Lewiston teller. [volume] (Lewiston, North Idaho) 1878-1900, 1890-11-13
"HILLS THAT SMOKE.
-TALMAGE'S SERMON ON JORDAN
AND THE DEAD SEA. y,

Sea Due to Volcanic Influences
A Young Man Baptised in the Jor-
dan.-Sodom and Gomorrah Proto.
types OF American Cities. The
River Of Death.
BROOKLYN. Oct. 2e.-Dr. Talmage preach
ID the fifth sermon Of the series on his tour
In the Holy Land in tho Academy of Music
Ia this city this morning. This evening Mt
tho service in the Academy of Music, New
York, tho sermon was repeated before an
audience which filled the vast building in
every part. DR.. Talmage announced as his
text, Psalm 104:32: "He toucheth the hills
and they smoke" He said:
David. the poet, here pictures n volcano
and what Church's Cotopaxi does on paint
er's canvas, this author does in words. You
see hill, calm and still. and for ages i'm
movable, but the Lord out of the heavens
puts his finger on the top of it and from it
rise thick vapors, intershot with fire. ''He
touchcth the hills and they smoke''
God ID tho only being who can manage a
'valcano and again and again has he employ
cd volcanic action. The pictures on the
walls of Pompeii. the cxhumed Italian city,
As we saw them last November, demonstrate
that the city was not fit to live. In the first
century, that city, engirdled with palaces,
unparalleled with gardens, pillared into
architectural exquisiteness, was at the foot
OF mountain up the sides Of which it ran
with vineyards and villas of merchant
princes. and all that marble and bronze
ana imperial baths and arboriculture, and
Tainbowed fountains, and a coliseum at the
dedication of which nine thousand beasts
had been slain. and a supernal landscape
IN which the shore gave roses to the sea and
the sea gave crystals to the shore; yea, all
tnat beauty, and pomp, and wealth could
give was there to be seen or heard. But the
bad morals OF the city had shocked tho
world. In the year 70, on the 4th Of August,
black column rose above the adjoining
mountain, and spread out, Pliny says, as he
saw 1t, like great pine tree, wider and
wider. until it began to rain upon the CITY,
Hrst thin ashes and then pumice stone and
sulphrus fumes scooped. and streams Of mud
poured through the streets till few people
escaped and the city was buried, and some
OF the 1nhabitants eighteen hundred years
AFTER were found embalmed in the scoriH of
that awful doom. The Lord called upon
volcanic forces to obliterate that profligate
city. He touched the hills and they smoked.
Nothing but volcanic action can explain
what shall show you at the Dead Sea upon
which looked last December, and of whose
waters l took bitter and singing taste
Concerning all that region there has been
controversy enough to fill libraries, science
saying one thing, revelation saying another
"AAA6. oub uuHlU NOlCdnlC uCLlOn QlVlnelV
employed and both testimonies are one and
the same. Geology, chemistry, geography,
astronomy, ichthyology, ORTHODOXY and
zoology are coming one by one to confirm
the Scriptures. Two leaves OF one book are
Revelation and Creation and the penman-
ship Is by the same divine hand. Our horse
back ride will not DO SO steep today and
you can stay on without clinging to the
p0mmel OF the saddle, but the scenes amid
which We ride shall, II possible, be more
thrilling and by tho time the horses snuff
the sulphurous atmosphere Of Lake Asphalt
tltes or the Dead Sea. We VIII be ready to
olsmount and read from our Bibles about
what was done by the Lord when He touch
ed the hills and they smoked.
rake detOur and pass along by the
rocky fortress of Masada where occurred
something more wonderful in the way Of
desperation than you have ever heard of,
unless you have heard OF that Herod built
. palace amid these heaps OF black and aw-
ful rocks which look like tumbled mid
night, A great band OF robbers. about one
Thousand including their families after
ward held the fortress. When the Roman
army stormed that steep and the bandits
could no longer hold the place. their chief
tan, Eleazar. made q powerful speech which
persuaded them to die before they were cap
turcd. First the men kissed their families
q loving and fearful goodbye and then put
a dagger into their hearts and the women
and children were slain. Then ten men
wore chosen by lot to slay all the other
men. and each man lay down by the dead
wife and children and waited for these exc
'cutioners to do their work. This done one
man of the ten killed the other nine.
Then the survivor committed sui
eide. Two women and Ave children had hid
themselves and after all was over came
forth to tell Of tho nine hundred and sixty
slaughtered. Great and rugged nat
iural scenery makes the most tremend-
Gus natures for good or evil. Great states
men and great robbers, great orators and
great butchers. were nearly all born or
reared among mountain precipices. Strong
natures are hardly ever born upon the plain.
When men have anything greatly good or
s,Ereatly evil to do, they come down OF the
TSocks. -
(, Passion from under the shadow of Masada,
the scene Of concentrated diabolism. and
come along where the salt crystals crackle
under the horses hoOfs. You are near the
most God-forsaken region of all the earth.
You to whom the word lake has heretofore
suggested those bewitchments OF beauty.
Luzerne or Cayuga, some great pearl set by
loving God In the bosom of the luxuriant
valley, change all your ideas about lake,
! and see this sheet of water which the Bible
calls the Salt Sea, or Sea of the Plain, and
Josephus calls Lake Asphaltites The mule.
toers VIII take care OF the horses while VIC
get down to the brink and dip up the
liquid mixture In the palm of the hand. The
waters are commingllng of brim stone and
pitch. and have six times larger percentage
OF salt than those of the Atlantic Ocean, the
ocean having four per cent of salt and this
lake twenty-slx and q quarter per cent
Lake Sir-Ekol of India ID the highest lake
In the world. This lake, on the banks OF
which We kneel, is the lowest lake. 1t emp
ties into no sea, among other things. for
the simple reason that water cannot run
uphill. It swallows up the river Jordan
and makes no response of thanks, and new
er reports what is does with the twenty
million cubic feet of water annually receiv-
ed from that sacred river. 1t takes the tree
branches and logs foated into it by the Jor.
dan and pitches them on the banks OF btu
men to decay there.
The hot springs near its banks by the
name Of Callirhoe. where King Herod came
to battle on his Illness no sooner pour into
this sea than they are poisoned. Not 9
ush-scale swims it. Not an insect walks
u II hates life. and II you attempt t.
VIM there It lifts you by an unnatura
O1oy ancy to the surface. as much as to say
we want NO life here, but death is oul
preierence. DEATH" Those who attempt +,
weoe INTO this lake and submerge them