Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1890-12-12
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "On Lake GaIiIee."

IN the sea, ana the t0hote multitude ICdS
By the sea on the land. MARK iv., l.
1t is Monday morning in our Palestine ex-
periences. and the sky is a blue Galilee above,
rs in the boat we sail the blue GafiIee be-
meath. It is thirteen miles long and six miles
wide. but the atmosphere is so clear it seems
as if could cast a 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 of glass that St.
John describes part OF the celestial land
scape. Lake Galilee is a depression of six
hundred feet in which the river Jordan
widans and tarries a 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.
It's 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 Winnipesaukee 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 as we were yesterday and worship
ing at its crystal affairs or wading into its
waves which make an ordinary bath solemn
as a baptism, Or now putting 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.
"A
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 Tabariveh. 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
it 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 frigid, from the plain to
the cedar.
OF the two hundred and thirty war ships
Josephus manRvred ON these waters-for
Josephus was warrior as we'll as historian
there remains not one piece of a hulk, or
one patch of canvas or one splinter of an
oar. But to return to America we never
will until we have had sail upon this inland
sea. Not from a wharf but from a beach
covered with black and white pebbles, we go
on board boat Of about ten or 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 find it was pur-
posely SO built, and the rope through pulley
manages to hoist and let down the sail. 1t is
a rough boat, and as far as possible removed
from Venetian gondOla or a sportsmans
yacht. With common saw and hammer
and ak many of you could make better one
Four barefooted Arabs instead of sitting
down to their oars stand, as they always do
in rowing, and pull away from shore. in
sist on helping, for there is nothing more
hilarating to me than rowing, but l soon
have enough of the clumsy oars and the awk-
ward attempt at welding them while in
standing posture.
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 fisher
mans coat when of old a tempest bounced
upon the fishing smack of the affrighted dis
ciples. Ospreys and wild ducks and king
fishers fly overhead or dip their wings into
the lake, mistaking it for a fragment of
fallen sky. Can it be that those Bible stories
about sudden storms on this lake are true?
Is it possible that sea Of such seeming
placidity of temper could ever rise and rage
at the heavens? It does not seem as if this
happy family of 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 must cool off long
while before hand or foot can endure their
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 excesses and Pliny and
| Josephus describe the spurtings 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
steaming restOratlves.
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
great capital, of the architecture of which
few mosaics Ind fallen pillars and pedestais,
and here and there a broken and shattered
frieze remain, nightly suggestive 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 sup
pose he was one Of the worst men that ever
lived. And what a contrast of character
traveller in Palestine. whether he walks the
peach or this lake or sails as we now 90 these
waters!
Side by side are the two great characters
of this lake region, Jesus and Herod An
tipas. And did any age produce any such
antipodes, any sucn antitheses, any such
opposites? Kindness and cruelty, holiness
and filth, generosity and meanness, self
sacrifice and selfishness, the supernal and the
Internal, midnoon and midnight. The father
of this Herod Antipas was genius at assas-
slnation. He could manufacture more 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 be made high priest, and Stays him.
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