Connecticut western news., 1889-10-02
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN"
Dr. Talmage's Discourse September 22.

preached as usual. The opening hymn was
 Nomore let homan blood be split,
 Vain sacrifice for human guilt:
 But to each conscience be applied
 Tine blood that flows from Jesus side. The subject of the sermon was, 'From Ocean to Ocean. or My TranScontinental Journey" Text: Psalms lNNii, $: "lie shall have dominion from sea to sea-. The preacher said:
 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 between the Red sea and the Mediterranean sea, or between the Black sea and the North sea. No: in such ease my text would have named them. It meant from any large body of water on the earth clear across to any other large body Of water. And so have right to read 1t He shall have dominion from the Atlantic sea to the Pacific sea. My theme is, America for God!
 First consider the immensity of this posses sion. If it were only a small tract of land capable of nothing better than sage brush and with ability only to support prairie dogs, l should not have much enthusiasm in want- ing Christ to have it added to his dominion. But it's immensity and afiluence 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 1t. Having been privileged six times 10 cross
 
 have come to some appreciation of its magni- tude. California, which l supposed in boy hood from its size on the map, was lew yards across, a ridge of land on which one must walk cautiously lest he hit his head against Sierra Nevada on one side or slip off into the Pacific waters on the other. Califor- nia, the thin slice of land us l supposed it to be in boyhood. have found it to be larger than all the states of New England and all New York State and all Pennsylvania added a,,l tl,apo tnu hp 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 cOnti- nent divided into States with senatorial and congressional representatives and we will all be happy together. If some of them have not quite the requisite number of people, fix up the institution to suit these cases. Even Utah will by dropping pOlygamy soon be ready to enter. MOnogamy has triumphed in parts of Utah and will probably triumph at this fall election ill 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 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 trans terrence of other Territories into States.
 sBut,. says some one, sin calculating the immensity of our continental acreage you must remember that vast reaches of our public domain are uncultivated, heaps oi dry sand. and the bad lands of Montana and the great American desert." l am glad you men, fioned that. Within twenty-five years there will not be between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts hundred miles of land not reclaimed either by farmers blow or miners crowbar By irrigation the waters of the rivers and the showers of heaven in what are called the rainy season will be gathered into great reser- voirs and through aqueducts let down where and when the people want them. Utah IS an object lesson. Some parts of that territory which were so barren thht spear of grass could not have been raised there in hundred years ore now rich as Lancaster county farms of Pennsylvania or Westehester 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 Astrological basins will produce as much as fifty acres from the dOwnpOur of rain seen in our regions. We have our freshets and our droughts but in those lands which are to be scientifically irrigated there will be neither freshets nor droughts. As you take pitcher and get it full of water aud then set it on table and take drink out of 1t when you are thirsty and never think of drinking 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 grandiy begun by the United States government. Over four hundred lakes have already been off, cially taken possession of by the nation for the great enterprise of irrigation. Rivers that have been rolling idly through these re- gions, doing nothing on their way to the sea, will be lassOed and coralled and penned 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 sur plus of waters in time of freshet and keep them for times of drought. The irrigating process by which all the arid lands between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are to be fer tilized is no new experiment.; It has been going on successfully hundreds of years, in Spain, in China, in India, in Russia, in Egypt.
 About eight hundred million of people of the earth today are kept alive by food raised on irrigated land. And here we have al- lowed to lie waste, given up to rattlesnake and bat and prairie dog, lands enough to latiOn. The work begun will be consumma- ted. Here and there exceptional lands may be stubborn and refuse to yield any wheat or corn from their hard fists, but if the hoe fail to make an impression, the miners pick ax will discover the reason for it and bring up from beneath those unproductive surfa. ces coal and iron and lead and copper and sk zer and gold. God speed the geologists and the surveyors, the engineers and the senatorial commissions and the capitalist and the new settlers and the husbandmen who put their brain and hand and heart tC this trans6guration of the American conti nent.
 But while I speak of the immensity of the continent, must remark 1t IS not an 1mmen sity of monotone or tamenesS. The larger some countries are, the worse for the world This country is not more remarkable for it: magnitude than for it's wonders of construc- ton. What pity the United States govern ment did not take possession of Yosemite ming and Niagara Falls, New York! losem ite and the adjoining California regions! Who that has seen them can think of them without having his blood tingley Trees now standing there that were old when Christ lived. These n.onarchs of foliage reigned before Caesar ol Alexander. and the next thousand years vii not shatter their seepter. They are the masts of the continent, their canvas spread on the winds, while the old ship bears on it. way through the ages. Their size, of whicl travellers often speak, does not affect me st much as their longevity. Though so olt now, the branches of some of them wil craekle in the last conflagration of th planet.
 That valley of the Yosemite is eight mile long and half mile wide and three thousan, feet deep. It seems as if it had been tn meaning of Omnipotenee to crowd into a small place as possible some of the mos stupendous scenery of the world. Some o