The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-11-28
FROM SEA TO SEA.
DR.. Talmage Talks About His Trans
continental Journey.
The Wonderful Heritage of the American
PeOple-The New States of the Great
West and Their Glorious Pros
peets-America for God.


suggested by his recent trip to the Pacific
coast. His text was:
He shall have dominion from sea to sea-
Psalms lxxii., 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. No; 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 l have a right to read it: He
shall have dominion from the Atlantic
sea to the Pacific sea. My theme is,
America for God!
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 immensely
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 it's magnitude.
California which I supposed in boy
hood, from its size on the map, was a few
yards across, a ridge of land on which
one must walk cautiously lest he hit his
head against the Sierra Nevada on one
side or slip off into the Pacific waters on
the other. California, the thin slice of
land as | supposed it to be in boyhood, l
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 a
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
Constitution 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 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 a 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
Eransference of other Territories into
States.
But" says some one, Gin calculating
the immensely of our continental acre
age you must remember that vast reaches
Of our public domain are uncultiyated
heaps of dry sand, and the bad lands of
Montana and the great American DESERT
am glad you mentioned that Within |
twenty five years there will not be be- |
tween the Atlantic and Pacific coasts a |
hundred miles of land not reclaimed |
s1ther by farmers pillow or miners crow. |
BAR. By irrigation the waters of the |
rivers and the showers of Heaven in what |
are called the rainy season will be gath |
sred into great reservoirs and through |
aqueduct let down where and when the |
people want them. Utah is an object |
lesson. Some parts of that Territory |
which were so barren that a spear of |
grass could not have been raised there in |
. 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 NEUROLOGICAL 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 |
thoughts, but in those lands which are to |
DC scientifically irrigated there will be |
ae1ther freshets nor droughts. AS Won
take q pitcher and get it full of water |
and then set it on table and take drink |
out OF 1t when you are thirsty, and never |
mink 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 ont |
Of them whenever they will and refresh |
their land whenever they will.
The work has already been grandlv |
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-
lion. Rivers that have been rolling idlv
through these regions, doing nothing on
their way to the sea, will be lassoed, and
sorraled, 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 suTnlns
If waters in times of freshet and keen
hem for times of drought. The irrioatr
ng process by which all the arid lands
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
ire to be fertilized is no new experiment
I has been going on successfully bun-
reds of years in Spain, in China, in In
ia, in Russia, in Egypt
But while / speak of the immeusitv of
he continent must remark it is not an
of monotone or tameness.
ba 1nv |