Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-10-04
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
subject. "My First Day In Palestine."

udy OoIWUu.
subject. "My First Day in Palestine"
DIR. Talmage has begun a series Of sermons
on his recent trip TO the Holy Land. The
following is the first sermon of the series:
TEXT: "The half aras not told mel
Kings x.,7.
This is the first sermon in a course of Sab
bath morning sermons on My Recent Jour
ney Through the Holy Lanj and Neighbour
ing Countries: What | Saw and What
Learned" Out of the sixty-four millions of
our present American population and the
millions of our past only about five thousand
have ever visited the Holy Land. OF all
those who cross to Europe less than five per
cent. ever get as far as Rome and less than
two per cent. ever get to Athens, and less
than quarter of one per cent. ever get TO
Palestine. OF the less than quarter of one
per cent. who do go to the Holy Land some
see nothing but the noxious insects and the
filth of the Oriental cities, and come back
wishing they had never gone. OF those who
see much of interest and come home only
small portion can tell what they have seen,
the tongue unable to report the eye.
The rarity of successful, intelligent and
happy journey through the Holy Land is
very marked. But the time approaches when
journey to Palestine will be common.
Thousands will go where now there are
scores. Two locomotives were recently sent
up from Joppa TO Jerusalem, and railroads
are about to begin in Palestine, and the day
Will come when the cry will be, "All out for
Jerusalemw Twenty minutes for break
fast at Tiberiasr Change cars for Tyrem
Grand Trunk Junction for Ninevah!' "All
out for Damascusm Meanwhile the wet locks
OF the Atlantic Ocean and Adriatic and Medi-
terranean Seas are being shorn. and not only
is the voyage shortened, but after a while,
without crossing the ocean, you OF your chill
dren will visit the Holy Land. A company
of capitalists have gone up to Behrlng
Straits, where the American and Asiatic
continents come within thirty-six miles OF
meeting.
These capitalists or others will build
bridge across these straits, for midway are
three islands called 1.-THE Diomedes" and
the water is not deep and is never disturbed
with icebergs. Trains of cars will run from
America across that bridge and on down
through Siberia, bringing under more i'm
mediate observation the Russian outrages
against exiles and consequently abolishing
them; and there are persons here to-day,
who without one quam of sea-sckness, will
visit that wonderful land where the Christ
like, Abrahatnic, Mosaic, Davidic, Solo
monte and Herodic histories overlap each
other with such power that by the time 1
took my feet out of the stirrups at the close
of the journey felt so wrung out with emo
ton that it seemed nothing else could ever
absorb my feelings again.
The chief hindrance for going to Palestine
with many is the dreadful sea, and though |
have crossed it ten times it is more dreadful
every time, and fully sympataze with what
was said one night when Mr.. Beecher and |
went over to speak in New York at the an
niversary of the Seamens Friend Society,
nd plar ha
prayer quoted from st. John, There shall
be no more sea, and Mr.. Beecher, seated be
side me, in memory of a recent ocean voyage
said, amen; am glad of that" By the
partial abolition of the Atlantic Ocean and
the putting down of rail- tracks across every
country in all the world, the most sacred
land on earth will come under the obServa-
ton OF SO many people who will be ready to
tell of what they saw that infidelity will be
pronounced only another form of insanity,
for no honest man can visit the Holy Land
and remain an intdel.
This Bible from which Ipreach has almost
fallen apart, for | read from it the most of
the events in it recorded on the very places
where they occurred. And some of the
leaves got wet as the waves dashed over our
boat on Lake Galilee, and the book was
jost!ed in the saddle bags for many weeks,
but it is a new book to me, newer than any
book that yesterday came out OF any of our
4
heard of Palestine, and had read about it,
and talked about it, and preached about it,
and sung about it, and dreamed about it,
and prayed about it, until my anticipatons
were piled up into something like Himalayan
proportions, and yet have to cry out, as
did the Queen of Sheha when she first visited
the Holy Land THE half was not told
me-"
| In order to make the more accurate and
vivid book | have been writing, a life of
! Christ, entitled From Manager to Throne,
left home last October, and ON the last night
of November we were walking the decks of
the Senegal, a Mediterranean steamer. 1t
was ship of immense proportions. There
were but few passengers for it is generally
rough at that time of year, and pleasurists
are not apt to be voyagers there and then.
The stars were all out that night. Those ar
mics of light seemed to have had their shields
newly FURNISHED. We walked the polished
deck. Not much was said, for in all our
hearts was the dominant word tomorrow. y
Somehow the Acropois, which a few days
before had thrilled US at Athens, now in our
minds lessened in the Insight of its columns
and the glory of its temples And the Egyp-
tan pyramids in our memory lessened their
wonders of obsolete masonry, and the Coils
cum of Rome was not so vast ruin as it a
few weeks before had seemed to be.
And all that we had seen and heard
dwindled in Importance, for tomorrow, to-
morrow We shall see the Holy Land. 'Cap-
tain what time will we come in sight of
Palestine" 'Well," he said, 'if the wind
and sea remain as they are, about daybreak."
Never was | so impatient for a night to
pass. l could not see much use for that
night anyhow. I pulled aside the curtain
from the portfolio of my stateroom, so that
the first hint of dawn would waken me. But
it was a useless precaution. Sleep was
among the impossibilities. Who could be so
stupid as to sumber when any moment there
might start out within sight of the ship the
land where the most stupendous scenes of all
time and all eternity were enacted-land of
ruin and redemption, land where was fought
the battle that made our heaven possible,
land of Godfrey and Saladm, Of Joshua and
Jesus?
viii the night ever be gone? Yes, it is
growing lighter, and along the horizon there
is something like bank of Clouds and as a
Waterman PAGES the deck | say to him,
''What is that out yonder?" THAT is land.
sir" said the sailor. THE land' 1 cried, and
soon all our friends were aroused from sleep
and the shore began more clearly to reveal
itself. With roar and rattle and bang the
anchor dropped in the roadstead a half mile
from land. for though Joppa is the only har-
Dor of Palestine it is the worst harbor on all
the coasts. Sometimes for weeks no ships
stop there. Between rocks about seventy
uVe IeSb apart q Siuail DOaU must Jake Jne
passengers ashore. The depths are strewn
with the skeletons of those who have at
tempted to land or attempted to embark.
Twenty-seven pilgrims persisted with one
crash of boat against the rocks. Whole
fleets of Crusaders of Romans, of Syrians,
of Egyptians have gone to splinters there. A
writer eight hundred years ago said he stood
on the beach in a storm at Joppa, and out of
tnlrty ships all but seven went to pieces on
RL-S 40 4 49,
washed ashore.
Strange that with a few blasts of powder
IKE that which shattered our American He'll
tate those rocks have not been urrooted and
the way cleared. so that great ships instead
OF anchoring far out from land, might sweep
Lpto the wharf for passengers and freight.
But you must remember that land is under
tne TURK, and what the Turk touches he
wlthers. Mohammedanism is against EASY
wharveS, against steamers. against rail
trains, against printing presses, against CIV
nlzatlon. Darkness is always opposed to
lght. The owl hates the morn leave
thoSe rocks where they are practically cries
the IuF&lSh Government; I'VE want no peo-
pie of other religions and other habits to
Ian there; if the salt seas wash over them let
1t be warning TO other invaders:away with
your nineteenth century, with its free
Thought and its modern inventions" That
turkish Government ought to be blotted
from the face of the earth and it will be.
VI many of the inhabitants Of Palestine
asked th5 question, HAS the Sultan of Tur-
key ever been here;" Answer, No" why
don't he come, when it belongs to his do
mlnlong And, after the man interrogated
looked this way and that, so as to know he
would not be reported, the answer would in
Varlably be- He dare not come" believed
1t. IL the Sultan of Turkey ATTEMPTED to
visit Jerusalem he would never get back