Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1889-10-03
WONDERS OF THE WEST.
'Talmage Talks Of His Trans-0ontineptal
Journey.
The Grnndcurs OF a Grand COuntry-ChriSi Shall
Have Dominion Over II All.

The sermon o; Rev. L. Dc Witt Talmage
on last Sunday on the subject: "t'rom
Ocean to Ocean; or My Transcontinental
Journey" was listened to with wrapt q ten
tion by an audience that filed Brooklyn
Tabernacle TO the very doors. Text;
Psalms lxxii, 8: HE shall have dominion
from sea to sea-" The preacher said:
" hat two seas are referred toi 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 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 | have
n right To read it: He shall have domin on
from the Atlantic sea 10 the Pacific sea
My theme is, America for God
FIRST, consider the immensely OF this pro-
cession. If it were only small tract of
land capable of nothing better than sage
brush and with ability only TO support
prairie dogs, should not have much en-
thusiasm in wanting Christ TO have ( added
TO his dominion. But its immensely and
affiuence no one can imagine unless. in i'm
migrant 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. Hay
ing been privileged six times to cross this
continent, and twice this summer, i have
come TO some appreciation Of its magnitude
California, which l supposed in boyhood
from its size on the map, was few yards
across, ridge OF land ON which one must
walk cautiously lest he hit his head against
the Sierra Nevada on one side or slip of
into the Pacific waters on the other, Cali
fornia, the thin slice Of land AS supposed
IL to be in boyhood, have found it TO be
larger than all the states of New England
mr. "a | NnNU nFK n 10
van'a added together; and II you add them
together their square miles fail far short OF
California. North and South Dakota, Mon
tana and Washington territory, TO be
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 in keeping them out in the
cold any longer' Let us have the whole
continent divided into states with senate
rial and congressional representatives and
we will all be happy together If some OF
them have not quite the requisite number
OF people, Tx up the constitution TO suit
these cases. Even Utah will by dropping
polygamy soon become ready 20 enter. Mo
nogamy has trumphOd in p rts OF Utah and
will probably triumph at this fall election
in Salt Lake City. Turn AL the territories
into states and if some of the sisters are
smaller than the elder sisters, give them
time ahd they will soon DC as large as any
OF item. Because some OF the daughters
of n 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 four feet high. Among
the dying utterances OF our good friend, the
wise statesman and great author, the bril-
liant orator and magnificent soul, ;. :. Cox,
was the expressed determination to move
next winter in congress for the transference
of other territories into states.
But" says some one, I'm calculating
the immensity of our continental acreage
you must remember that vast reaches of
our public domain are uncultivated, heaps
OF dry sand, and the bad lands OF Mon tana
and the great American desert" | am
glad you mentioned that. v thin twenty
five years there will not be between the At
lantc and Pacific COASTS hundred miles of
land not recla med either by farmers pow
or miners crowbar BY irrigation the
waters OF the rivers and the showers Of
heaven in what are called the RAINY season
will be gat cring into great reservoirs aud
through aqUeductS let down where an Il
when tho people want them. Utah is an
OBJ ect lesson. Some parts OF that territory
which were so barren that a spear of grass
could not have been raised there in hum
dred years are now rich as Lancaster coun-
ty 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 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 wa
ter set it On table and take drink out Of
II when you are thirsty and never think of
drinking pitcherful all at once, so Mon
tana and Wyoming and Idaho will catch
the rains OF their rainy season and take up
all the waters of their rivers in great pitch
ers of reservoirs and drink out of them
whenever they will and refresh their land
whenever they will.
The work has already been grandly be.
gun 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 rolling idly through
these regions doing nothing On their way
to the sea- will lie hssoed and corralled an
penned up until such time as the farmers
need them. Under the same proces The
Ohio, the Mississippi and all 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 irri-
cation process by which all the arid lands
between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are
to be fertilized is no new experiment 1t
has been going on successfully hundreds of
years, in Spain, il China in India in Rus
STA, in Egypt
About eight hundred million people Of the
earth Co1ay are kept alive by food raised
on irrigated land. AMI here we have al
lowed to lie waste, given up TO rattlesnalsc
and bat and prairie dog, lands enough 10
support whole nations Of Industrious poul-
lntion. The work begun will be consum-
mated. Here and there exceptional lands
may be stubborn and refuse to yield any
wheat or corn from their hard fists, but il
the whole fail TO make an impression tho
miners pick AK will discover the reason
for il and bring up from beneath those un.
productive surfaces coal and iron and lead
and copper and silver and gold. God speed
the biologists and the surveyors, the engi-
necrs and the senatorial commissions and
the capitalists and the new settlers and the
husbandmen who put their brain and hand
and heart to this TRANSPORTATION of the
American continentl
But while l speak of the immensely Of
the continent, l must remark IL is not an
immensely Of monotone or tameness. The
larger some countries are, the worse for
the world. This continent is not more re-
markable for Its magnitude than for its
wonders of construction. " hat "a pity the
United States government did not take pos
session of Yosemite, California as IL has
of Yellowstone, Wyoming, and OF Niagara
Falls. New York; Yosemite and the adj
Joining California regionsl Who that has
seen them can think Of them without hav-