Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-10-27
DEAD SEA AND JORDAN.
SERMON DELIVERED BY DR.. 7. DE
WITT TALMAGE.

The Eminent Divine Continues His Mar
ration of His ThrilIingly Interesting
Journey Through the Holy Land-Full
Text of the Discourse Is Here Given
BROOKLYN. Oct 26. DIR. 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 Chris
tan Herald service in the Academy OF
Music. New York. the sermon was re-
peated before an audience which filled
the vast building in every part. DR..
Talmage announced as his text Psalm
civ. 80: He toucheth the hills and
they smoke" He said:
David the poet here pictures vol
eano. and what Church's Cotopaxi
does on painters canvas this author
does in words You see a hill, calm
and still and for ages ilnmovable, but
the Lord out of the heavens puts his
finger on the top of it and from it
rise thick vapors. undershot with fire.
He toucheth the hills and they
smoke
GODS TREMENDOUS TOOLS.
God is the only being who can man
aye "A volcano. and again and again
has he employed volcanic action. The
pictures on the walls of Pompeii, the
exhuned italian city. as we saw them
/ last November demonstrate that the
city was not fit to live. In the first
century that city, engirdled with pal
aces. enparadised with gardens, pill
Jared into architectural exquisiteness,
was at the foot of a mountain, up the
sides of which it ran with vineyards
and villas of merchant princes, and all
that marble and bronze and imperial
baths and arboriculture and rainbowed
fountains, and coliseum at the dedi-
cation of which nine thousand beasts
had been slain, and Il supernal land
scape 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 or heard But the bad morals of
the city had shocked the world.
In the year 70, on the 4th of August,
n black column rose above the ad Join
ing 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 streets till few peo-
Pile escaped and the city was buried,
and some of the inhabitants eighteen
hundred years after were found GU
balmed in the scorise 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 l looked last De
cember, and of whose waters | took a
bitter and singing taste. Concerning
all that region there has been contrO-
versy enough to fill libraries science
saying one thing, revelation saying an
other thing. But admit volcanic ac-
ton divinely employed and both testi-
monies are one and the same Geolo-
gy, 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
penmanship is by the same divine hand.
Our horseback ride will not be so steep
today, and you can stay on without
cIinging 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 sui
phurous atmosphere of Lake Asphalt
ties or the Dead sea we will be ready
to dismount and read from our Bibles
about what was done that day by the
Lord when he touched the hills and
they smoked.
A VIVID BIT OF DESCRIPTION.
Take a detour and pass along by the
rocky fortress of Masada, where oc-
Cured something more wonderful in
the way of desperation than you have
ever heard of, unless you have heard
of that Herod built a palace amid
these heaps of black and awful rocks,
which look like tumbled midnight.
a great band of robbers-about one
thousand, including their families-af-
terward held the fortress. When the
Roman army storlned that steep, and
the bandits could no longer hold the
place. their chieftain, EleaZar, made a
powerful speech, which persuaded them
to die before they were captured.
First the men kissed their families
loving and fearful good-by and then
put a dagger into their hearts, and the
women and the children were slain.
Then ten men were chosen by lot to
Stay all the other men, and each man
lay down by the dead wife and chill
dren 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 them
selves and, after all was over, came
forth to tell of the nine hundred and
six, slaughtered. Great and rugged
natural scenery makes the most ire
mendoas natures for good or evil.
Great statesmen and great robbers,
great orators and great butchers were
nearly all born or reared among mount
ain precipices Strong natures are
hardly ever born upon the plain.
When men have anything 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 di-
abolsm. and come along where the salt
CRYSTALS craclzle under the horses hoofs.
You aIe near the most Godforsaken
region of all the earth. You to whom
tbs word lake has heretofore suggested
those bewitchments of beauty Luzerne
or Cayuga, some great pearl set by
loving God in the bosom of the luxurl-
ant valley, 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 AS
qualities The muleteers will take care
of the horses while we go down to the
brink and dip up the liquid mixture IN
the palm of the hand The waters are
a commingling of birthstone and pitch,
and have six times larger percentage OF
salt than those of the Atlantic ocean,
the ocean having four per cent. OF salt
and this lake twentysix and quarter