Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-11-03
CHRIST WALKED THERE.
soLoMoN's GROUNDS, BETHLEHEM
AND ADJACENT. PLACES.

BROOKLYN, NOV. Z.-Dr. IdAue'SO
preached the sixth sermon on his tour
in Palestine today. After a pastorate
of twenty-five years in this city 1t is as
tonishing to see the crowds of people
who throng the Academy of Music ev-.
cry Sunday morning to listen to ms
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 lsraefs
magnificent King, and the text Eccles
ii, 4-6: Il made me great works,
builded me houses, planted me vlne-
yards, | made me gardens and Or
chards, and planted trees in them OF
all kinds of fruits; l made me pools OF
water to water Herewith the wood that
bringeth forth trees" DIR. 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 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 reins loose on
their necIzs, and the crack of whips, and
the halloo of the reckless cavalcade
putting the miles at defiance. Who is
it, and what is it2 King Solomon tax
ing an outing before breakfast from
Jerusalem to his gardens and parks
and orchards and reservoirs, six miles
down the road toward Hebron.
What a 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 Jeru-
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 Stake the
| thirst of the city, and also to irrigate
the most glorious range of gardens that
| ever bIoomed with all colors or breathed
with all redolence, for Solomon was the
greatest horticulturist, the greatest bot
anist, the greatest ornithologlst, the
greatest capitalist and the greatest sci
enlist of his century.
| ''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 offerings, 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 $50 feet by 229; the
second, 423 feet by 100, and the lowest
reservoir, $50 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 well 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 III
the royal gardens when he alluded tC
melons and mandral-es 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 fourishing, and to myrrh an6
) frankincense and represented Christ a:
''gone down into his gardens, and the
beds of spices to feed in the gardens
and to gather lilies, and to ''eyes like
fish pools" and to the voice of thu
turtle dove as heard in the land.
! think it was when Solomon was show
ing the Queen of Sheba through thes'
: gardens that the Bible says of her
''There remained no more spirit in her
She gave it up.
But all this splendor did not max
Solomon happy. One day, after get
ting back from his morning ride, ant
: before the horses had yet been cooled
off and rubbed down by the roya
equerry, Solomon wrote the memora
BILE words following my text, like
dirge played after a grand march, 'Be
hold all was vanity and vexation O
spirit, and there was no profit unde
the SUM-" In other words, ''It don
!. pay" Would God that we might a
learn the lesson that this world canno
produce happinessl At Marseilles ther
is a castellated house on high ground
crowned with all that grove and gal
den can do, and the whole place look
out upon as enchanting a landscape a
! the world holds, water and hill clasp
ing hands in perfect bewitchment o
scenery, but the owner of that place
totally blind, and to him all this goe
for nothing, illustrating the truth tina
whether one be physically or moral
blind, brilliancy of surrounding cannc
give satisfaction.
But tradition says that when til
''wise men of the east" were BEN
guided by the star on the way to Betl
lehem, they, for little while, To-
sight of that star, and in despair an
exhaustion came to a well to drlnl
when looking down into the well The
saw the star reflected in the water al
that cheered them. and they resume
their journey, and | have the nouc
that though grandeur and pomp
surroundings may not afford peace,
the well of Gods consolation, close b
you may find happiness, ana q