Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-10-17
TIMELY ADVICE
Dr.. Talmage Discourses on the
Proposed Worlds Fair.
Its Moral and Religious Importance-En-
vious Rivalry Of Cities Rebuked-A Great
Peace Congress Suggested-war's
Glory Departed-ConcIusIOns.

The Coming Worlds Fair: Shall 1t Be
Made Blessing or a Cursep His text
was Ezekiel xvii. u: They traded in
thy fairs" After announcing that he
would soon visit the Holy Land on a two
months leave OF absence in order to gain
a personal knowledge of the places sacred
toAll Christians. DR.. Talmage said:
Fairs may be for the sale of goods or for
the exhibition of goods on small scale
or a large scale, for county or city, for
one nation or for all nations. My text
brings US to the fairs of ancient Tyre, a
city that is now extinct Part of the city
was on an island. and part on the main
land. Alexander, the conqueror. was
much embarrassed when he found so
much of the city 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 it into the water and build a cause
way 200 feet wide to the island. So they
took that part of the city which was on
the mainland and with it built a cause
way of timber and brick and stone, on
which his army marched to the capture Of
that part OF the city which was on the
island, as though a hostile army should
put Brooklyn into the East river, and over
it march to the capture of New York.
That Tyri0n causeway of ruins which
Alexander's army built is still there, aud
by alluvial deposits has permanently unit
ed the island to the mainland, so that il is
no longer an island, but a promontory.
The sand. the greatest Of all undertakers
for buryihg cities, having covered up for
the most part Baalbec and Palmyra and
Thebes and Memphis and Carthage and
Babylon and Luxor and Jericho, the
sand, so small and yet so mighty, is now
gradually giving rites Of sepulture to
what was left Of Tyre. But, o, what a
magnificent city it once wasI Mistress of
the seal Queen OF international COM
MERGE! Ali Nations casting their crowns
at her feetl Where we have in our sail
ing vessels benches of wood. she had
benches of ivory. Where we have for our
had sails of richest embroidery.
The chapter from which my text is
taken, after enumerating the richest
countries in all the world, says of Tyre:
They traded in thy fairs" Look in upon
a Worlds Fair at Tyre. Ezekiel leads US
through one department and it is horse
the horses of to-day give you no idea of
the splendid animals which, rearing and
plunging and snorting and neighing, were
brought down over the plank Of the ships
and led into the Worlds Fair at Tyre
until Ezekiel, who was a minister of re-
ligion and not supposed to know much
about horses, cried out in admiration:
"They of the house of Togarmah traded
in the fairs with horses" Here in
another department of that Worlds Fair
at Tyre, led on by Ezekiel, the prophet
we find every thing all ablaze with
precious stones. Like petrified snow are
the corals; like fragments of fallen sky
are the sapphires; and here is agate
blush with all colors. What is that
aroma we inhaler 1t is from the chests
OF cedar which we open, and find them
filed with all styles of IA brio. But the
aromatics increase as we pass down this
lane of enchantment, and here are cassia
and frankincense and balm Led on by
Ezekiel the prophet, we come to an agri-
cultural fair with display of wheat from
Minnith and Pannag, rich as that of our
modern Dakota or Michigan. And here is
a 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
black and bright almost unto blue; wait
ing 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 purple, the
lost purple, which the ancients knew how
to make out of the gasteropod mollusks 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
mentioned fairs in all succeeding ages,
and it has had it's Louis the VI. fair at
Dagobert, and Henry the fair on st.
Bartholomew day, and Hungarian fairs
at Pesth and Easter fairs at Leipsic, and
the Scotch fairs at Perth, bright was the
day when 1 was at one of them). and
afterward came the London Worlds Fair,
and the New York Worlds Fair, and the
Vienna Worlds Fair, and Partisan Worlds
Fair, and it has been decided that in COM
memoration Of the discovery of America
in 1892 there shall be held in this country
in 1892 a Worlds Fair that shall eclipse
all preceding National Expeditions 1
say, God speed the movement! Surely
the event commemorated is worthy Of all
the architecture and music and pyrotech-
mics and eloquent and stupenduous plan
ming and momentaTy expenditure and
Congressional appropriations 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
menu After they had been encouraged
for the last few days by flight OF land
birds and floating branches of red Lerries.
and while Columbus was down in the
cabin studying the sea chart, Martin
Pinzon, standing on the deck, and looking
to the southwest cried: Land! Landl
Laudv 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 a COM
Worlds Fair in America in
1892 Leaving to others the discussion as
to the site of such ExpositioE-and won
der not that some five or six of our cities
are struggling to have ii, for it will give
to any city to which it is assigned an i'm
pulse of prosperity for a hundred years-I
say, leaving to others the selection of the
particular locality to be thus honored,
want to say something from the point of
Christian patriotism which ought to be
said, and the earlier the better, that we
may get thousands of people talking in the
right direction, and that will make health
full public opinion. beg to consider
what l feel called upon of
God as an American citizen and as 9
preacher of Righteousness to utter.
My first suggestion is that it is not wise,
as certainly it is not Christian, to con.
ttnue this wide and persistent attempt of
American cities to belittle and depreciate
other cities. It has been gong on for