Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1890-10-31
"HILLS THAT SMOKE"
TALMAGE'S SERMON ON jordan
AND THE DEAD SEA.

lttVcr OF DeaLn.
BROOKLYN Oct. 26.r-Dr. Talmage preach
ID the fifth sermon of the series on his tour
In the Holy Land in the Academy Of Music
In this city this morning. This evening at
the service In the Academy of Music, New
York, the sermon was repeated before an
audience which filed the vast building in
every part. DR.. Talmage announced as his
text, Psalm 104 32: ale toucheth the hills
ana they smoke" lie said:
David, the poet, here pictures volcano
and what Church's CotopdM does on pa mt
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 IL and from IL
rise thick vapors, intershot with tire. "He
toucheth the hills and they smoke"
God is the only being who can manage a
valcano and again and again has he employ
ed volcanic action. The pictures ON the
walls OF lompei, the eXhumed Italian city,
as we saw them last November, demonstrate
that the city was not lit To live. In the first
century, that city, engirdled with palaces,
emparadiscd with gardens, pillared into
architectural eXQuisiteness, was at the foot
OF mountain up the sides of which IL ran
with whey ards and villas of merchant
princes, and all that marble and bronze
and imperial baths and arboriculture, and
rainbowed fountains, and 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
that beauty, and pomp, and wealth could
give was there 10 be seen or heard. But the
bad morals Of the city had shocked the
world. In the year 20, on the 9Th of August,
black column rose above the ad dining
mountain, and spread out, Pllny says, "a he
Nsrfsl III
wider, until IL began TO rain upon the city,
first thin ashes and then pumice stone. and
sulphrus fumes scOOp0d. and streams of mud
poured through the streets till few pc pie
escaped and the city was buried, and some
OF the inhabitants eighteen hundred years
after were found embalmed in the scorin OF
that awful doom. The Lord called upon
volcanic forces u obliterate that proiligate
city. lie 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 took a bitter and singing taste.
Concerning all that region there has been
controversy enough TO fill Libraries. science
saying one thing, revelation saying another
thing. But admit volcanic action divinely
employed and both ties, imOn es are one and
the same. Geology, chemistry, geography,
astronomy, ichthyolOgy, ornitho ogy 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 be so steep today and
you can stay on without Cllnging TO the
pommel OF the saddle, but the scenes amid
which we ride shall, IL possible, be more
thrilling and by the I me the horses snuff
the sulphurous atm sphere OF Lake Asphalt
tites, or the Dead sea, we Will be ready to
dismount and read from our Bibles a out
what was done by the Lord when He touch
ed the hills and they smoked.
Take a detour and pass along by the
rocky fortress CT MaSada where occurred
something IN re wonderful in the way OF
desperation than you have ever heard of,
unless you have heard OF that. Eerod built
n paiace amid these heaps OF black and aw-
full rocks which look like tuI,bled mid
night. 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 powerful speech which
persuaded them to die before they were cap
tured. First the men kissed their families
a loving and fearful goodbye and then put
dagger inio their hearts and the women
and children were slain. hen ten men
were chosen by lot TO Stay all the other
men, and each man lay down by the dead
wife and children and waited for these exc
cutioners 10 do their work. This done one
man of the ten killed the other nine
Then the survivor committed sui
eide Two women and five children had hid
themselves and after all was over came
forth to tell q the nine hundred and sixty
slaughtered. Great and rugged nat
ural scenery makes the most tremend-
Gus natures for good or evil. Great states
men and great robbers, great orators aid
great butchers, were nearly all born or
reared among mountain preclpices. Strong
natures are hardly ever born upon the plain
When men have anything greatly good or
greatly evil to do, they come down off the
rocks.
Pass on 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 tewit.hmenss of beauty,
LuZerne or Cayuga, some great pearl set by
a loving God la the bosom OF the luXuriant
valley, change all your ideas about lake,
and see tins sheet OF water which the Bible
calls the Salt Sea, or Sea OF the Plain, and
JOsephus calls Lake Asphaltites. The mule
teers Will take care of the horses while we
get down TO the brink and din up the
| liquid mixture In the palm Of the hand. The
waters arc IA commingllng OF birthstone 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 n quar;er per cent
Lake Sir-i-kol of India is tho 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. 1t swallows up the river Jordan
and makes no response OF thanks, and new
er reports what is does with the twenty
million cubic feeto water annually receiv-
cd from that sacred river. 1t takes the tree
branches and logs foated into IL by the Jor-
dan and pitches them on the banks Of btu
men to decay there.
| The hot springs near It's banks By the
name of Callirhoe, whore King Herod came
to battle of his Illness, no sooner pour into
this sea than they are poisoned. Not n
| fsh-scale swims IL. Not an insect walks
IL. IL hates life, and II you attempt to
swim there IL lifts you by an unnatural
buoyancy to the surface, as much as to say I:
1--WE want no life here. but death Is our
preference, death" Those who attempt to
wade into this lake and submerge them
selves, come out almost maddened, as with
the sting OF "A hundred wasps and hornets,
and with lips and eyelids swollen with the
strange ablution. The sparkle of its waters
| Is. not like the sparkle OF beauty on other
lakes, but a metallic lustre like unto the
flash OF a sword that would thrust you.
The gazelles and the ibexes that live on
the hills beside IL, and the cranes and wild
ducks that fly across--for. contrary TO the
the old belief, birds do safely wing their