Connecticut western news., 1890-10-29

OSAAAcSNA OA them, but since then the Indian Archi- pelago has been found to have nine hundred of these great mouthpieces They are on every continent and in all attitudes. That earthquake which shook all America about six or seven summers ago was only the raving around of volcanoes rushing against the sides of their rocky caverns trying to break out. They must come to the surface, but it will be at the divine call. They seem reserved for the pun ishment of one kind of sin The seven cities they have obliterated were cele- brated for one kind of transgression. Prof1igacy was the chief characteristic of the seven cities over which they put their smothering wing-Pompeii, Her culaneum, Stabie, Adma, Zeboim, So- dom and Gomorrah.
 If our American cities do not quit their profigacy, if in high life and low life dissoluteness does not cease to be a joke and become crime, if wealthy Gbertinism continues to, find so many doors of domestic life open to it's faint est touch, if Russian and French and American literature steeped in pruri- ency does not get banished from the news stands and ladies' parlors, God will let loose some of these suppressed monsters of the earth. And tell these American cities that it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, whether that day of judgment be in this present century or in the closing century of the earth's continuance. The volcanic forces are already in existence, but in the mercy of God they are chained in the kennels of subterraneous fire Yet let prohi- gacy, whether it stagger into a laza- retto or sit on a commercial throne, der the street gas light or be wrapped in the finest array that foreign loom ever wrought or lapidary ever impearled, know right well that there is volcano waiting for it, whether in domestic life, or social life, or political life, or in the foundations of the earth from which sprang out the devastations that swal- lowed the cities of the plain. 'sHe toucheth the hills and they smoke"
 OFF FOR JORDAN.
 But the dragoman was rejoiced when we had seen enough of this volcanic re- zion of Palestine, and he gladly tight ems the girths for another march around the horses, which are prancing and neighing for departure. We are off for the Jordan, only two hours away. We pass Bedouins whose stern features melt into smile as we give them the salutation "Salaam aleikoum" -"Peace be with you, their smile some times leaving us in doubt as to whether it is caused by their gladness to see us or by our poor pronunciation. of the Arabic. Oh, they are strange race those Bedouins. Such a co1nmingling of rufiianis1n and honor, of cowardice and courage, of cruelty and kindness !! When band of them came down upon a party in which Miss Whately was travelling, and were about to take pocket books and perhaps life, this lady sitting upon her horse took out her note book and pencil and began to sketch these brigands, and seeing this composure the bandits thought it something supernatural and fed Christian womanliness or manliness is all conquering When Martin Luther was told that Duke George would kill ] him if he went to Leipsic Luther re- piled, "I would go to Leipsic if it 1 rained Duke Georges nine daysl"
 Now we come through regions where there are hills cut into the shape of ca thedrals, with altar and column and I arch and chancel and pulpit and dome and architecture of the rocks, that I l think can hardly just happen so. Per haps it is because God loves the church so well he builds ill the solitudes of l Yellowstone park and Yosemite and l Switzerland and Palestine these eccle- 1 siastical piles. And who knows but 1 that unseen spirits may sometimes wor- ship there2 ''Dragoman, when shall time we were on the alert, and looking 1 through tamarisk and willows for the 1 greatest river of all the earth. The Mississippi is wider, the Ohio is deeper, 1 the Amazon is longer, the Hudson rolls I amid regions more picturesque, the Thames has more splendor on it's banks, the Tiber suggests more imperial pro cession, the Ilyssus has more classic memories, and the Nile feeds greater populations by it's irrigation; but the Jordan is the queen of rivers and runs through all the Bible, a silver thread strung like beads with heroics, and be- fore night we shall meet on its banks Elijah and Elisha and David and
 Jacob and Joshua and John and Jesus.
 VIEW OF THE RIVER.
 At last between two trees l got g
 glimpse of river, and said, What is
 that2' 1.-The Jordan" was the quick
 reply. And all along the line whicl
 had been heightened by other pilgrims
 some from America, and some from
 Europe, and some from Asia, the cry
 was sounded, ''The Jordan! The Jor
 damp Hundreds of thousands of pil
 grims have chanted on it's banks anC
 bathed in it's waters. Many of them dil
 wet gown in the wave and wiring i
 out and carry it home for their ow1
 shroud. It is an i1npetuous stream, ane
 rushes on as though it were hastenins
 to tell it's story to the ages. Many al
 explorer has it whelned, ;lnd many ,
 boat has it wrecked. Lieut.. .5ciincu,
 had copper bottomed crafts split tlpol
 it's shelvings. Only one boat, that o
 Lieut.. Lynch, ever lived to sail tn
 whole length of it.. At the season vllel
 the shows on Lebanon melt the rag ] 1f ;o -1