News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-03-20

II. 1adndSo, Oh SUNDAY, TOOK Tor his
subject, 1.-The Jeannettes Dead" In
the opening prayer DIR. Talmage offered
up petition for all who sailed the Arctic
seas. After the usual hymns he began
his sermon, taking the text from Job.
xxxvn., 10-"By the breath of God frost
Is given; and the breadth of the waters
Is straitened
In the most ancient times, said DIR.
Talmage cold went forth and assailed
the waters while at play and took them
into everlasting captivity The text is
descriptive of an Arctic sea. 1t is the
home where all our winters are Matched
IN nest of iceberg under the brooding
wing of the north wind. There are the
castles where the giants of the cold live;
great battlements of glacier; ponderous
gates of glass that swing open long
enough to let Adventures sail in and
then. swing shut, leaving the world to
guess about the lost shipping. Great
cities of palaces and castles and domes
and bridges and statuary lifted up with
such splendors that the human eye is ex-
tinguished if it gazes too long.
From those regions come ten silent
passengers. What a contrast between
their going and their comingl July s,
1879, summer day, steaming out from
San Francisco Harbor. Hills covered
with enthusiastic spectators. Fort Point,
with its twenty-one guns of salutation.
Steam whistles and dipping colors, and
by telegraph the whole continent in
sympathy with the gallant undertaking.
Now their return after nearly five years
The poor remains of fragment of the
expedition passing amid lines of sorrow
full thousands, but the chief object of in
terest hearing not the sound of gun and
beh,1lding not one uplifted hat of rever-
ence. ga failure 70 say thousands of
people.
against hat misleading cry of failure. I
shall show you now that De Longs ex-
petition. In four respects at least, was
magnificent success.
IN the first D ACE, it demonstrated be-
fore all nation and as never before,
that our holy rel. ;gion may be carried
into great worldly e. 1terprises, especially
in those which are sen antiic. Christ was
not more certainly Gu l'oard the ship on
GaIilee than he was on tD,1ard the jean
nette. The ice journal OF l. 'e Long tells
tremendous story. The dia, records
that on the first Sunday out the h en- were
gathered together, the articles o. war
were read and then De Long says - 1
read the divine service, and whal
pleased me much was to observe that |
every man not absolutely on watch vol
unfairly attended" see on every Sab |
bath the record Tread divine service.
/ come to the words, 1--WE are in the |
hands of God, and unless He intervenes /
we are lost" And now I come to the |
last Sabbath they spent on earth :-"133d |
day; everybody pretty weak; read part |
of divine service" Too weak to read |
more than part. Far away from home, |
hungry and freezing and sick and dying, |
they cried unto the Lord IN their dis
tress, and He took them right out OF
cold earth into a warm heaven. Pro-
nounce no expedition failure which set
up the banners of Emanuel on the pin
nacles of iceberg till all nations saw the
crimson standard Was there no signifi-
canoe in the fact that ON monumental
hill of Lena Delta Engineer Melville
afterwaId over the tomb of these men
put up a cross on the cold forehead of
the world, the beautiful symbol of our
glorious religion? Oh, it was glorious
success for De Long and his men that
they could carry this religion into great
worldly undertaking, all nations and all
ages to witness.
Another great success In this De Long
expedition was in the overwhelming ex-
ample of courage which it has set for the
world and for the church. Remember
it was not goingrout to fight men. 1t was
not like the courage which is demanded '
OF the soldier going into battle. It was
a more difficult courage, because it was {
a contest with the dumb elements. The |
soldier when in ordinary battle knows it
Is possible that the enemy may be
never Panicstruck and they are never Y
afraid. The soldier knows it is possible /
that the enemy may be destroyed by @
flank movement, but the Arctic Ocean z
was never thanked. The soldier knows f
1t is possible that the enemy may get ont G
of ammunition, but the Arctic always d
has enough ice for shot and ice for guns s
and ice for thunderous bombardment. 1t G
was courage against the dumb elements, |
which show no quarter and never sur
render and never die. In our times, {
when God wants to give an example of '
courage, ne sends out a Livingstone or q i
Stanley into the torrid regions and into I
the Arctic a Franklin or a De Long and
an Amber and a Collins and all their
gallant crew. / am so glad there are
giants still hving-men able to conquer
hunger and cold and physical woe, that
they may give the round earth to the
glorious cause of geographical discovery.
We have found at last how the world is
bounded. 1t is bounded on the north
and the south and the east and the west
by courage of man and the greatness of
God. We want more of that kind of
courage in our churches. This glorious
example of courage which De Long and
his men gave to the world and to the
church made their expedition forever
and forever magnificent success.
Another success of this polar expedi-
ton is in the fact that it has persuaded
the whole world that it is now time to
stop pushing in that direction. 1t is a
great thing for the world to know when
it has struck the impossible. Never until ,
now has every reasonable and enter
prising man been willing to call a halt
The impression has come upon the most
hopeful of us that God does not mean
the race to move any further that way.
Let neither private munificence nor gov
ernmental authority pay another dollar
or allow another life to be lost in Arctic
expeditions, except in ENTERPRISES like
the Greedy relief party. God has some
reservations. He must have some paths
where He can walk alone without being
questioned by human inquisitiveness.
The fourth success for the De Long
party was in the demonstration which
they gave to all the earth-a demonstra-
ton more powerful than was ever before
given of the fact that the dead are ours.
Why this long funeral march around
half the world, from Siberia to Russia
and from Russia to Germany and from
Germany here, while one body is shipped
at our port for Liverpool and has to be
two weeks more in the march of death
Why not allow these gallant men to sleep
where they fell? Neither private nor
governmental largess can build any such
stupendous monument for them as are
the upiifted splendors around the North ,
Pole, and there is no sarcophagus like ,
that of eternal congealment Lieuten- !
ant Chipp and his men, whose bodies
will never be brought back, are sleeping !
to-day in a grander Westminster Abbey. ,
Still, the voice of humanity says, ''Bring
home all of those recovered to their own
land, put them beside their kindred
Never since God hung the world on
nothing has He so impressed us as by {
these eight thousand miles of obsequies ,
with the nations uncovered saying I
'Godspeed" to the procession. Let dust {
go back so far as possible to kindred ]
dust, and if there be any of the dead I'M
claimed let the United States govern ]
ment be mother to the homeless dead