Connecticut western news., 1890-11-05
CHRIST WALKED THERE.
SOLOMON'S GROUNDS, BETHLEHEM
 AND ADJACENT PLACES.


 Dr. Talmase Gives Some Glowing Pict-
 ures of Scenes in Jerusalem and vicini-
 tyThe Wisdom and Practical Work
 of Solomon.
 BROOKLYN, Nov. 2.-Dr. Talmage preached the sixth sermon on his tour in Palestine today. After a pastorate of twenty-two years in this city it is as tonishing to see the crowds of people who throng the Academy of Music ev cry Sunday morning to listen to his discourses. No less remarkable are the audiences that New York city furnishes at The Christian Herald services every Sunday night. Today's sermon was on the gardens and public works of IsraeTs magnificent King, and the text Eccles. ii, 4-6: II made me great works, I builded me houses, I planted me vine yards, l made me gardens and or chards, and planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits; made me pools of water to water herewith the wood that bringeth forth trees" Dr. Talmage said:
 A spring morning and before break fast at Jerusalem. A king with robes snowy white in chariot decked with gold, drawn by eight horses, high met tied and housings as brilliant as if scolloped out of that very sunrise, and like the winds for speed, followed by regiment of archers on horseback with hand on gilded bow, and arrows with steel points flashing in the sun, clad from head to foot in Tyrian purple, and black hair sprinkled with gold dust, all dashing down the road, the horses at full run, the reins loose on their necks, and the crack of whips, and the halloo of the reckless cavalcade putting the miles at defiance Who is it, and what is ita King Solomon talk ing an outing before breakfast from Jerusalem to his gardens and parks and orchards and reservoirs, six miles down the road toward Hebron.
 What Q contrast between that and myself on that very road one morning last December, going afoot, for our plain vehicle turned back for photo graphic apparatus forgotten, we on the way to find what is called Solomon's pools, the ancient water works of Jern- salem, and the gardens of king nearly three thousand years ago! We cross the aqueduct again and again, and here we are at the three great reservoirs not ruins of reservoirs, but the reser- voirs themselves-that Solomon built three millenniums ago for the purpose of catching the mountain streams and passing them to Jerusalem to slake the thirst of the city, and also to irrigate the most glorious range of gardens that ever bloomed with all colors or breathed with all redolence, for Solomon was the greatest horticulturist, the greatest bot anist, the greatest ornithologist, the greatest capitalist and the greatest sci enlist of his century.
 1.-THE HALF WAS NOT TOLD ME-"
 Come over the piles of gray rock and here we are at the first of the three reservoirs, which are on three great levels, the base of the top reservoir higher than the top of the second, the base of the second reservoir higher than the top of the third, so arranged that the waters gathered from several sources above shall descend from basin to basin, the sediment of the water de- posted in each of the three, so that by the time it gets down to the aqueduct which is to take it to Jerusalem it has had three filterings, and is as pure as when the clouds rained it. Wonderful specimens of masonry are these three reservoirs. The white cement fasten- ing the blocks of stone together is now just as when the trowels three thousand years ago smoothed the layers. The highest reservoir is 38O feet by 229; the second, 423 feet by 16O, and the lowest reservoir, 5S9 feet by 169 and deep enough and wide enough and mighty enough to float an ocean steamer.
 On that December morning we saw the waters rolling down from reservoir to reservoir, and can we'll understand how in this neighborhood the imperial gardens were one great blossom, and the orchard one great basket of fruit, and that Solomon in his palace, writing the song of songs and Ecclesiastes, may have been drawing illustrations from what he had seen that very morning in the royal gardens when he alluded to melons and mandrakes and apricots and grapes and pomegranates and figs and spiken and cinnamon and calamus and campfire and "apple trees among the trees of the wood, " and the almond tree as hourishing, and to myrrh and frankincense, and represented Christ as ''gone down into his gardens, and the beds of spices to feed in the gardens, and to gather ilies," and to "eyes like fish pools," and to the voice of the turtle dove as heard in the land. I think it was when Solomon was show ing the Queen of Sheba through these gardens that the Bible says of her: 'There remained no more spirit in her. :" She gave it up.
 But all this splendor did not make | Solomon happy. One day, after get l ting back from his morning ride, and before the horses had yet been cooled | off and rubbed down by the royal | equerry, Solomon wrote the memora-
 ble words following my text, like a dirge played after grand march, s'Be- l hold all was vanity and ve1ation ot spirit, and there was no profit under the sum-" In other words, 'It don't pay" Would God that we might all learn the lesson that this world cannot produce happiness! AtMazseilles there
 is castellated house on high ground,
 crowned with all that grove and gar
 den can do, and tho whole place looks
 out upon as enchanting a landscape as