salvation go by as an inch, the one hundredth part of an inch, the thousandth part of an inch, the millionth part of ail inch, and not man can overtake it. Fire winged* seraphim cannot come np with it. The eternal God himself cannot catcli-it, I stand before these who ittko a gloriour birthright. Esau’s was so rich ns yours. Sell it once, and you sell it forever. I remember the story of the lad on; the Arctic some years ago—the lad Stewart Holland A vessel crashed into the Arctic in the time of a fog. and it was found that the ship must go down. Some of the passengers got off in the lifeboats, some got off on rafts, but 300 went to the bottom. During all those hours of calamity, Stewart Holland stood at the signal guu, and it sounded across '.lie sea, boom, boom! The helmsman forsook his place, the engineer was gone and some fainted and some prayed and some blasphemed, and the powder was gome, and they could no more set off the signal gun. The lad broke in the magazine and In-ought out more powder and again the gun boomed over the sea. Oh, my friends, tessed on the rough seas of life, some have taken the warning, have gone off in the lifeboat and they are safe, but others nre not making any attempts to escape. So I stand at this signal gun of the gospel, sounding the alarm, Beware! beware! "Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation." Hear it that your soul may live! A Necktie to Wash. Aluminum neckties have been introduced into Germany. They are really made of the cosmopolitan metal, and frostedorothenviseomainented In various shapes, Imitating (he ordinary silk or satin article. They are fastened to the collar button or by a band around the neck, and are particularly recommended for summer wear, since they can be easily cleaned when soiled, while they are not perceptibly heavier than cotton, cambric or silk.