Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1890-11-14
REV. DIR. TAIMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE's SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject, "THE GARDENS OF SOLOMON. "

1ExT: II made me great trorks Ibntdto
me houses, / planted me riusudTfS I mad,
me gardens and orchards, and planted tree,
IN them Of all kinds of fruits; made m,
pools Of trater 10 irdter herelCith The GOOD
that bringeth forth trees. "-Ecclesiastes
L. 40
a spring morning and breakfast at Jeru-
salem. A king with robes snowy white in
chariot decked with gold, drawn by eight
horses, high melted, and housings as bril-
liant as II 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
relns loose on their necks, and the crack Of
whips and the halloo of the reckless caval-
cade putting the miles at defiance Who is
1t, and what is iti King Solomon taking an
outing before breakfast from Jerusalem to
his gardens and parks and orchards and res
ervoirs, six miles down the road toward
Hebron. What a contrast between that and
myself on that very road one morning last
december going atoot, for our plain vehicle
turned back for Photographic apparatus for
gotten; we on the way to find what is called
Solomon's pool, the ancient water works of
Jerusalem, 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 reservoirs themselves
that Solomon built three millenniums ago
Tor the purpose OF catching the mountain
streams and passing them to Jerusalem to
Stake the thirst Of the city, and also to irri.
gate 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 botanist
the greatest ornithologist, the greatest CAPT
talist and the greatest scientist Of his cen.
| fury.
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 tho third, so arranged
that the waters gathered from the several
sources above shall descend from basin to
basin, the sediment of water deposited 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 offerings, and is
as pure as when the clouds rained 1t. Won
| derful specimens of masonry are these three
reservoirs The white cement fastening the
blocks OF stone together is now just as when
the trowels three thousand years ago
smoothed the layers. The highest reservoir
$50 feet by 529, the second, 4S3 feet by 100
and the lowest reservoir, $50 feet by 1855, 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 Solo
mon 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 gar
dens when he alluded to melons, and man
brakes, and apricots, and grapes, and
pomegranates, and figs ami spiken and
cinnamon, and calamus, and campfire,
and apple trees among the trees Of the
wood and the almond tree as nourishing,
and TO myrrh and frankincense, and repre-
sented Christ as gone down into his gar
dens, aud the beds of spices to feed in the
gardens and to gather lilies, and TO eyes
like fish pools,n and to the voice of the
turtle dove as heard in the land. | think
it was when Solomon was showing 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
| uaPpls chc dd1t uitSl RtlliHs DdIh nun
his morning ride and before the horses had
yet been cooled off and rubbed down by the
royal equerry, Solomon wrote the memoir
able words following my text like dirge
played after grand march, Behold all was
vanity and vexation OF spirit and there was
no profit under the sun" In other words,
ut don't paym Would God that we might
all learn the lesson that this world cannot
produce happiness At Marseilles there Is a
| OaS tpllofaI hnttaa m hiuh errot,nd ual
with all that grove and garden can do, and
the whole place looks out upon as enchanting
landscape as the world holds, water and
hill claspiug hands in a perfect bewitchment
Of scenery, but the owner OF that place Is
totally blind and to him all this goes for
nothing, illustrating the truth that whether
one be physically or morally blind, brillancy
Of surrounding cannot give satisfaction; but
tradition says that when the wise men OF
the east were being guided by the star or
the way to Bethlehem they for a little while
lost sight of that star, and in despair and ex
haustion came to q well TO drink, when LOOK.
ing down into the well they saw the star re-
fected in the water and that cheered them
and they resumed their journey; and have
the notion that though grandeur and pomI
Of surroundings may not afford peace at thu
well Of Gods consolation, close by, you may
find happiness, and the plainest cup Of til,
well of salvation may hold the brightest stai
that ever shone from the heavens.
Although these Solomonic gardens are in
ruins, there are now growing there flowers
that are to be found nowhere else in the
Holy Land. How do account for that
Solomon sent out his ships and robbed thu
gardens Of the whole earth for flowers anC
planted these exotics here, and these par
ticular flowers are direct descendants of thu
foreign plants he imported. Mr. Meshulam
a Christian lsraelite, on thu very sight o.
these royal gardens, has in our day, by put
ting in his own spade, demonstrated that tn,
ground is only waiting for the right call {,
yield just as much luxuriance and splendo
eighteen hundred years after Christ as |
yielded Soon on one thousand years before
Christ. So all Palestine is waiting to becon,
the richest scene of horticulture, arboficul
ture and agriculture.
Recent travellers in the Holy Ian
speak of the rocky and stony surface o
nearly all Palestine as an impossible barrie
to the future cultivation of the soil. But
= they had examined mnutely the rocks an
stones of the Holy Land they would find tina
they are being skeletonized and are bein
S melted into the soil and, being for the mos
:. part limestone, they are doing for that Ian
what the American and English farmer doe
4 when, at great expense and fatigue,
draws his wagon load Of lime and scatters
Q on the fields for their enrichment TIL
storms, the winters the great midsumme
heats of Palestine, by crumbling up an
G dissolving the rocks are gradually preparin
Palestine and Syria to yield product lik
unto the luxuriant Westminster farms o
h New York, ann Lancaster County farms O
q, Pennsylvania, and Somerset County farm
u of New Jersey and the other magnifcen
farm fields of Minnesota and wisconsin, an
the opulent orchards of Maryland and Cal
l. ifornia. Let the Turk be driven out and til
@ American or Englishman or Scotchman g
+ in and Accommodation withdraw its lido
airy and pure Christianity build its affairs
and the irrigation of which Solomon's pool