The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1882-04-07


PLATT, AT THE CONGREGATIONAL
CHURCH, JAN'y FAD 1882.
| remember once to have preached
a sermon to this congregation upon
a certain text, which 1 intended
should be particularly profound. II
seemed to me to be necessary, as il
does to all persons, who set out with
such an object in view to begin at the
very commencement of all created
things and follow down through his
tory touching upon every important
event which ever had happened,
striding from mountain top to noun
tain top, clear down to the present
time. 1t was task like that which
the Irishman proposed to himself
when he attempted to jump across a
river a mile wide. He took start
three miles back in the country and
when he gotto the bank of the river
he had just strength enough left to
3umble in. And so it was with that
sermon. girded up my loins in the
garden of Eden, and started fresh
and vigorous, l said goodbye to
Adam, met Cain on the road and
passed him, met Seth and Enoch and
Nimrod and passed them, l came to
the tower of Babel and went by on
the full run-but when I reached the
food fell in. / could see my text
indistinctly far on ahead of me, be-
yond the confused waste of waters in
which had gone down exhausted
and breathless, but that was all, /
never reached it. l have never for
gotten that experience, and I formed
resolution at that time that no mat
ter how weighty and far-reaching a
subject l had to grapple with, nothing
would ever induce me to follow it
back farther than this side of that
food. Somebody else might go after
it and bring it across if they wanted
to and after it was safely landed on
the hither side then I would see what
/ could do with it.
| found myself about to forget this
resolution in the preparation of these
lectures on the subject of GLOW We
Found Mr.. Lee" SO far that if 1 had
pursued the plan originally formed of
describing the different countries
through which we travelled before we
reached Mr.. Lee, would arrive
where he is probably sometime next
summer, and in the meantime would
have kept you in painful suspense
and wonderment as to whether we
ever got there at all.
1t was the evening Of the goth of
Sept, that having passed the Island
of Patmos, where John wrote his
book of the Revelation, having
touched at the ancient island of
Rhodes, where the ships used to go
in and out between the bronze legs Of
a giant straddling the harbor, having
skirted the coasts of Phamphylia,
where Paul almost lost his life among
the rude natives, and crossed the sea
which made Mark so homesick and
perhaps worse, having passed the
where the young Alex
ander in mere wantonness of bravery |
waded neck-deep in the sea whole
day with his chosen followers to come |
upon the enemy, we came at length |
to the port of Mersina and glided |
gently in over the bar in the dreamy
light of an Asiatic moon. This was
the port at which we had planned to
meet Mr.. Lee. We had hoped to
reach there by daylight. In fact the
of arriving there at night
had never occurred to us. We had
had visions of Mr.. Lee coming out in
! boat, rowed by Arabs to meet us,
With his red Turkish cap and black
asset, and long bushy beard, red
lash around his waist stuck full of
evolvers and scalping knives. We
lad wondered whether or not he
would be able to understand the
English language at all. But now,
his arriving in the night was some
hing which upset all our calculations
'ntirely. We felt at first as though
We had been imposed upon and de-