The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1890-10-31
FRIGHTFuL WARNINGS.
DIR. Talmage Continues His DIS
courses on Palestine.
His Visit to the Dead sea-rhs Warning
Taught by tho Destruction of sodom
and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OF
the Jordan.

Psalm civ. 81: s.He toucheth the hills
and they smoke" He said:
David, the poet here pictures vol
eano aHd what Church's Cotopaxi does
on painters canvas this author does in
words. You see a hill. calm and still.
ind for ages immovable, but the Lord
out of the heavens puts His finger on
the top of it and from it rise thick
vapors. intershot with Ere. He touch
eth the hills and they SMOKE
God is the only being who can man
age a volcano. and again and again has
he employed volcanic action The
pictures on the walls OF Pompeii, the
exhumed italian city, as We saw them
last November, demonstrate that the
city was not fit to live. In the first
century tina. city. engirdled with pal
aces, empsrad sed with gardens piliared
into architectural exquisiteness, was at
the foot of mountain up the sides of
which it ran with vineyards and villas
of merchant princes, and all that mar
BILE. and bronze. and imperial baths,
and arboriculture, and rafnbowed
fountains, and a coliseum at the dedica-
tion OF VIII CHI 5000 beasts had been
slain, and supernal landscape in which
IL 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 to be seen or heard.
But the bad morals of the city had
y
August 4. b ack column rose above
the adjoining mountain and spread out.
Pljny says, he saw it, like q great
pine tree, wider and wider, until it be-
gan to ran upon the city, first thin
ashes and then pumice stone, and sui
phurous fumes scoopcd and streams of
mud poured through the streets till few
people escaped and the city was buried.
and some of the Inhabitants l, 500 years
after found embalmed i'm the
scorie of that awful doom
The Lord called upon vo'canic forces
to obliterate that profigate city. He
touched the hills and they smoked
Nothing but volcanic action can explain
=. what 1 shall show you at the Dead Sea
upon which 1 looked last Decembe and
: of whose waters L TOOK a bitter and
singing taste. Concerning all that
region there has been u controversy
enough to fill libraries, science saying
one thing. revelation saying another
tin ng. But admit volcanic action di-
Vinely employed and both testimonials
are ono and the same. Geology, chem
istry, geography, astronomy, ichthyoi-
ogy. or anthology and zoology, are COM
ing one by one 60 confirm the Scrip
lures. Two leaves of one book are rev.
citation and creation and the penman-
ship is by the same divine hand. Our
horseback ride will not be SO steep to-
day and you can stay without cling
ing to tho pommel of the saddle, but
the scenes amid which we ride shall, If
possible. be more thrilling and by the
time the horses snuff the sulphurous at
mosphere of Lake Asphaltities or the
Dead Sea we will be ready to dismount
and read from our Bibles about what
was done that day by the Lord when
lie touched the hills and they smoked
Take detour and pass along by the
rocky fortress of Masada where occurred
desperation than you have ever heard
of. unless you have heard of that Herod
built palace amid the heaps of black
and awful rocks which Look like a
tumbled midnight A great band of
robbers, about one thousand including
their families, afterward held the fort
ress- When the Roman army stormed
that steep and the bandits could no
longer hold tho place, their chieftain,
Eleazar. made powerful speech which
persuaded them to die before they were
captured. First the men kissed their
families a loving and fearful goodbye
and then put dagger into their hearts
and the women and children were slain.
Then ten men were chosen by lot to
slay all the other men, and each man
lay down by the dead wife and children
and waited for these executioners to do
their work. This done, one man of the
ten killed the other nine, Then the
5aTNANOE COumAttSQ WO
women and five children had hid them
selves and after all was over came forth
to tell of tho 900 slaughtered.
Great and rugged natural scenery
makes the most tremendous natures for
good or OWL Great statesmen and great
robbers, great orators and great butch
ers. were nearly all born or reared
among mountain precipices- Strong
natures are hardly ever born upon the
plain. When men have any thing
greatly good or greatly evil to do they
come down off the rocks.
Pass on from under the shadow OF
Masada, the scene of the concentrated
: salt crystals crackle under the horses
hoofs. You are near tho most God-for-
saken region of all tho earth. You to
whom tho word lake has heretofore sug-
gested those bewitchments of beauty,
Luzerne or Cayuga, some great pearl set
by a loving God in the bosom OF the
luxuriant alley, change ali your ideas
about a lake and see this sheet of water
which the Bible calls the Salt Sea, or
Sea of the Plain, and Josepus calls Lake
Asphaltites Tho muleteers will take
care of the horses while we get down to
the brink and dip up the liquid mixture
in the palm of the hand The
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 26A per cont Lake Sir-i-kol oil
India is the highest lake in the world
This lake, on the bank of which we
knesl, is the lowest lake. 1t empties
into no sea, among other things. for the
simple reason that water can not run UT
hill. 1t swallows up the river Jordan
and makes no response of thanks, and
snsver reports what it does with the
twenty million cubic feet of water an
nnaliy received from that sacred river.
1t takes the tree branches and logs
eoated into it by the J ordan and pitches
them on the banks of b tumen to decay
there.
The hot springs near Its banks by the
name of Callirhoe, where King Herod
came to battle off his illnesses. no sooner
: pour into this sea than they are poi
soned. Not q fish scale swims it Not
an insect walks it 1t hates life, and ii
you attempt to swim there it lifts YOU
by an unnatural buoyancy to the sur
face, as much as to say: 1--WE want no
L. i IL.