Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-10-30
THE HOLY LAND.
The Fifth of DR.. Talmage's Series
on His Recent Journey.
The Dead Sea and the River Jordan
Reflected as Only This Famous
Divine Can do 1t.
Candidate baptized by Him in the Sacred
Waters Of the River Jordan.
The Walls of Pompeii.
Special TO the Gazette.

Talmage preached the fifth sermon of the
series on his tour in the HOLY Land. in
the academy OF music in this city this
morning. This evening at the Christian
Herald service in the academy of music
New York, the sermon was repeated be-
lore an audience which filed the vast
building in every part. DR.. Talmage
announced as his text, Psalm lO4: 80:
"He toucheth the hills and they
| smoke.'' he said:
David the poet here pictures a volcano
and what Church's cotopaxi does on
painters canvas, this author does in
words. You see hill, calm and still,
and 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 fire. ''He toucheth the
hills and they smoke.''
God is the only being who can manage
u 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 Novem-
Der, demonstrate that the city was not
! lit toIive. In the first century, that
city, engirdled with palaces, empara-
uIseu WIN RhfueHS, piilhreu INTO
ARCHITECTURAL ExQUIsITENEss,
WIS aEIH foot of a mountain up the
\ sidssscf Ehch 1t ran with vineyards and
FRilfes o4flerchant princes, and all that
marble ,&nd bronze, and imperial baths
and arb &iculture, and rainbowed foun-
| tains, al q coliseum at the dedica ton
of whictM000 beasts had been slain, and
e superndf landscape in which the 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 and heard.
| But the bad morals of the city had
| shocked the world. In the year 70, on
the 4th of August, black column rose
above the adjoining mountein and spread
! out, Plny says, as he Jaw it,
| like great pine tree, wider and
wider, until it began to rain upon the
city, fret thin ashes and then pumice
stone, and sulphurous fumes scooped,
and streams of mud poured through the
streets till few people escaped ana the
city was buried, and some of the Inhabi-
tants 1900 years after were found en-
Dalmed in the scoria of that awful
doom. The Lord called upon volcanic
forces to obliterate that profiigate city.
He touched the hills and they smoked.
Nothing but volcanic action can eX-
plain what shall show you at the Dead
Sea, upon which looked last Decem Der,
and of whose waters [ took bitter and
singing taste. Concerning all that re-
gion there has been controversy enough
to fill libraries, science saying one thing
Revelation saying another thing. But
admit volcanic action diyinely employed
and both Testimonies
ARE ONE AND THE SAME.
Geology, chemietry, geography. as
Hnomy. ichthyoiogy, ornithologY
.snd zoology are coming one
Etures. Two leaves of one book are reve-
lat!on and creation and the penmanship
is by the same divine hand. Our horse
back ride will not be so steep to-day and
you can stay on without cllnging to the
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 atmosphere of Lake
Aephaltites. or the Dead Sea, we VIII be
ready to dismouut and read from our
Bibles about what was done that day by
the Lord when He touched the hills and
they smoked.
Take y detour and pass along by the
rocky fortress of Masada where OCCUR
red something more wonderful in lhe
way of desperation than you have ever
heard of, unless you have heard of that.
Herod built palace amid these heaps of
black and awful rocks which look like
a tumbled midnight. A great band of
robbers, about 1000 in mum Der including
their families, afterward held the fort
ress. When the Roman army stormed
that steep aud the bandits could no
Nger hold .sthe place, their chIeftain,
Eleuzar, pXe powerful speech which
10 die before they were
,capured First the men kissed their
i6aJSihss4h loving and fearful goodbye
aud tn &put dagger into their hearts,
and tbwomen and children were slain.
Then Nm men were chosen by lot to STAY
all TN other men, and each man lay
dowiT 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
SURVIVOR COMMITTED SUICIDE.
Two women and five children had hid |
themselves and after all was over, came |
forth 10 tell of the $50 slaughtered. |
Great and rugged Datural scenery makes
the most tremendous natures for cd or |
evil. Great statesmen and great rob- |
were nearly all born or reared among |
preoipices. Strong natures |
are hardly ever born upon the plain. |
When men have anything greatly good |
or greatly evil 10 do, they come down off |
the rocks.
Pass on from under the shadow of |
the scene of concentrated |
and come along where the
salt crystals creckle under the horses
hoofs. You are near the most Godfor-
saken region OF all tbs earth. You 10
whom the word lake has heretofore
suggested those bewitchments of beauty,
Luzerne or Cayuga, some great pearl set
by d loving God in the bosom of the
luxuriant valley, change all your ideas
about lake. and see this sheet of water
W hich the Bible calls Salt Sea, or Sea
Of the Plain, and Josephus calls
Lake Asphalties. The muleteers will
lake care of the horses while we get
down 10 the brink and dip up the liquid
mixture In the palm of the hand. The
waters ars commlngling of birthstone
aud pitch, and have six times larger
of salt than those of the At
antic Ocean, the ocean hav-
ne per cent. of salt, aud this lake
,6I. ner cent Lake Sir-i-koI of Ird;o