Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-10-27
THE HOLY LAND.
The Fifth OF DR.. Talmage'S Series
on His Recent journey.
The Dead Sea and the River Jordan
Reflected as Only This Famous
Divine Can do 1t.
A Candidate Paptizsd by Him In the Sacred
Waters Of the River Jordan.
The Walls Of Pompeii.
Srecial to the Gazette.

| Special to the Gazette
| BROOKLYN, n. Y, Oct. 26.-Dr.
Tai mage preached the fifth sermon of the
series CD his tour in the HOLY Land in
the academy of music in this city this
morning. This evening at the Christian
| Herald service in the academy of music,
| New York, the sermon was repeated be-
| fore an audience which filed the vast
| building in every part. DR.. TalmaRe
announced as his text, Psalm lO4: 80:
"He toucheth the hills and they
smoke. " he said:
David the poet here pictures q volcano
and what Church's cotopaxi does on
| painters canvas, this author does in
| words. You see hill, calm and still,
| and for ages immovable, but the Lord
out of the heavens puts His finger on the
top of it and from it rise thick vapors,
intershot with fire. ''He toucheth the
hills aud they smOke.''
| God is the only being who can manage
volcano, and again and again has he
| employed volcanic action. The pictures
on the walls of Pompeii, the eIhumed
Italian city, as We saw them last Novem-
sSbssA, denoDstrete that the city was not
fffit TO live. In the first century, that
city, engirdIed with palaces. empara-
| dised with gardens, pillared into
| ARCHITECTURAL E1QUIsITENEss,
was at the foot of a mountain up the
sides of which it ran with vineyards and
villas of merchant princes, and al that
marble, and bronze, and imperial baths,
aud aTboriculture, and rainUowed foun-
tgns, aud IA coliseum at the dedicatio
Of nh boh aloi, nd
a supernal landscape 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 aud heard.
But the bad morals of the city had
shocked the world. In the year 10, on
the 4th of August, q black column rose
above the adjoining mountain and spread
out, Pliny says, as he saw 1t,
like 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 people escaped ana the
| city was buried, and some of the Inhabi-
tants 1909 years after were found en-
| buimed in the scoriR of that awful
doom. The Lord called upon volcanic
forces to obliterate that profii9ate city.
BE touched the hills and they smoked.
Nothing but volcanic action can ex-
plain what shall show you at the Dead
Sea, upon which looked last Decem Der,
and OF whose waters took bitter and
singing taste. Concerning all that re-
gion there has been controversy enough
to I'LL libraries, science saying one thing,
Revelation saying another thing. Bur
/
and both testimonies
ARE ONE AND THE SAME.
Geology, chemietry, geography, as
tonomy, iehthyOlosy' ornitholosy
and zoology are coming one
by one to confirm the scrip
lures. Two leaves of one book are reve-
lation and creation and the penmanship
is by the 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, il possible, be
more thrilling and by the time the horses
snuff the sulphurous atmosphere of Lake
Asphaltites. or the Dead Sea, we VIII 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 q 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.
Herod built q palace amid these heaps of
black aud awful rocks which look like
a tumbIed midnight. A great band OF
robbers, about 1000 in number including
their families, afterward held the fort
ress. When the Roman army stormed
that steep and the bandits could no
longer hold the place, their chIeftain,
EleaZar, made powerful speech which
persuaded them to die before they were
captured. First the men kissed their
families a loving and fearful goodbye
and then put a dagger into their hearts,
and the women and children were slain.
Then ten men we're chosen by lot to slay
all the other men, and each man lay
down by the dead wife and children aud
work. This done, one man of the ten
killed the other nine. Then the
SURVIVOR COMMITTED SUICIDE.
Two women and FIVE children had hid
themselves and after ell was over, came
forth TO tell of the $50 slaughtered.
Great and rugged natural scenery makes
the most tremendous natures for 2 cd or
evil. Great statesmen and great rob-
bers, great orators and great butchers,
were nearly ali born or reared among
mountain preclpices. Strong natures
are hardly ever born upon the plain.
When men have anything greatly good
or greatly evil 10 do. they come down off
the rocks.
Pass on from under the shadow of
Mnsads, the scene of concentrated
diabolisn, and come along where the
salt crystals crackle under the horses
hoofs. You are near the most Godfor-
sakeu region of all the earth. You TO
whom the word lake has heretofore
suggested those bewitchments of beauty,
Luzerne or Cayuga, some great pearl set
by a loving God in the bosom of the
lu1uriant valley, change all your ideas
about lake, and see this sheet of water
which the Bible calls Salt Sea, or Sea
OF the Plain, and Jossphus calls
Lake Asphalties. The muleteers will
take care of the horses while we get
down TO the brink and dip up the liquid
mixture In the palm of the hand. The
waters are commingling of birthstone
and pitch, and have six times larger
percentage of salt than those Of the At
lantic Ocean, the ocean hav-
mn A mar aant of onA .ht, f..t.~