Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-11-22
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.


I
TEXT. "Forasmuch as thou knouest hou
fre dfe to encdnip in the wilderness. Mum.
Z, 81.
/ Night after night we have slept in tent in
Palestine There are large villages of Bedou-
ms 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 in 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 a soporific to make him
4 sleep saundly, that being the effect of such
/ nutrition. as modern travellers can testify
me Syrian army in a tent. The ancient
battle shout was $50 your tents, o Israelm
raul was t1rt maker. Indeed, Isaiah, mag
nificentiy poetic, indicates that all the human
race live under blue tent when he says God
''stretcheth out the heavens as curtain and
kpreadeth them cut as tent to dwell in, "and
Hezekiah compares death to the striking of a
tent, saying, My age is removed from me
as ashepherd's tent"
In orr tent in Palestine tonight hear
something | never heard before and hope
! never 10 hear again. It is the voice of a
hyena amid the rocks near By. When you
may have seen this monster putting his
month between the iron bars of a menareris
he is captive, and he gives Inundated
and suppressed cry. But yonder in the mid
night on throne of rocks he has nothing to
I lear, anu be utters himself in loud, re-
sounding, terrific, almost supernatural
sound, splitting 10 the darkness into a
deeper midnight. 1t begins with howl and
ends with sound something like horses
/ winning. 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
me Mons that once were common all through
tins iant, ami used by all the prophets for
Illustrations of cruelty and wrath have re-
treated before the discharges of gunpowder
OF which they have an indescrihable fear But
for the most part Palestine is what it origi-
naliy 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 Ii
berias to Damascus, that enc nerve of civil
cation, the Geographic wire tor we found
ourselves only few minutes off from Brook
lyn and New York while standing by Lake
Galileel, with that one exception Palestine
Is 1ust as 1t always was.
Nothing surprised me so much as the per-
sisfence OF everything. A sheep OF 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, co1;tending for largest morsels of the
extinct quaGIuped. All, now understand
the force of Christs illustration when He
said: "Vheresoever the carcass is there will
II he cat he
evlty OF those eagles is wonderful. They
/ HFehIty and sixty and sometimes hundred
years. Alb, that explains what David meant
when he said: THY youth is renewed like the
eagles" saw shepherd with the folds of
his ecat far lent outward, and i wondered
! what was contained in that amplitude of ap-
parel, and l said to the dragoman: What
tas that shepherd got under his coat?" And
tie dFaeomen said: ut is very young lamb
/ re is carrying; it is too Young and too weak
and toe cold to keep up with the fock.n At
tfat moment l saw the lamb put its head out
from the shepherds bosom aud said: There
ltlsnoU. lsGlah's description of the tender
ness of God-he shall gather the lambs with
his arm aEd carry them in his bosom"
Passing by village home, in the Holy
Lend, about noon l saw great crowd in
and around private house, and said to the
CraGoman: David. what is going ON there?"
he said: Somebody has recently died there,
,
after to sit down and weep with the be-
roaved" There it is, / said, the old scrip
tural custom, And many of the Jews came
to Martha and Mary, to comfort them con-
corning thsir brother" Early in the morn
ing passing by cemetery in the Holy Land
saw among the graves about fifty women
dressed in black, and they were crying: 'Oh,
my child" sob, my husbandr' "Oh, my
fathern ''0h, my mother!' Our dragoman
told us that every morning, very early for
three mornings ter burial, the women go
! TO the sepulche~, and after that every week
very carly Ter year. As | saw this group
just after daybreak said: 'rhere it is again,
the same old custom re erred to in Luke, the
evangelist, where he says, Certain women
Which were early in the sepulcher.'p
But here VIC found ourselves at Jacobs
well, the most famous well in history, most
cisting uished for two things, because it be-
longed to the old patriarch after whom it
4 was named, and for the wonderful things
/ winch Christ said, seated IN this well curb,
( to the Samaritan woman. We dismount
( from our horses in a drizzling rain, and our
/ dragoman, climbing up to the well over
/ tie slippery stones, stumbles and fright
ems us all by nearly falling into it, meas
/ ured the well at the top and found it six feet
IRON edge to edge. Some grass and weeds
and thorny growths oyerhang 1t. In one
/ place the rCofis 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, the well was
hundred and sixty-five feet deep, now it is
only seventy-fve So great is the curiosity
| Of the world TO know about that well that
I curing the dry season Captain Anderson
descended into this well, at one place the
sides so close he had to put his hands over his
head in order TO get through, end then he
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 a
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 e 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 a well perhaps two hundred feet deep
es first completed, when, by going little
way off, he could have water from other
fountains at little or no expense? Alb Jacob
was wise. He wanted his own we'll Quarrals
and wars might arise with other tribes and
the supply Of water might be cut of, so the
sloNels and pickaxes and boring instruments
were orIered, and the well Of nearly -four
thousand years ago was sunk through the
solid rock
hen Jacob thus wisely insisted on having
his own well he taught us not to he unneces-
sarily dependent on others. Independence
OF business character, Independence of moral
character, Independence of religious char.
aeter. Have your own well of grace, your
own well of courage, your own well of divine
! supply. Ii You are an invalid you have a
right to be dependent on Others But il Goo
has given you good health, common sense
and two eyes and two ears and two hands
ana two feet, He equipped you for independ.
ence oil all the universe except Himself. IL
! He had meant you to be dependent on others
| you would have been built with a cord
around your waist to tie fast to somebody
vfss. NO, you are built with common sense
10 fashion your own opinions, with ewes to
md your own way. with ears to select your
own music. with hands to fight your own
battles There is only one being in the uni
verse whose advice you need and that is God.
Have your own well and the Lord will fill it.
Dig 1T it need be through two hundred feet
Of solid rock. Dig it with your pen, or dig
1t with your yard stick, or dig it with your
shovel or dig it with YOUR Bible
In my small way | never accomplished
anythin- for God or the church, or the world
( OF my family, or myself, except in contradic-
] ton to human advice and in obedience to
| divine counsel. God knows everything, and
1 what is the use Of going for advice to human
! beings who know 50 little that no one but the
/ all seeing God can realize how little it iss |
4 suppose that when Jacob began to dig this
| we'll on which wa are sitting this nOontida