The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1890-11-05

Pompeii aud the Yolcano-The Loves,
Lake in the World-Evidences of Gods
Wrath.
BROOKLYN, Oct. 26.-Dr. Talmage
preached the fifth sermon Of the series
Oh his tour in the Holy Land in the
Academy Of Music in This city this
morning. This evening at The Chris
tain 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 bis text, PS
civ. 32: "IIe toucheth the hills and
they smoke He said
David the poet here pictures a vol
cano, and what Church's Cotopaxl does
on painters canvas this author does in
words. You see a hill, calm and still
and for ages immoyable, but the Lord
out of the heavens puts his finger on
the top of it. and from it rise thick
yaporS interShot with fire. "He touch
eth the hills and they smoke"
God is the only being who can man
age volcano, and again and again has
he employed volcanic action. The pic
lures on the walls of Pompeii, the eN-
humed Italian city, as we saw them
last November. demonstrate that the
city was not tit to live. In the first
century that city, engirdled with
palaces, emparadiSed with gardens,
pillared into architectural exquisite
ness, was at the foot of mountain up
the sides of which it ran with vine
yards and villas of merchant princes,
and all that marble and bronze and i'm
perial baths and al horticulture and
rainbowed fountains: and coliseum
at the dedication of which nine thouS-
and beasts had been slain, and super
nal landscape in which the shore gave
roses to the sea and the sea gave cry
tails to the shore; yea, all that beauty
and pomp and wealth could give was
there to be seen OF heard. Bat the bad
morals of the city had shocked the
world. In the year 19, on the 4th Of
August. a black column rose above the
adjoining mountain and spread out,
Pliny says, as he saw it, like great
pine tree, wider and wider. until 1t be-
gan to rain upon the city first thin
ashes and then pumice stone, and sui
phurouS fumes scooped, and streams
of mud poured through the streets till
few people escaped, and the city was
buried, and some Of the inhabitants
eighteen hundred years after were
found embalmed in the scori8 CT that
awful doom. The Lord called upon
volcanic forces to obliterate that profit
gate city. He touched the hills and
they smoked.
SCIENCE AND SCRIPTURE AGREE.
Nothing but volcanic action can eX-
plain what l shall show you at the
Dead sea upon which looked last De
cember. and of whose waters took
bitter and singing taste. Concerning
all that region there has been contro-
yersy enough to fill libraries, science
saying one thing, revelation saying an
other thing. But admit volcanic ac-
ton divinely employed and both testl-
monies are one and the same Geology,
chemistry, geography. astronomy, ich-
thyology, ornithology and zoology are
coming one by one to confirm the
Scriptures. Two leaves of one book
are Revelation and Creation, and the
pennmanship is by the same divine
hand. Our horseback 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 thrill
ing, and by the time the horses snuff
the sulphurous atmosphere of Lake
Ashaltites, 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.
Take detour and pass along By the
rocky fortress of Masada, where occur
red something more wonderful in the
way of desperation than you have ever
heard of, unless you have heard OF that.
HeroG built a palace amid these heaps
of black and awful rocks which look
ike a tumbled midnight. A great
band of robbers, about one thousand
;ncluding their families afterward held
the fortress. When the Roman army
storme6 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 dagger
into their hearts, and the women and
children were slain. Then ten men
were chosen by Lot to slay all the other
men, and each man lay down by the
dead wife and children and waited for
these executioners to do their work.
This done, one man of the ten killed
the other nine. Then the survivor COM
mltted suicide. Two women and five
children had hid themselves, and after
all was over came forth to tell Of the
nine hundred and sixty slaughtered.
Great and rugged natural scenery
makes the most tremendous natures
for good or evil. Great statesmen and
g,eat robbers, great orators and great
butchers. Were nearly all born or rear
ed among mountain preclplces. Strong
natures are hardly ever born upon the
plain. When men have anythlnggre
ly good or greatly evil to do they come
down off the rocks
THE LAND OF DESOLATION.
Pass on from. under the shadow OF
Masada, the scene of concentrated dia-
bolism, and come along where the salt
crystals crackle under the horses
hoofs. You are near the most God for
saken region of all the earth. You to
whom the word lake has heretofore
suggested those bewitchmentS Of beau.
tv, Luzerne or Cayuga, some great
pearl set by a loving God in the bosom
of the luXuriant valley. change all your
ideas about a 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 multeer;
will take care of the horses while We
60 down 10 the brink and dip up The
liuuid mixture in the palm of the hand
The waters are commingling Of brlm
stone and pitch, and have six times lar
ger percentage OF salt than those o.
the Atlantic ocean, the ocean having
- cont of salt and This lake 26l/ De