The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1889-10-03
TALMAGES SERMON.
Weekly Discourse of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
subject; "From Ocean 10
Oceans or WY TrunscOn.

subject SFrOm Ocean 10
Ocean, or Wy Trnnscon-
tinentnl Journey"
TEXT: "He shall hare dominion from
sea TO sed,"-Psalms lxxii., 8.
What two seas are referred tor Some
might say that the text meant that
Christ was to reign over all the land
between the Arabiah 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. It
meant from any large body of water on the
water, And so ! have a right to read 1t;
He shall have dominion from the Atlantic
Sea to the Pacific Sea, My theme Is,
America for God!
First, consider the immensely of this pos
session, II 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 enthusiasm in
wanting Christ to have It added to his do
minion. But its immensely and affiuehce 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 Can
adam Pacific or the Southern Pacific, he has
traversed it. Having been privileged sir
times to cross this continent, and twice
this summer have come TO
some appreciation of its magnitude.
California, which l supposed III boy
hood from its size on the map, was 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
of into the Pacific waters on the other, Cali.
fornia, the thin slice of land as / supposed 1t
10 be in boyhood, l have found it to be larger
than all the states Of New England and all
Dew York State andsll Pennsylvania added
together; and il you add them together 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 point and soon admit also Idaho and
Wyoming and New Mexico What is the
use keeping them out in the cold any longerS
Let us have the whole continent divided into
States with Senatorial and Congressional
Representatives and we will all be happy
together. II some of them have not quite tho
requisite number Of people, fix up the Con-
stitution to suit these cases. Even Utah will
by dropping polygamy soon be ready to
enter Monogs,my has trinmphed in parts Of
Utah aud will probably triumph at this
fall election in Salt Lake City.
Turn all the Territories into States and il
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 family may be five feet
In stature and the others only four feet, do
not lot 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, 8. s. Cox, was the expressed determin.
ton to move next winter in Congress for the
tranference Of other Territories into States
But, says some one, lin calculating the
immensely of our continental acreage you
must remember that vast reaches of our pub
lie domain are uncultivated heaps of dry
sand, and the bad lands of Montana and the
great American desert am glad you men,
toned that, Within twenty five years there
will not be between the Atlantic and the
Pacific coasts a hundred miles OF land not
reclaimed either by farmers pillow or miners
crowbar. 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 aque-
ducts let down where and when the people
! want them. Utah is an object lesson. Some
parts of that territory which were so barren
| that spear of grass could not have been
raised there in hundred years are now rich
as Lancaster 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
| RTcdI hyuTOlOSlCdl basins VIII 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 water and
then set it on table and take drink out of
| 1t when you are thirsty and never think
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 piteh-
erS Of reservoirs and drink out of them when
ever they will and refresh their land when
ever they will.
The work has already been grandly begun
by the United States Government. Over
four hundred lakes have already been Off
cially taken possession Of by thu ma
ton for the great enterprise OF irri-
cation. Rivers that have been
rolling idly through these regions doing
nothing OH their way to the sea, will be las
seed 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
themselves better, and great basins will be
made to catch the surplus of waters in times
Of freshets and keep them for times of
drought, The irrigating process by which all
tho arid lands between the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans, are to be fertilized Is no new
experiment. 1t has been going on success.
fully hundreds of years, in Spain in China,
in Indie, in Russia, in Egypt
About eight hundred millions of people OF
the earth to-day are kept alive by food raised
on irrigated land. And here we have al
lowed to lie waste, given up to rattlesnake
and bat and prairie dog lands enough to sup
port whole nations of industrious popula
ton. The work begun will be consunl.
mated. Here and there exceptional
lands may be stubborn and refuse to
yield any wheat or coru from their hard
Asts, but if the hoe fail to make an impress
sion. the miners pickax will discover the rea
son for 1t and bring up from beneath those
upproductive surfaces coal and iron and lead
and copper and silver and gold God speed
the biologists and the surveyors, the engi.
neers and the senatorial..commissions and the
capitalists and the new settlers, and the hus.
bandmen who put their brain and hand and
heart to this TRANSPORTATION of the American
continent!
But while speak of the immensely Of the
continent, I must remark 1t is not an i'm
mensity OF monotone or tamencss. The
larger some countries are the worse for the
world. This continent is not more remarka-
BILE for its magnitude than for its wonders OF
Government did not take possession OF Yose
mite, California, as it has Of Yellowstone
Wyoming, and Of Niagara Falls, New York
Yosemite and the adjoining California re
Rions! Who that has seen them can think
Of them without having his blood tin
gle? Trees now standing there that
were old when Christ lived, These monarch,
, If foliage raianad before Casaar nr Alaxan
der, and the next thousand years will no,
shatter their scepter. They are the masts Of
the continent, their canvas spread on the
winds while the Old ship bears on its way
through the ages. Their size, of which trav
elers often speak, does not affect me so much
a. their longevity. Though so old now, the
branches of some of them will crackle in thu
last connagration of the planet.
That Valley Of the Yosemite is eight mile.
long and half mile wide and three thousand
feet deep. 1t seems as il it had been thu
meaning of Omnipotence to crowd into q
small place as possible some OF the mos
: stupendous scenery of the world. Some o
the cliffs you do not stop to measure by feet
for they are literally mile high. Steep s.
that neither foot of man nor beast ever scaiet
them, they stand in everlasting desauce- i
Iehovs' ',s throne on earth these a." =
white pillars. Standing down in this grea
chasm Of the valley you LOOK By. u
and wonder is Cathedral hock
vast gloomy ruiustar built for the stlen