Connecticut western news., 1889-10-09
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
IT BE MADE A BLESSING OR A CURSE?"
Dr.. Talmage's Discourse October 6.

The Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., preached in the Tabernacle this morning on the subject, s.The Coming Worlds Fair, Shall It Be Made Blessing or CurseT His text was Ezekiel xvii, 12: "They traded in thy fairs"
 After announcing his subject Dr. Talmage said: ''With the hearty consent of the elders and trustees of this church, I leave on We'd nesday morning, Oct. 3Oth. on the City Of Paris, for the Holy Land. Palestine, to be gone about two months. I am sure all my congregato will unite with the officers in giving their consent when l tell you why go. First, my object is educational to myself and congregation. I want to see the places associated with our Lords life and death. l believe I can make my pulpit work far more efficient when I have seen, with mine own eyes, Bethlehem and Nazareth and Jerusalem and Calvary, and all the other places con- nected with the Saviour's ministry. Those places cannot be visited healthfully in the summer and in time of usual vacation. What learn and see, you will learn and see when I come back. My second reason for going is, that am writing the Life of Christ, and I can be more accurate and graphic when l have been an eyewitness of the sacred place.1
 Fairs may be for the sale of goods or for the exhibition of goods on small scale or large scale, for county or city, for one nation or for all nations. My text brings us to the fairs of ancient Tyre, 8 city that is now ex. tinct. Part of the city was on an island, and part on the mainland. Alexander, the con- queror, was much embarrassed when he found so much of the city was on an island, for he had no ships. But his military genius was not to be baked. Having marched his army to the beach, he ordered them to tear up the city on the mainland and throw IL lil- to the water and build a causeway two hum dred feet wide to the island. So they took that part of the city which was on the main- land and with 1t built a causeway of timber and brick and stone, on which his army marched to the capture Of that part or the city which was on the island, as though East river, and over it march to the capture of New York. That Tyrian causeway of ruins which Alexander's army built, is still there, and by alluyial deposits has perma- nently united the island to the mainland, so that it is no longer an island but "a of all undertakers for burying cities, having covered up for the most part Baalbec aud Palmyra and Thehes and Memphis and Carthage and Babylon and Luxor and Jerl- cho, the sand, so small and yet so mighty, IS now gradually giy ing rites of sepulture to what was left of Tyre. But. oh, what magnificent city it once was! Mistress of the seal Queen of international commerce! All nations casting their crowns at her feet! Where we have in cur sailing vessels benches of wood she had benches of ivory, Where we have for our masts of ships sails of coarse $ canvas, she had sails of richest embroidery.
 The chapter from which my text is taken after euumerating the richest countries in all the world says of Tyre: ''They traded in thy fairs.o Look in upon a worlds fair at Tyre. Ezekiel leads us through one department and 1t Is horse fair. Under fed and over driven for ages, the horses of today give you no idea of the splendid animals which, rearing and plunging and snorting and nelghlng, were brought down over the plank of the ships and led into the worlds fair at Tyre until Ezekiel, who was 8 minister of religion and not sup posed to know much about horses, cried out in admiration: ''They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses" Here in another department of that worlds fair at Tyre, led on by Ezekiel the prophet, we find everything all ablaZe with precious stones. Like petrifed snow are the cords; like frag- ments of fallen sky are the sapphires; and here is agate a-blush with all colors. What is that aroma we inhale? tis from chests of cedar which we open, and find them filled with all styles of fabric. But the aromatlcs increase as we pass down this lane of en- chantment, and here are cassia and frankln- eense and balm. Led on by Ezekiel the prophet, we come to an agricultural fair with display of wheat from Minnith and Pan- nag, rich as that of our modern Dakota or Michigan. And here is meteorological fair, with specimens of iron and silver and tin and lead and gold. But halt, for here is purple, Tyrian purple, all tints and shades, deep almost unto the black and bright almost unto the blue; waiting for kings and queens to order it made into robes for coronation day; purple not like that which is now made from the Orchilla weed, but the extinct pur- pie, the lost purple, which the ancients knew how to make out of the gasteropod mol lusks of the Mediterranean. Oh. look at those casks of wine from Helbon! See those snow banks of wool from the back of sheep that once pastured in Gilead. Oh, the bewildering riches and variety of that worlds fair at Tyre!
 But the world has copied these Bible men, tioned fairs in all succeeding ages, and 1t has had it's Louis the Sixth fair at Dagobert, and Henry the First fair on St. Bartholomew's day, and Hungarian fairs at Pesth. and Easter fairs at Leipsic, and the Scotch fairs at Perth, Upright was the day when l was at one of them), and afterward came the Lon don worlds fair, and the New York worlds fair, and the Vienna worlds fair, and the Parisian worlds fair, and it has been decided that, in commemoration of the discovery of America in 1492, there shall be held in this country in 1892 8 worlds fair, that, shall eclipse all preceding national expOsitions. say, God speed the movement! Surely the event commemorated is worthy of all the architecture and music and pyrotechnics and eloquent and stupen- dous planning and monetary expendi- which the most sanguine Christian patriot has ever dreamed of. Was any voyage that the world ever heard of crowned with such an arrival as that of Columbus and his men? ? AIL6r they udu U6cu tuCOuE0Scu lOI tuc loSt few days by flight of land birds and floating branches of red berries, and while Columbus was down in the cabin studying the sea chart, Martin Pinzon, standing on deck and looking to the southwest, cried: "Land! Land Land!" And "Gloria in Excelsis" was sung in raining tears on all the three ships of the expedition. Most appropriate and patriotic and Christian will be commemorative worlds fair In America in 1892. Leaving to others the discussion as to the site of such II yUnp1orpH that sOma five or six of our cities are struggling to have it, for it will give to any city to which 1t is assigned an impulse of prosperity for hun- dred years-I say, leaving to others the selec- tion of the particular locality to be thus hon. ored, want to say some things from the point of Christian patriotism which ought to be said, and the earlier the better, that we get thousands of people talking in the right direction, and that will make healthful public opinion. I beg you to consider prayerfully what feel called upon of God as an Ameri- can citizen and as as preacher of righteous ness to utter.
 My first suggestion is that it is not wise, as certainly it is not Christian, to continue this wide and persistent attempt of American cities to belittle and depreeiate other cities. It has been going on for years, but now the spirit seems to eulminate in this discussion as to where the Words fair shall be held, 8 style of discussion which has a tendency to injure the success of the fair as great moral and patriotic enterprise, after the locality has been decided upon. There is such thing as healthful rivalry between cities, but you will bear me out in saying that there can be no good to come from the uncanny things said about each other by New York and Chicago, by Chicago and St. Louis, by St. Paul and Minneapolis, by Tacoma and Seattle, and all through the states by almost every two proximate cities. All cities, like individuals, have their virtues and their vices. All our American cities should be our exultation. What churches! What public libraries! What asylums of mercy? What academies of music! What mighty men in lav and medicine and art and schOlarShin