Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1890-10-31
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun,
day Sermon.
subject: "The Dead Sea and the RiVes
JOrdon."

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
volcano. and again and again has He en-
ployed volcanic action. The pictures on
the walls of Pompeii, the exhumed Italian
city, as we saw them last November, de-
monstrate that the city was not fit to live.
In the first century that city, engirdled
with palaces emparadised with gardens,
pillared into architectural exquisiteness,
was at the foot Of a mountain. up the sides
of which il ran, with vineyards and villas
of merchant princes, and all that marble
and bronze and imperial baths and arbori-
culture and rainbowed fountains, and a
coliseum at the dedication of which nine
thousand beasts had been slain, and q
supernal landscape in which the shore gave
roses to the sea and the sea gave crystals TO
the shore, yea, all that beauty and pomr
and wealth could give was there to be seen
or heard. But the bad morals of the city had
shocked the word. In the year 20, on the 4th
of August, black column rose above the
adjoining mountain and spread out, Pliny
says, as he saw it, like a great pine tree,
wider and wider until it began to rain upon
the city first thin ashes and then pumice
stone, and sulphurous fumes scOoped, and
streams of mud poured through the street,
till few people escaped, and the city was
buried, and some of the inhabitants eighteen
hundred years after were found embalned
in the scorie of that awful DOOM The Lord
called upon volcanic forces to obliterate that
proaigate city. He touched the hills and
they smoked.
Nothing but volcanic action can explain
what shall show you at the Dead Sea upon
which looked last December, aud Of whose
waters | took bitter and singing taste.
Concerning all that region there has been
controversy enough to fill libraries science
saying one thing, revelation saying another
thing. But admit volcanic action divinely
employed and both testimonies are one and
the same Geology, chemistry, geography,
astronomy, ichthyology, ornithology and
zoology are coming one by one TO confirm
the Scriptures Two leaves of one book are
Revelation and Creation, and the penman-
ship is by tine same divine hand. Our horse
back ride will not be so steep to-day and you
can stay on without clinging 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 Ashaltites, or the Dead Sea,
we will be ready to disnount and read from
our Bibles about what was done that day by
the Lord when He touched the hills an they
smoked
Take detour and pass along by the rocky
fortress OF Massda, where occurred some
thing more wonderful in the way of despera-
ton than YOU 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 baud
of ROBBERS, about one thousand including
their families, afterward held the fortress.
When the Roman army stormei that steep
and the bandits could no longer hold the
pace, their chieftain, Eieazar, made pow
erful speech which persuaded them to die
before they were captured First the men
kissel their families loving AMI fearful
gOOd-by and then put a dagger into their
hearts, and the women and children
We're slain Then ten men were
chosen by lot to slay all the
other men, AMI each man lay down by the
dead wife and children ami waited for these
execunoners 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 them
selves, and after all was over came forth 70
tell of the nine hundred and sixty siaugh-
tered Great and rugged natural scenery
makes the most tremendous natures for good
or evil. Great statesmen and great robbers,
great orators and great butchers, We're
nearly all born or reared among mountain
precipices Strong natures are hardly ever
born upon the plain. When men have any
thing greatly good or greatly evil TO do they
come down off the rocks
Pass on from under the shadow Of Masada,
the scene Of concentrated diabolism, and come
along where the salt crystals crackle under
the horses hoofs. You are near the most
God forsaken region of all the earth. You
to whom the word lake has heretofore sug-
gested those bewitchments of beauty, Lu-
zerne or Cayuga, some great pearl set by a
loving God in the bosom of the iuXurlant val
ley, change all your ideas about lake, and
see this sheet OF water which the Bible calls
the Salt Sea. or Sea of the Plain, and JoSephus
calls Lake AsphaltiteS. The muleteers will
take care of the horses while we 90 down to
the brink and dip up the liquid mixture IN
the palm of the hand. The waters are CON-
minging of birthstone and pitch, and have
six times larger percentage OF salt than
those of the Atlantic Ocean, the ocean hay'
inc four Der cent. of salt and this lake 26i<
per cent. Lake Sir-i-kol, of India. Is the
highest lake in the world. This lake. on the
banks of which we kneel, is the lowest lake
1t empties into no sea, among other things
for the simple reason that wa -er cannot run
up hill 1t swallows up the river Jordan and
makes no response OF thanks, and never r.
ports what it does with the twenty millions
cubic feet OF water annually received from
that sacred river 1t takes the tree branches
and logs foated into it by the Jordan and
pitches them on the banks Of bitumen TO de-
cay there
The hot springs near its banks by the
name Of Callirhoe, where King Herod cama
to battle off his illnesses, no sooner pour IN
to this sea than they are poisoned. Not a
fish scale swims it. Not an insect walks IT.
1t hates life, and if you attempt to SWIM
there it lifts you by an unnatural buoyancy
to the surface as much as to say''we want no
life here, but death is our preference, death"
Those VINO attempt to wade into this lake,
and submerge themselves, come out almost
maddened, as with the sting of a hundred
wasps and hornets, and with lips and eye
lids swollen with the strange ablution.
The sparkle Of its waters is not like the
sparkle of beauty on other lakes, but a
metallic lustre like unto the flash OF a
sword that would thrust you. The gazelles
and the ibexes that live on the hills beside 1t,
and cranes and wild ducks that fly across
for. contrary TO the old belief birds do safe
ly wing their way over it-and the Aral
horses you have been riding, though thirsty
enough, will not drink out OF this dreadful
mixture A mist hovers over pan Is OF 1t al
most continually, which, though natura
evaportion, seems like a wing Of doom spreal
over LIQUID desolation 1t is the rinsngs o.
abomination Its an aqueous monster coileC
among the hills, or creeping with ripples
and stenchfuI with nauseating malOdors.
In these regions once stood four grea
cities Of Assyria: Sodon, Gomorrah, Adm
and Zeboim. The Bible says they were de
stroyed by tempest Of fire and brimston
after thesacities had filed up with wickednes'
''No. that is absurd" cries some one; 'it
evident that this was a region OF salt an
birthstone and pitch long before that" An
so it was The Bible says it was region o
sulphur long before the great catastrope
well, now says some one, wanting =
raise a quarrel between science and Revela
ton. you have no right to say the cities o
the plain were destroyed by tempest o
fire and sulphur and birthstone, because thi
region had these characteristics long befor
these cities were destroyed" Volcanic az
ton, is my reply. These cities had bee
built out Of very combustible materials. TIL
mortar was bitumen easily ignited, and th
walls dripped with pitch most inhammabll
They sat, think on ridge of hills. The
stood high up and conspicuous, radiant j
their sins, ostentatious in their debaucheriei
fOur bells on earth.
One day there was a rumbling in the earth
and quaking. whats thatY cry the al
frighted inhabitants. whats thaty TIL
foundations of the earth were giving way
volcano, whose fires had been burning 70
ages. at Gods command bursts forth, easil
setting everything afame. and first liftin