The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1889-10-04
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Transcontinental Journey Taken
as a Theme.
The immensely of This Fair Possession OF
Ours and the Wonders IL Contains,
Particularly in the West
America for God.

Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage, in a recent
sermon in the Brooklyn Tabernacle took
his recent journey ''From Ocean to
Ocean" as his theme. His text was;
He shall have dominion from sea to sea-
Psalms lxxu., s.
What two seas are referred to? Some
might say that the text meant that Christ
was to reign over all the land between
the Arabian sea and Caspian sea, or be-
tween the Red sea aud the Mediterranean
sea, or between the Black sea and the
North sea- Not in such case my text would
have named them. 1t meant from any
large body of water on the earth clear
across to any other large body of water.
And so 1 have right to read it: He
shall have dominion from the Atlantic
sea to the Pacific sea. My theme is,
America for Godl
First consider the immensely of this
possession. If it were only a small tract
of land capable of nothing better than
sage brush and with ability only to sup
port prairie dogs, l should not have much
enthusiasm in wanting Christ to have it
added to His dominion. But its immen sity
and af1uence no one can imagine unless,
in immigrant wagon or stage coach or in
rail train of the Union Pacific, or the
Northern Pacific, or the Canadian Pacific,
or the Southern Pacific, he has traversed
it. Having been privileged six times to
cross this continent, and twice this
summer, 1 have come to some
appreciation OF its magnitude.
California, which I supposed in boy
hood, from its size on the map, was few
yards across, a ridge of land on which
one must walk cautiously lest he hit his
head against the Sierra Nevada on one
al Ia or 81 in off int he m
the other. Calitorn the thin slice of
land as 1 supposed it to be in bOyhOod, 1
have found to be larger than all the
States of New England and all New
York State and all Pennsylvania added
together; and if you added them to-
gether their square miles fall far short of
California North and South Dakota,
Montana and Washington Territory, to
be launched next winter into Statehood,
will be giants at their birth. Let the
Congress Of the United States strain
point and soon admit also Idaho, and
Wyoming, and New Mexico.
What is the use keeping them out in
the cold any longer? Let us have the
whole continent divided into States, with
Senatorial and Congressional represent
atives, and we will all be happy together.
If some of them have not quite the
requisite number of people, fix up the
Utah viii, by dropping polygamy, soon
be ready to enter. MOnOgamy has
triumphed in parts of Utah and will
probably triumph at this fall election in
Salt Lake City. Turn all the Territories
into States. and if some of the sisters are
smaller than the elder sisters, give them
time and they will soon be as large as
any Of them. Because some of the
daughters of family may be five feet in
stature and the others only four feet, do
not let the daughters five feet high shut
the door in the faces of those who are
only four feet high. Among the dying
utterances Of our good friend, the wise
statesman and great author, the brilliant
orator and magnificent soul, S. S. Cox,
was the expressed determination to
move next winter in Congress for the
transference Of other Territories into
States.
But" says some one, Gin calculating
the immensely of our continental acre.
age you must rem member that vast reaches
of our public domain are uncultivated
heaps of dry sand, and the bad lands of
Montana and the great American desert"
1 am glad you mentioned that. Within
twenty-fiv years there will not be be-
tween the Atlantic and Pacific coasts a
hundred miles of land not reclaimed
either by farmers pillow or miners crow
bar. By irrigation the waters OF the
rivers and the showers of Heaven in what
arc called the rainy season will be gath
cred into great reservoirs and through
aqueduct let down where and when the
people want them. Utah is On object
lesson. Some parts of that Territory
which were so barren that spear Of
grass could not have been raised there in
a hundred years are now rich as Lancas-
ter County farms of Pennsylvania, or
Westchester farms of New York or
Somerset County farms of New Jersey.
Experiments have proved that ten
acres Of ground irrigated from waters
gathered in great Psychological basins
will produce as much as fifty acres from
the downpour of rain as seen in our re-
gions. We have our freshets and our
drOughts, but in those lands which are to
be scientifically irrigated there will be
neither frvshets nor droughts. AS you
take a pitcher and get it full of water
and then set it on a table and take a drink
out of it when you are thirsty, and never
think Of drinking a pitcherful all at once,
so Montana and Wyoming and Idaho will
catch the rains of their rainy season and
take up all the waters of their rivers in
great pitchers of reservoirs and drink out
of them whenever they will and refresh
their land whenever they will
The work has already been grandly
begun by the United States Government.
over four hundred lakes have already
been officially taken possession of by the
Nation for the great enterprise of irriga-
ton. Rivers that have been rolling idly
through these regions, doing nothing on
their way to the sea, will be lassoed, and
COrraled, and psnned up until such time
as the farmers need them. Under the
same processes the Ohio, the Mississippi
and all the other rivers Will be taught to
behave themselves better, and great
basins will be made to catch the surplus
OF waters in times of freshet and keep
them for times of drought The irrigat-
ing process by which all the arid lands
between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
are to be feTtilized is no new experiment.
II has been going on successfully hun
dreds Of years in Spain, in China, in In
dia, in Russia, in Egypt
About eight hundred million of people
OF the earth to-day are kept alive by food
raised on irrigated land. And here we
have allowed to lie waste, given up to
rattlesnake and bat and prairie dog,
lands enough to support whole nations
OF industrious population. The work be-
gun viii be contaminated Here and
there exceptional lands may DO stubborn
aud refuse to yield any wheat or corn
FROM their hard fists, but if the hoe fails
to make an impression the miners pick