Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1889-10-10
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON,
he TELLS OF A JOURNEY ACROSS
THE CONTINENT.
~America for God" His Theme-This Con-
dnent Must BE Thoroughly Dominated
hythe Christian Religion-How to Spread
tho Gospel,

1t WAS great anthem of praise tina
kent up from the crowded throngs at tn
Brooklyn Tabernacle Sunday morning
Sept. %, where the Rev. I. De Wit
Talmage, D. D., preached as usual. Tn,
opening hymn was:
No more let human blood be split,
Vain sacrifice for human guilt:
But to each conscience be applied
The blood that flows from Jesus side.
The subject of the sermon was. From
Ocean to Ocean, or My Transcontinenta
Journey. Text: Psalms lxxii, =: H,
shall have dominion from sea to sea.
The preacher said:
What two seas are referred to? Somt
might say that the text meant thai
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 Ses
and the North Sea. No; in such case 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 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
RAVOCcoiOus A. ~ "C4C q oAAoAA
tract of land capable of nothing better
than sage brush and with ability only to
support prairie dogs, I should not have
much enthusiasm in wanting Christ to
have it added to his dominion. But its
immensely and affiuence no one can i'm
agine 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 priv
ileged six times to cross this continent,
and twice this summer, have come to
some appreciation of its magnitude.
California, which 1 suppose in boyhood
from its size on the map, was fewyards
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 l supposed it to be in boyhood,
have found it to be larger than all the
States of New England and New York
State and all Pennsylvania added to-
gether; and if you add them together
their square miles fall far short of Cali
fornia. North and South Dakota, Mon
tana, 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 contin-
ent 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 constitu-
tion 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
II 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
and the others only four feet, do not
let the daug feet five high shut the
door in the faces of those who are only
four feet high. Among the dying utter
ances of our good friend, the wise
statesman and great author, the brill
liant orator and magnificent you'll, S. S.
Cox, was the expressed determination
to move next winter in Congress for the
t~ansference of other Territories into
States.
But says some one, in calculating
the immensely of our continental acre.
age you must remember that vast reaches
of our public domain are uncultivated,
heaps of dry sand, and the bad lands of
Montana and the great American desert. "
I 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
either 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
gathered into great reservoirs 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 that a
spear of grass could not have been raised
there in a hundred years are now as rich
as Lancaster County farms of Pennsyl-
vania 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 eur
regions. We have our freshets and our
droughts, but in those lands which are
to be scientifically irrigated their will
be neither freshets nor droughts. As
you take q pitcher and get it full of
water and then set it on table and take
drink out Of it when you are thirsty
and never think of drinking a pitcher
full all at once, SO Montana and Wyoming
and Idaho will catch the rains of their
PiWApo IN, oypoof y,ffc hor IF ,,,l
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
irrigation. Rivers that have been roll
ing idly through these regions, doing
nothing on their way to the sea, will be
lassoed and corralled 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 them
selves 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 irrigating process by
WuiCu olA tu0 uIlu IhuuS UetWeeu I00
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are to be
fextilized is no new experiment. 1t has
been going on successfully hundreds of
years, in Spain, in China, in India, in
Russia, in Egypt.
About eight hundred million of peo-
pie of the earth to- day are kept alive by
food raised on irrigated land. And
here We have allowed to lie waste, given
mp to rattlesnake and bat and prairie
dog, lands enough to support whole ma
tions of industrious population. The
work begun will be contaminated. Here
and there exceptional lands may be
stubborn and refuse to yield any wheat
or corn from their hard fists, but if the
whole fail to make an impression the
miners pick Ak will discover the reason
for it and bring up from beneath those
unproductive surfaces coal and iron and
lead and copper and silver and gold.
God speed the biologists and the sur
veyors, the engineers and the senatorial
commissions and the capitalists and the