Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-11-15
REV. DIR. TALMAGB.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
Subject. ssThe Wonderful Distance Tra-
versed by Christ"

through Damascus gate, we are passing out
of Jerusalem for a journey northward. Hol
for Bethel with its stairs the bottom step of
which was stone pillow; and Jacobs well.
with its immortal coiloquy; and Nazareth,
with its divins boy in His fathers carpenter
shop, aud the most glorious lake that ever
rippled or flashed :
Blue Gaiilee. sweet Galilee,
The lake where jesus loved to be;
and Damascus, with its crooked street called
Straight, and n hundred places charged and
surcharged with apostolic, evangeiistic, pro-
phetic, patriarcaal, kingly and Christly rem
iniscences.
In travelling along tae roads of Palestine l
am impressed as | could not otherwise have
been, with the fact that Christ for the most
part went afoot. We find Him occasionally
ona roat, and once riding in triumphal
procession, as il is sometimes called, although
It seems to me that the hosannas of the crowd
could not have maze a ride on stubborn,
unlmpressive and funny creature like that
which battered with Him into Jerusalem
very much of triumph. But we are made
to undertand that generally He walked. How
much that means only those know who have
gone over ths distarce traversed by
Christ
We ara accustomed to read that Bethany
is two miles from Jerusalem. Well, any man
in ordinary health can walk two miles with
Oas lhti6uCs D4b lOt liOGc ttlHn OILS man
cut of a thousand can walk from Bethany to
Jerusalem without exhaustion. 1t is over
the Mount of Olives, and you must climb up
among the rolling stones and descend where
e1ertion is necessary to keep you from fall
ing PROSTATE. i, who am accustomed to
walk fifteen or twenty miles without lassi-
tude, tried part of this road over the Mount
OF Olives, and confess that would not want
to try it often. such demand does it make
upon ones physical energies. Yet Christ
walked 1t twice day-in the morning from
/ Bethany to Jerusalem, and in the evening
| from Jerusalem to Bethany.
| Likewise it seemed small thing that
| Christ walked from Jerusalem to Nazareth.
! But it will take US four days of hard horse
back riding, sometimes on trot and some-
times on gallop, to do it this week The
way is mountainous in the extreme To
| those who went up to the Tip Top house on
| Mount Washington before the railroad was
laid | will say that this journey from Jeru-
salem to Nazareth is like seven such Ameri-
can journeys So all up and down and
across and recrossing Palestine. Jesus walked.
Ahab rode. David rode. Solomon rode.
| Herod rode. Antony rode. But Jesus
walked. With swollen ankles and sore
muscles of the legs and bruised heel and stiff
joints and painting lungs and faint head,
along the roads and where there were no
roads at all Jesus walked.
We tried to get new horse other
| than that on which we had ridden on the
| journey to the Dead Sea, for he had faults
/ which our close acquaintanceship had devel-
! oped. But after some experimenting with
other quadrupeds of that species, and finding
that all horses, like their riders, have faults,
/ we concluded to choos. a saddle on that
| beast whose faults we were most prepared
| TO pity or resist. We rode down through the
/ velley and then up on Mount Scopus and.
/ as our Gragoman tells us that this is the last
I oppo rtunity we shall have of looking at Je-
rusalem, we turn our horses head toward
the city and take long. sad and thrilling
/ look at the religious capital of our planet
/ Thisls the most impressive view of the most
/ tremendous city OF all time.
/ On and around this hill the armies of tho
crusaders at the first sight of the city
threw themselves on their faces in worship.
/ Here most of the besieging armies en-
campei the night before opening their vel
/ leys of death against Jerusalem. Our last
( look! FareN ell, Mount Zion, Mount
Moriah, Mount of Olives, Mount Calvary
/ VIII we never see them againS Never.
! The world is so large and time is so short,
and there are so many things we have never
seen at all that we cannot afford to duplicate
4 visits or see anything more than once. Fare
well, yonder thrones of gray rock, and the
three Thousand years OF architecture and
battlefields. Farewell, sacred, sanguinary,
triumphant, Inundated Jerusalem! Across
| this valley of the kedrou with my right
hand throw thee a kiss of valedictory. Our
last look, like our first looS, an agitation OF
/ body, mind and soul indescribable
! And now, ike Ezekiel in my tent l lift
/ up mine eyes the way toward the north.
/ Near here was one OF the worst tragedies Of
| the ages mentioned in tine Bible A hospitab!e
= old man coming home at eyentidc from his
work in tee fields finds two strangers, a nus
band and wife, proposing to lodge in the
street because no Shelter is offered them, and
| invites them to come and spend the night in
/ his home. During the night the ruff1ans of
the neigh6orhocd conspired together, and
surrounded the house, and left the woman
dead on the doorstep, and the husband, to
rally in revenge the twelve tribes,
cut the corpse of the woman into
twelve parts and sent twelfth of it to each
tribe. and the fury of the nation was reused,
and peremptory demand was made for the
surrender OF the assassins, and, the demand
I refused. i'll one day twenty thousand people
i we're left d al on the field and the next day
eighteen thousand. Wherever our horse TO-
day plants his foot in, nose ancient times a
! corpse lay, and the roads were crossed by red
| rivulets OF carnage.
Now we pass on to where seven youths
were put TO Death and their bodies glib
beted or hung in chains, not for anything
they had themselves done, but as a repair
alton for what their father and grand
father, Saul, had done. Burial was denied
these youths from May until November.
| Rizpab, the mother Of two of these deal
| boys appoints herself as sentinel to guard
| the seven corpses from beak of raven and
tooth OF wolf and paw of lion. She pitches
a black tent on the rock close by the
gibbsts. Rizpah by day sits on the ground
in front of her tent, and when vulture be-
H.
| its prey among the gibbets RiZpah rises, her
long hair flying in the wind, aud swinging
Der arms wildly about Shoes away the
| bird o. Trey until it retreats to its eyrie. AT
| night she rests under the shadow of her tent,
and sometimes falls into drowsiness or hall
steep. But the step of a jackal among the
dry leaves or the painting of hyena arouse:
her, and with the fury of maniac sherushe'
out upon the rock crying, Away Away ?
and thep. examining the gibbets TO see that
they still keep their burden, returns again tC
her tent till some swooping wing from th'
midnight sky or some growing monster OF
the rock again wakes her.
A mother watching her dead children
through Nay, June, July, August, Septem
Der and October! What vigil Painter
have tried to put upon canvas the scene anC
they succeeded in sketching the hawks in tn
sky and the penthers crawling out from tn
/ jungle, b1t they fail to give the wanness
! The earnestness the supernatural courage
| the infinite self sacrifice of Rizpah, the
mother. Amother in the quiet home watch
| ing by the casllet of dead child for one
! night exerts the artist to his utmost, but who
is sufficient to put upon canvas a mother for
six months of mi nights guarding her whole
| family, dead aud gibbeted upon the mount
aims?
Go home. Rizpah You must I've awfully
tired. You are sacrificing your reason and
! your life for those whom you can never
| bring back again TO your bosom. As l say
| that from the darkest midnight of the cen
| fury Rizpah turns upon me and cries. How
care you tell me to go homer l am a moth
! er l am not tired You might as well ex
| poet Col to get tired as for a mother to ge
tired. | cared fer those bows when they LAY
on my breast in infancy, anil will not for
sake them nov that they are deal. Inter.
\ fupt me not. There stoops an eagle that
! must drive back with my aronizei cry.
| There is panther l must beat back with m
Cub"
1 Do you know what that scene bv our road.
! side in Palestine makes me think of? 1t is no
/ unusual scene. Right here in these three
| cities by the American ssacoast there are
J thousand cases this moment worse than that
1 Mothers watching hoys that the rum saloon,
that annex of hell, has gibbeted in a living
| death. Boys hung in chains of evil habit
! they cannot break The father may go to
! Sleep after waiting until u o'clock at night
| for the ruined boy to come home. and. giving
! it up, he may say; Mother, come to bed;
| there's no use sitting up anv longer" But
mother will not go to bed. Its o'clock in the
morning. 1t is half-psst L. 1t is o'clock.
| 1t is half-past ? when he comes staggering
through the hall.
Do you say that young man is vet alive?
| No; he is dead. Dead to his fathers en-
! treaties. Dead TO his mothers prayers Dead
! to the family altar where he was reared.