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These words were used as descriptive of certain persons a good while ago; but they are a striking photograph of some people in this day. You and I have known them — men sensitive on all other things; but, so far as the subject of religion was concerned, accurately described by my text: "Past feeling." It does not require much to arouse the emotions of an audience on a great many subjects. If a nation be in peril and the subject be patriotic, you know how the hats go up and the handkerchiefs wave from the galleries, and the reporter taking down the speech interlards his notes with "applause," "vociferous cheering," "cries of hear, hear." I heard a Frenchman sing the "Marseillaise Hymn" on the Champs Elysees in Paris on the day when the German guns were thundering at Sedan, and I shall never forget the enthusiasm of the singer or the enthusiasm of the audience. It required but little to stir them. So, also, if upon a public occasion, it is proper to recite the virtues of the dead, it is like when on a summer morning at sunrise you shake a tree heavily laden with glittering dew. But you know as well as I do that, if the subject be deeply religious, while there are many earnest countenances in an assemblage, and some are broken down with emotion, there are those who by their manner and by their look excite the suspicion that they have gone down into the condition spoken of by the text: "Past feeling." I remember some years ago going through a medical museum, in Philadelphia, with a very learned surgeon, and he pointed to me under the glass cases, the splintered bones, and the cancerous protuberances, and the fractured thighs, and he said: "What beautiful specimens they are." I thought if that man had to endure the agonies that those things suggested, he would not have thought they were such splendid specimens. My dear friends, there are those who coolly philosophize about the splintered, cancered, and fractured souls of men, but if the Spirit of God would come upon them and they could see it was their own condition, that they were diseased, and leprous, and broken, and death struck, they would stop philosophizing so placidly, Some years ago, when John Hawkins was speaking in Greene-street Church, New York, showing the condition of an inebriate, a man rose up in the gallery and cried out: "That's me!" The truth went right to his heart. And, my dear friends, if tonight, while I speak, the Holy Spirit of God would show all those of you who are yet unforgiven and unchristian your true condition, there would be an outcry on the right and an outcry on the left, and above me and beneath me, and my voice would be drowned out, and I should have to stop in the services because of the praying, and the repenting, and the weeping — thousands of voices filling the air with the cry: "That's me! that's me!" And yet, I suppose, there are people in the building tonight who suppose I exaggerate. They have no appreciation of their peril. Eternal consumption having seized upon their vitals, they think themselves in perfect health. I remember riding from Geneva to Chamouni, and the driver of the diligence — we were being drawn by six horses — gathered the reins in one hand, and with the other lifted his hat, and bowed very low. I looked to see what he was bowing to. It was a cross at a gate post. I could not but admire the man's behaviour. Oh! my friends, if we could really understand how much that symbol of Christ's suffering means, the whole world would bow in obeisance, nay more, it would burst into tears of repentance. I was in a meeting in the Fourth Ward, New York, one night last summer, and the city missionary was commending Christ to the sailors. There was a German who seemed to take the truth to himself, and when the leader of the meeting said; "Christ died for you; is there any of you that feel it?" this man sprang to his feet and cried: "Me! me!" Why, my friends, if you could appreciate what Christ has done and suffered in your behalf, you could not be stolid and indifferent.

(T. de W. Talmage, D. D.)

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KJV: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

WEB: who having become callous gave themselves up to lust, to work all uncleanness with greediness.