Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-12-06
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
subject, "on Lake Galilee..


tits Monday morning in our Palestine ex-
periences. and the sky is a blue Galilee above,
as in the boat we sail the blue Galilee be-
meath. 1t is thirteen miles long and six miles
wide. but the atmosphere is so clear it seems
as il could cast 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 tdat St.
John describes as part of the celestial land
scape. Lake Gali!ee is depression of six
| hundred feet in which the river Jordan
widens and tarries little, for the river Jor-
dan comes in at its north side and departs
from its south side; so this lake has its cradle
and its grave
Its white satin cradle is among the SHOWS
of Mount Hermon where the Jordan starts,
and its sepulchre is the Dead Sea into which
the Jordan empties Lake Como of Italy,
Lake Geneva of Switzerland Lake Lomond
OF Scotland, Lake Winnipssaukee of America
are larger, but Lake Galilee is the greatest
diamond that ever dropped from the finger
| of the clouds, and whether encamped on its
banks IS we were Yesterday and worship
ing at It's crystal affairs OF wading into its
waves, which make an ordinary bath solemn
as baptism, or now putting out upon its
| sparkling surface in boat it is something
to talk about and fray about and sing ABOUT
1 until the lips with which we now describe
| II can neither talk nor pray nor sing
| As sometimes beautiful child in a neigh
| borhood has half dozen pet names, and some
of the neighbors call her by one name and
| others by another, so this pet lake of the
planet has profusion of names. Ask the
| Arab as he goes by what this sheet of water
is, and he will call it rabariveh. ASK Moses
of the Old Testament, and he calls it Sea of
| Chinnereth. Ask Matthew, and he calls it
Sea of Galilee Ask Luke, and he calls it Sea
| of Gennesaret. Ask John, and he calls it Sea
| of Tiberias. Ask Josephus and Eusebius,
and they have other names ready. But to me
1t appears child of the sky, star of the
| hills, rhapsody Of the mountains, the bap-
tismal bowl of the worlds temple, the smile
! of the great God. Many kinds of fish are
| found in these waters, every kind of tree upon
its bank, from those that grow in the torrid
zone to those in the irigid, from the plain to
| the cedar
OF the two hundred and thirty war ships
| Josephus man9yred on these waters-for
Josephus was warrior as well as historian
there remains not one piece of hulk, or
( one patch OF canvas, on one splinter of an
/ oar. But to return to America we neyeF
| will until we have had sail con this inland
sea. Not from wharf. but from a beach
covered with biac1 and white pebbles, we go
on board boat of about ten on twelve tons,
to be propelled partly by sail and partly by
/ oar. The mast leans so far forward that 1t
seems about to fall, but we find it was pur-
| posely so built, and the rope through pulley
| manages to hoist and let down the sail IL is
rough boat, and as far as possible removed
! from Venetian gondola or a sportsman's
yacht. With common saw and hammer
and ak many of you couli make better one
-Four barefooted Arabs, instead of sitting
downto their oars stand, as they always do
in rowing, and pull away from shore. / in
/ sist on helping, for there suoshing more ex-
/ hilarating to me than rowing but | soon
have enough OF the clumsy oars am | The awl.-
wari attempt at welding them while in
standing posture.
We put our overco5ts anil shaw's on
small deck in the sierra OF thu boat, the very
kind OF a deck where Christ lay on fisher
mans coat when OF old tempest poun ed
upon the fishing smack Of the affrighted dis
| clpieS. Ospreys and wild ducks and king
fishers fly overhead 0: dip their wings into
the lake, mistaklng it for a fragment of
fallen sky Can it be that those Bible stories
about sudden storms on this lake are true?
! Is u possible that sea OF such seeming
| pacidity OF temper could ever rise and IA re
at the heavenss 1t does not sesm as if this
happy family OF elements could have ever
had falling out, and the water strike at the
Clouds and e clouds strike at the water.
Pull away, oarsmenl On cur right bank
are the hot sulphur baths, so hot they are
scaling, and the waters must cool off long
"hhO DCiOit manu- IOOI can endure tnelr
temperature. Volcanoes have been boiling
these waters for centuries. -Four springs
roll Their resources into two great swimming
reservoirs. King Herod here tried to battle
| off the results of his excuses, and Piiny and
! Josephus describe the sptrtings out of these
/ volcanic heats and Joshua and Moses knew
/ about them, and this moment long lines OF
/ pilgrims from all parts of the earth are
waiting for their turn TO step into the
! SteaminC restoratiyeS
| Let the boat, as far as possible and not run
aground, hug the western shore of the lake
that we may see the city of Tiberias, once a
| great capital, of the architecture of which a
few mosacs and fallen pillars and pedestals
| and here and there broken and Shattere I
frieze remain, nightly suggestive of the
time when Heroi Antipss had palace here
and reign I'd with an opuence and pomp and
! cruelty and abonlnation that paralyZes the
fingers OF the historian when he comes to
write it aud the fling rs of the painter when
he attempts 10 transfer it to canvas sup
pose 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 tn s lake or sails as we now 90 these
waters
Side Ly side are the two great characters
! of this lake region, Jesus and Herod An
/ tipas And did any age produce any such
antlpotes, any such antitheses, any such
/ Cpposites: Kindness aud cruelty, holiness
/ and fifth, generosity and maanuess, self
sacrifice and seldshness the supernal and the
internal, midnoon and midnight. The fataer
OF this Herod Antipas was genius at assas-
| slnation. He could manufacture .-iore rea.
sons for putting people out of this life than
any man in all history. He sends for
/ Hyrcanus to come from Babylon to Jeru-
| salem TO Ue made hign priest and slays him
/ oqc lao 10 r.,iIa
with him drowned by the kings tendants
( He stays his wife and his wife's mother and
/ two OF his sons and his uncle and filed a
/ volume of atrocities, the last chapter of
| which was the massacre of all the babies at
! Bethlehem.
| With such father as Herod the Great you
are not surprised that this Herod Antipas
whose palace stool on the banks of this lake
[ We now sail wasa combination of wolf, rep
tile 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 literature and ali art
/ and all earth and all heaven are put to the
/ utmost effort in trying to express how grand
and glorious ami 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
| flower banked and the other bituminons and
/ blasted: the one lowered over by the mercy of
! Christ, the other blasted by the wrath OF
God: the ore full of fnny tribes sporting in
the clear depths, the other forever hfeless,
the waters of the one sweet and pleasant &c
! the taste the other bitter and sharp and
disgusting. Awful Dead Sea! Glorious
| Gennesaret
| We will not attempt to cross the eastern
| side of this lake, as had thought to do, for
! those reg .ons are inhabited by theving and
] Yfnt4-
| ly armed, and as | never shot any one and
have 10 ambition to be shot, | said; Let us
stay by the western Shore But We looa
over to the hills of Gadara, on the other side,
down which two thousand swine after being
| possessed by the devil ran into the lake, and
| bringing down on Christ for permitting it
| the wrath of all the stock raiSers of that
country because of this ruiupg of the pork
! business. Tou see tbat Satan is A sniri, ~
| bad taste. Why did heuot say: LET me on
INTO those birds, whole fiocks of which A.
! over Galileey' No: that would have haay
| 100 mgr. +" nv not let ME go into the sh "a,
winch wander over these hills~ No. that
would have been too gentle Rather LET
me go INTO these swine. l want to be with
me donlzens OF the miro. | want to associate
with the inhabitants of the filth Great is
mud! prefer hrlGt'eS to wings. | womb
rather root than fly. like snout better than
| wing" III
intidelity SCOTS at the idea that those swine
should nave ran into the lake But it was
quite natural that under the heat and hurn-
ing Oh that Genoniac possession they woald
start Tor the water to get cooled off Won,d
that all the SWINE thus possesses had plunged
TO the same drowning. for this dav the
descendants of some OF those porcine
creatures retain the demons, and as the
devils were cast out of man into them they
now atiilct the human race with the devils
OF scrotuia. that comes from eating the un-