Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1890-11-21
REV. DR. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Diyine's Sun
day Sermon
subject. "Among the B-aOulns.p

/ ~. oil.
Night after night we have slept in tent in
Palestine. There are large villages of Bedou-
ins without a house, and for three thousand
years the people of those places have lived in
black tents. made out of dyed skins, and
when the winds and storms wore out and tore
loose those coverings others of the same kind
took their places.
Noah lived in tent: Abraham in tent.
Jacob pitched his tent on the mountain.
Isaac pitched his tent in the valley. Lot
pitched his tent toward Sodom. In a tent
the woman Jael rallied Sisera, the general, to
the ground, first having given him sour milk
called "leben' as a sOporitic to make him
sleep soundly that being the effect of such
nutrition as modern travellers can testify.
The Syrian army in tent. The ancient
battle shout was ''To your tents, . Israeli
Paul was a tent maker. Indeed, Isaiah, mag
nifcently poetic, indicates that all the human
race live under a blue tent when he says God
''stretcheth out the heavens as q curtain and
spreadeth them out as a tent TO dwell in, land
Hezekiah compares death to the striking of a
tent, saying, My age is removed from me
as a shepherds tent"
In cur tent in Palestine tonight I hear
something [ never heard before and hope
never to hear again. II is the voice of
hyena amid the rocks near by When you
may have seen this monster putting his
month between the iron bars of menagerie
he is n captive. and he gives a Inundated
and suppressed cry. But yonier in the mid
night on a throne OF rocks he has nothing to
/ fear, and he utters himself in loud, reo
sounding. terrific. almost supernatural
/ sound, splitng uD the darkness into a
/ deeper midnight. Ii begins with howl and
ends with a soun1 something like a horses
whining. In the hyenas voice are defiance
and strength and bloOdthirstineSs and crunch
OF broken bones and death
am glad to say that for the most part
Palestine IS clear of beasts of prey. The
i leopards which jeremiah says cannot
change their spots, have all disappeared, and
the hons that once were common all through
this lani, and used by all the prophets for
/ illustrations of cruelty and wrath, have re-
treated before the discharges of gunpowder,
/ OF which they have an Undesirable fear. But
/ for the most part Palestine is what it origi-
nally was. With the one exception of a
wire thread reaching from Joppa to Jeru-
salem and from Jerusalem to Nazareth and
from Nazareth to Tiberias aud from II
/ berias to Damascus that enc nerve Of civil
ZatiOn, the Geographic wire for we found
ourselves only few minutes off from BROOK
lyn and New York while standing by Lake
1 Galilee), with that one exception Palestine
is Just as it always was.
j AOluluE pIiStu lie 50 MUCH as lue ptI
sistence of everything. A sheep or horse
falls dead, and though the sky may one min
ute before be clear of all wings in five min
Utes after the skies are black with eagles
/ cawing, screaming, plugging, fighting for
room, contending for largest morsels of the
extinct quadruped. All, now / understand
the force OF Christs illustration when He
said; "WEeresoever the carcass is there will
the eagles lie gathered together" The long
eVity of those eagles is wonderful. They
live fifty and sixty and sometimes a hundred
years All, that explains what David meant
when he said Thy youth is renewe like the
eagles l saw shepherd with tn folds Of
lis coat far lent outward, and / wondered
what was contained in that amplitude o. sp-
partl, AMI I said to the dragoman: what
las that shepherd got under his coat" And
tie draccman saii ut is a very young lamb
he is carrying: IL is too young and too weak
and too cod 10 keep no with the foes" At
that moment ! saw the lamb putit~ head out
from the -hepherd's bosom and | said: There
itisnow. IsGiah's description of the tender
ness OF Cod-he shall gather the lambs with
Lis arm AID carry hem in his bosom
Passing by village home, in the Holy
Land, about noon | saw a great crowd in
end around a private house, AMI | said 10 the
Graooman: David. what is going Oh therAy'
He said: Somebody has recently died there
and their neighbors 60 in for several days
after To sit down and weep with the be-
rcaved" There it is, | said the old scrip
tmal custom, And many OF the Jews came
to Martha and Mary, to comfort them con-
corning their brother Early in tie morn
ing passing by q cemetery in the Holy Land
/ saw among the graves about fifty women
dressed in black and they were crying "Ob,
my child" "Oh, my hushandm "Oh, my
father~ "Oh, my mother" Our dragoman
told us that every morning. very early for
three mornings alter burial, the women 90
To the sepucheT. and after that every week
very early for a year. As / saw this group
lust after daybreak said: There it us again,
the same old custom q erred to in Luke, the
evangelist. where he says, Certain women
which were early in tho sepulcher
But here we found ourselves at jacobs
well. the most famous well in history, most
distinguished for two things, because IT be-
longed 70 the old patriarch after whom 1t
was named, and for the wonderful things
which Christ said seated IN this well curb
to the Samaritan woman. We d'smount
from our horses IN a dTTzzing rain and oar
GragOman. climbing up to the well over
the slippery stones. stumbles and fri int
ems Us all 10y nearly falling into IT. meas
Ured the We'll at the top and foundit six feet
from edge to cage. Some grass and weeds
and thorny growths oyerhang IT. In one
place the rcOi is broken through. Large stones
embark the wall on all sides
Our Gragoman took pebbles and dropped
I tacm in. and from the time they lett his
hand to the instant they clicked on the bot
tom YOU could hear it was deep, though not
as Ceep as once for every day travellers are
applving the same test. and though in the
time OF Naundrell, the traveller, the well was
a hundred and sxty-hve feet deep now II Is
only seventy-five. SO great is the curiosity
of the word to Know about that well that
during the dry season Captain Anderson
Ge.cenGed into this well at one place the
sides so close he had to put his hands over his
head in order to get through, and then he
tainted away and lay at the iottcm Of the
well as though dead, until hours after recov-
cry he came to the surface
It is not like other wells digged down to a
fountain that fills it, but a reservoir to catch
the falling rains, and to that Christ refers
when speaking to the Samaritan woman about
a spiritual supply He said He would if asked,
have given her living water. that is water
from flowing spring in distinction from the
water Of the well, which was rain water. But
why did Jacob make a reservoir there when
there is plenty of water all around and
abundance of springs and fountains and seem
ingly 10 need Of that reservoir Why die
Jacob 80 to the vast expense Of boring AND
digging a well perhaps two hundred feet deeI
as first completed, when, by going littl'
way Off he could have water from Other
fountains at little or no expense; Alb, Jacoi
was w Sc He wanted his own well. Quarrel
aud wars might arise with other tribes anC
The supply Of water might be cut off, so thu
saovels ana pic;axes and boring instruments
were orlered, and the well OF nearly fou,
thousand years ago was sunk through thu
solid rock.
When Jacob thus wisely insisted on having
his own well lie taught us not TO be unneces
saTily dependent on others. Independence
OF business character. independence of mora
character, independence OF religious char
acter. Have your own well Of grace, YOU
own well of courage, your own well of diyin,
supply. II you are an invalid you have
right to be dependent on others. But if Coo
has given you good health. common sensC
and two eyes and two ears and two hand,
and two feet, He equipped you for independ
ence of all the universe except Himself Il
He had meant you to be dependent on other
you would have been built with a core
around your waist to tie fast to somebody
else. Nc; you are built with common sens,
TO fashion your own opinions, with eyes e
find your own way, with ears TO select YOU
q