The Brookhaven leader., 1890-12-11
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Tenth Discourse Of the Series
on the Holy Land.
A Day on the Blue waters of Historic
Galilee-The Scene OF Great Con-
fiicts and Of Interesting
Scripture Narrative.

IN brooklyn ana NEW nOrk City, taxing
for his text:
He entered into a ship, and sat in the sea;
and the whole multitude was by the sea on
the Landmark iv, l.
1t is Monday morning in our Pales-
tine experience, and the sky is blue
Galilee above, as in the boat we sail
the blue Galilee beneath. 1t is thir-
teen miles long and six miles wide, but
the atmosphere is so clear 1t seems as
II l could cast o stone from beach to
beach. The lake looks as though it had
been let down on silver pulleys from the
heavens and were section of the sea
of glass that st. John describes as o
part Of the celestial landscape. Lake
Galilee is a depression of six hundred
feet in which the river Jordan widens
and tarrias a little, for the river Jordan
comes in at its north side and departs
from its south side, so this river has It's
cradle and its grave. Its white satin
cradle is among the SHOWS Of Mount
Hermon, where the jordan starts,
and its sepulcher is the Dead Sea,
into which the Jordan empties. Lake
Como, of Italy, Lake Geneva, OF Swift
erland, Lake Lomond, of Scotland, Lake
Winnepesaukee, of America, are larger,
but Lake Galilee is the greatest dia-
mond that ever dropped from the finger
of the clouds, and, whether encamped on
its banks as we were yesterday, and wor-
Shipping at its crystal affairs, or wading
into its waves, which make an ordinary
bath solemn as a baptism, or now put
ting out upon its sparkling surface in
boat it is something to talk about and
pray about, and sing about until the
lips with which we now describe it can
neither talk, nor pray, nor sing.
We put our overcoats and shawls on a
small deck in the stern of the boat, the
very kind of deck where Christ lay
on fshermen's coat when of old
a tempest bounced upon the fishing
smask of the affrighted disciples. Os-
preys and wild duck and king-fshers
fly overhead or dip their wings into the
lake, installing it for fragment of fall
len sky. Can it be that those Bible
stories about sudden storms on this lake
are true? Is it possible that sea of
such seeming placidly of temper could
ever rise and rage at the heavens? 1t
does not seem as if this happy family
elements could have ever had falling
out, and the water strike at the clouds
and the clouds strike at the water.
Pull away, oarsmen! On our right
bank are the hot sulphur baths, so hot
they are scalding, and the waters cool
off long while before hand or foot can
endure their temperature. Volcanoes
have been boiling these waters for
centuries Four springs roll their re-
sources into two great swimming reser-
voirs. King Herod there tried to battle
off the results of his excuses, and
Pliny and Josephus describe the
squirting out of these volcanic
heats, and Joshua and Moses
knew about them, and this mo-
ment long lines of pilgrims from all
parts of the earth are waiting for their
turn to step into the steaming restor-
atives. Let the boat as far as posi-
BILE, and not run aground, hug the west
ern shore of the lake that we may see
the City Of Tiberias, once great capt.
tai of the architecture of which few
mosaics, and fallen pillars and pedes-
tails and here and there a broken and
shattered friezeremain, nightly sug-
gestive of the time when Herod Antipas
had palace here and reigned with an
opulence, and pomp, and cruelty, and
abomination that paralyzes the fingers
of the historian when he comes to write
it. and the fingers of the painter when
he attempts to transfer it to canvas. /
suppose he was one of the worst men
that ever lived. And what a contrast
of character comes at every moment
to the thoughtful traveller in Palestine,
whether he walks the beach of this
lake or sails as we now do these waters!
Side ty side are the two great char
acters of this lake region, Jesus and
Herod Antipas. And did any age pro-
duce any such antipodes, any such
antitheses, any such opposites? Kind
ness and cruelty, holiness and filth,
generosity and meanness, self-sacrifice
and selfshness, the supernal and the
internal, midnoon and midnight The
father of this Herod Antipas was a
genius at assassination. He could man
ufacture more reasons for putting peo-
pie out of this life than any man in all
history. He sends for Hyrcanus
lem to be made high priest and Stays
him. He has his brother-in-law, while
in bathing with him, drowned by the
Kings attendants. He Stays his wife
and his wife's mother, and two of his
sons and his uncle, and filled a volume
of atrocities, the last chapter of which
was the massacre of all the babes at
Bethlehem. With such father as
Herod the Great you are not surprised
that this Herod Antipas, whose palace
stood on the banks of this lake we now
sail, was combination of wolf, reptile
and hyena.
While the Christ who walked yonder
banks and sailed these waters was so
good that almost every rood of this
scenery is associated with some wise
word or some kindly deed, and all lit
erature, and all art and all earth, and
all Heaven are put to the utmost eff
fort in trying to express how grand and
glorious and lovely He was, and is, and
is to be. The Christly and Herodic
characters, as different as the two lakes
we visit and not far apart Galilee and
the Dead Sea; the one fiower-banked
and the other bituminous and blasted;
the one lowered over by the mercy of
Christ, the other blasted by the wrath
of God; the one full of tinny tribes
sporting in the clear depths. the
other forever lifeless; the waters of the
one sweet and pleasant to the taste, the