The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-12-03
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Among the Bedouins."

TEXT: "Forasmuch as thou knowest hop
'oe are to encamp in the wilderness. Mum.
&, 81.
Night after night we have slept in tent in
Palestine. There are large villages Of Bedou-
ins without house. and for three thousand
years the people Of those places have lived in
black tents, made out Of dyed skins and
when the winds and storms wore out and tore
loose those coverings others Of the same kind
took their places.
Noah lived in tent; Abraham in tent.
Jacob pitched his tent on the mountain.
Isaac pitched his tent I'm the valley. Lot
pitched his tent toward Sodom. In tent
the woman Jael nailed Sisera, the general, to
the ground, first having given him sour milk
called 'leben" as q sopori1c to make him
sleep soundly, that being the effect Of such
nutrition, as modern travellers can testify.
The Syrian army in a tent. The ancient
battle shout was ITO your tents, o Israel"
Paul was tent maker. Indeed, Isaiah, mag
nifcently poetic, indicates that all the human
race live under blue tent when he says God
''stretcheth out the heavens as curtain and
spreadeth them out as tent to dwell in, "and
Hezekiah compares death to the striking Of q
tent, saying, my age is removed from me
as ashepherd's tent"
In our tent in Palestine tonight I hear
something never heard before and hope
never to hear again. 1t Is the voice Of q
hyena amid the rocks near by. When you
may have seen this monster putting his
month between the iron bars Of menagerie
he is a captive, and he gives humiliated
and suppressed'cry. But yonder in the mid
fear, and he utters himself In loud, re-
sounding, terrific, almost supernatural
sound, splitting up the darkness into a.
deeper midnight. It begins with howl and
ends with sound something like q horse's
whining In the hyena's voice are defiance
and strength and bloodthirstiness and crunch
of broken bones and death.
am glad to say that for the most part
Palestine is clear Of beasts Of prey. The
leopards, which Jeremiah says cannot
change their spots, have all disappeared, and
the lions that once were common all through
this land, and used by all the prophets for,
Illustrations Of cruelty and wrath, have re-
treated before the discharges Of gunpowder,i
of which they have an indescribable fear. But
for the most part Palestine is what it origi-
nally was. With the one exception Of a
wire thread reaching from Joppa to Jeru-
salem and from Jerusalem to Nazareth and
from Nazareth to Tiberias and from Tt
berias to Damascus, that cne nerve of civili-
zation, the telegraphic wire (for we found
ourselves only few minutes off from Brook
lyn and New York while standing by Lake
Galilee), with that one exception Palestine
is just as it always was.
Nothing surprised me so much as the per-
sistence Of everything. A. sheep or horse
falls dead, and though the sky may one min
ute before be clear Of all wings in five min
utes after the skies are black with eagles
cawing, screaming, plunging, fighting for
room, contending for largest morssls Of the
extinct quadruped All, now understand
the force of Christ's illustration when he
said: "Wheresoever the carcass is there will
the eagles be gathered together" The long
evity Of those eagles IS wonderful. They
live fifty and sixty and sometimes hundred
years. Ah, that explains what DAVID meant
eagles" ] saw q shepherd with the folds Of
his coat far bent outward, and I wondered
what was contained in that amplitude Of ap-,
parel, and said to the dragoman: "What
las that shepherd got under his coat@' And
the dragoman said: ut is very young lamb
he is carrying; it Is too young and too weak
and too cold to keep up with the flock" At
that moment saw the lamb put its head out
from the shepherds bosom aud I said: There
itisnow. Isaiah's description of the tender
ness Of God-he shall gather the lambs with
bis arm and carry them in his BOSOM"
Passing by village home, in the Holy
Land, about noon I saw great crowd in
and around private house, AMI said to the
dragoman: David, what is going on there%
He said: Somebody has recently died there,
and their neighbors go in for several days
after to sit down and weep with the be-
reaved." There it is, said, the old scrip
tural custom, '.And many Of the Jews came
to Martha and Mary, to comfort them con-
cerning their brother" Early in the morn
ing passing by a cemetery in the Holy Land
I saw among the graves about fifty women
dressed in black, and they were crying: "Oh,
my childp "Oh, my husband' "Oh, my
fatherP 'Oh, my mother p Our dragoman
told us that every morning, very early for
three mornings after burial, the women go
to the sepulcher, and after that every week
very early for year. As I saw this group
just after daybreak said: There tits again,
the same old custom referred to in Luke, the
evangelist, where he says Certain women
which were early in the sepulcher."
But here we found ourselves at Jacobs
well, the most famous well in history, most
distinguished for two things, because it be-
longed to the old patriarch after whom 1t
was named, and for the wonderful things
which Christ said, seated en- this well curb,
to the Samaritan woman. We dismount
from our horses in drizzling rain, and our
dragoman, climbing up to the well over
the slippery stones, stumbles and fright
ems us all by nearly falling into it. meas
ured the we'll at the top and found it six feet
from edge to edge: Some grass and weeds
and thorny growths overnang IL. In one
place the roofis broken through. Large stones
embank the wall on all sides.
Our dragoman took pebbles and dropped
them in, and from the time they left his
hand to the instant they clicked on the bot
tom you could hear it was deep, though not
as deep as once, for every day travellers are
applying the same test, and though in the
time of Maundrell, the traveller, tho well was
a hundred and sixty-fve feet deep, now it Is
only seventy-fve. So great is the curiosity
of the world to know about that well that
during the dry season Captain Anderson
descended into this we'll, at one place the
sides so close he had to put his hands over his
head IN oroer 70 get through, and then no
tainted away and lay at the bottom OF the
well as though dead, until hours after recov.
cry he came to the surface.
1t is not like other wells digged down to
fountain that fills it, but reservoir to catch
the falling rains, and to that Christ refers
when speaking to the Samaritan woman about
a spiritual supply He said He would. if asked,
have given her living water" that is water
from flowing spring in distinction from the
water of the well, which was rain water. But
why did Jacob make reservoir there when
there is plenty of water all around and
abundance ofsprings and fountains and seem,
ingly no need of that reservoir? Why did
Jacob go to the vast expense Of boring and
digging q well perhaps two hundred feet deep
ss first completed, when, by going little
way off, he could have water from other
fountains at little or no expense? Ah, Jacob
was wise. He wanted his own well. Quarrels
and wars might arise with other tribes and
the supply of water might be cut of, SO the
shoyels and picka1esand boring instruments
were ordered, and the we'll OF nearly four
thousand years ago was sunk through tho
solid rock.
When Jacob thus wisely insisted on having
his own well he taught us not to be unneces-
sarily dependent on others. Independence