Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1890-05-02
THE VOICES OF NATURE.
DIR. TALMAGE DECLARES THEM AR
TICULATE AND HARMONIOUS.
The Academy of Music Thronged to Hear
the Brooklyn Divine Preach II sermon
Appropriate to the season of the
Yenr-Isa. ia, Is the Text.

doors were opened. After the reading of an
appropriate passage of Scripture and the
singing o. the hymn, "Glory to God on High"
Dr. Tulmage announced as his text Is; TX
IS: "The glory Of Lebanon shall come unto
thee; the fir tree, the pine tree and Che box
together, to benutify Oho place Of my sanotu-
Ary" Following is his sermon in full
THE GLORY OF LEBANON.
On our way from Damascus we saw the
mountains of Lebanon white with snow and
the places from which the cedars were hewu
and then drawn by OK teams down to the
Mediterranean sea, and then Aoatcd in great
RATS to Joppa, and then again drawn by OK
teams up to Jerusalem to build Soomon's
temple. Those mighty trees III my text are
called the glory Of Lebanon luaumate
nature felt the effects of tho first transgrcs-
sion. When Eve touched the forbidden tree
it seems as if the sinful contact had snitten
not only that tree, but as if the air caught
the pollution from the leaves and as if the
sap had carried the virus down into the very
soil until the entire earth rocked with the
Ileprosy Under that sinful touch nature
withered. Tho inauiinate creation, rs if
aware Of the damage done it, sent up the
thorn and brier and ncttle to wound and
6iercely oppose the human race,
THE COMING OF THE lllITTNNIUM
Now as the physical earth felt the effects Of
the first traIslresslOn, it shall also feel the
effect Of the Saviour s1nisSiou. As from that
one tree III Paradise a blight went forth
Through the entire earth, SO from one tree on
Calvary another force saoll speed out 10 in
Representation check, subduc and override
the evil. In the end it s,al be found that
the tree Of Calvary has more potency than
the tree of Paradise. As tire nations are evan
,gelized, tbinl; a corresponding change VIII
be effected in the natural world. ! verify be-
lieve that the trees and the birds, and the
rivers, aud therskles viii lave their millenui-
UNI. If mans sin affected the ground, and
the vegetation and the atmosphere, shall
iChrists work be less,powerlul or less extern
'svei
I Doubtless God will-ta the irregularity
and fierceuess from the elements SO as to
make them congenial to the race, vet to ha
$50 symmetrical and evangelical. The ground
shall not be so lavish of weeds and $50 -rud -e-
full of grain. Soils which Row have peculiar
,procivities toward certain forms of evil pro
duction will be delivered from their beset1ing
sins. Steep mountains, plowed down into
more gradual ascent, shall b. Cirdlei with
tlocks of sheep and shocks of corn. The wet
marsh shall become thcdeep erased meadow
Cattle shall eat unframed by Governs once
play houses in what wa once cave of ser
pents; and, as the Scripture saith: 'The
weaned child shall put his hand on the cock
atrce's den"
Oh what harvests shall be reaped when
neither drouth, nor excessive rain. nor mil
dew, nor iufesting insects shall arrest the
growth, and the utmost capacity Of the fields
for production Shall be tested hv an intell-
gent and athletic yeomanry. Thrift ana com
potency characterizinG the worlds inhabi-
tants, their dwelling places Snail be graceful
and healthy and adorned. Tree and arbor
and grove around about will look rs if Adam
and Eve had got back to Paradise Great
cities, now neglected and unwa-hed, shall be
orderly, adorned with architectural symme
try and connected with far distant seaports
by present modes of transportation carried to
their greatest perfection, or by new myell-
tons yet to spring up out Of the water or
drop from the air at the beck Of a Morse or a
Robert Fulton belonging to future genera
tons.
Isaiah in my text seems to look forward to
the fucure condition Of the physical earth as
q condition of great beauty and excellence,
and then prophesies that AS the strongest aud
most ornamental timber in Lebanon was
brought down to Jerusalem and constructed
full and excellent in the physical eartn shall
Iyet contribute to the church now ing built
in the world. "The glory of Lebanon shall
come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree,
and the box together, To beautify the place Of
my sanctuary"
Much of this prophecy has already been full
filled, and proceed to some practical remarks
upon the contributions which the natural
world is making to the kingdom of God, and
then draw some differences The first contri-
button that nature gives TO the church is her
testimony in behalf of the truth of Christi
anty. This is an age of profound research.
Nature cannot evade mans inquiries as once.
In chemists laboratory she is put to torture
and compelled to give up her mysteries. Hid
lden laws have come out of their hiding place.
THE earth and the heavens, since they have
been ransacked by geologist and botanist and
astronomer, appear so different from what
they once were that they may be called "the
new heavens and the new earth"
POWERFUL EFFECT UPON THE RELIGIOUS
WORLD.
This research and discovery will have pow
erful effect upon the religious world They
must either advance or arrest Christianity
make men better OF make them worse, be the
,churchs honor or the church's overthrow
Christians, aware of this in the early ages o.
discovery, were nervous and fearful as q
the progress of science. They feared tina
some natural law, before unknown, woulC
suddenly spring into harsh collision witt
Christianity. Gunpovder ard the CLEAN O
swords would not so much have been fearcC
by religionists as electric batteries, voltai
piles and astronomical apparatus. 1t wa
feared that Moses and the prophets would Ia
run over by s;eptical chemists and philoso
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