The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-02-04
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Mount Lebanon"
TEXT: "Ihe cedars of Lebanon 1Uhich he
hath hTtunted."-Psalm civ, 1G.

TEXT: "The cedars of Lebanon ,Vhich he
hath ptonted."-Psalm CIV, 1G
In our journey we change stirrup for
wheel. 1t is O'Clock in the morning at Da.
| mascus, Syria, and we are among the lam
| terms of the hostelry waiting for the stage
to start. A Mohammedan in high life is
| putting his three wives on board within an
apartment by themselves and our party oc-
| cupy the main apartment of one of the most
uncomfortable vehicles in which mortals
were ever jammcI and half strangulated.
But we must not let the discomforts annul or
disparage the opportunities. We are rolling
out and up the mountains of Lebanon, their
forehead under crown Of snow, which coro-
net the fingers Of the hottest summer cannot
| cast down.
Weare ascending the heights around which
| Is garlanded much Of the finest poesy of the
| Scriptures and are rising toward the might
| lest dominion that botany ever recognized,
reigned over by the most imperial tree that
ever swayed a leafy scepter-the Lebanon
cedar; tree eulogized in my text as having
grown from nut put into the ground by
! God Himself, and no human hand had any
thing to do with its planting: The trees OF
, Lebanon which He had planted"
! The average height of this mountain is
seven thousand feet, but in one place it lifts
| It's head to an altitude of ten thousand. No
! higher than six thousand feet can vegetation
| exist, but below that line at the right season
| are vineyards and orchards and olive groves
| and flowers that dash the mountain side
| with very carnage of color and fill the air
with aromatics that Hosea, the prophet and
Solomon, the king, celebrated as ''the smell
of Lebanon" At height of six thousand feet
| isa grove Of cedars, the only descendants of
J those vast forests from which Solomon cut his
| timber for the temple Of Jerusalem, and
| where at one time there were one hundred
thousand axmen hewing out the beams from
| which great cities were constructed. But this
! nation of trees has by human iconociasm
been massacred until only a small group is
left. This race of giants IS nearly extinct,
but have no doubt that some Of these were
here when Hiram, King of Tyre, ordered the
| assassinatian of these cedars Of Lebanon
which the Lord planted. From the multitude
of uses to which it may be put and the en-
ployment of it in the Scriptures, the cedar is
the divine favorite. When the plains to be
seen from the window of this stage in which
we ride to-day are parched under summer
heats, and not a grass blade survives the fer
vidity, this tree stands in luxuriance defying
the summer sun. And when the storms
Of winter terrify the earth and hurl the
rocks in avalanche down this mountain side,
this tree grapples the hurricane of snow in
triumph and leaves the spent fury at its
feet. From sixty to eighty feet high are
they, the horizontal branches Of great
sweep with their burden of leaves needle
shaped, the top of the tree pyramidal,
throne of foliage on which might and splen.
dor and glory sit. But so continuously has
the determination Of trees gone on that for
the most part the mountains Of Lebanon are
bare of foliage, while, am sorry to say, the
earth in all lands is being likewise denudcd.
The ak is Staying the forests all round
the earth. To stop the slaughter God
opened the coal mines of England and
Scotland and America and the world, prac-
tically saying by that, Here is fuek as far
as possible let My trees a'one." And BY
opening for the human race the great
quarries Of granite and showing the human
family how to make BRICK, God is practi-
cally saying, "Here is building material; let
NY trees alone" We had better stop the
axes among the Adirondacks. We had bet
ter stop the axes in all our forests, as it
would have been better for Syria If the axes
had long ago been stopped among the
mountains of Lebanon. To punish us for our
reckless assault on the forests we have the
disordered seasons, and now the droughts
because the uplifted arms OF the trees do not
pray for rain, their presence according to oil
scientists disr osing the descent OF the show
ers, and then we have the cyclones and the
hurricanes multipliedin in number and velocity
because there is nothing to prevent their aW-
full sweep.
Plant the trees in your parks that the
weary may rest under them. Plant them
along your streets, that up through the
branches passers by may see the God who
first made the trees and then made man to
look at them. Plant them along the brooks,
that under them the children may play.
Plant them in your gardens, that as in Eden
the Lord may walk there in the cool of the
day. Plant them in cemeteries, their shade
o,,I tlAi, lao1 md
ing like the rustic of the wings of the de-
parted. Let Arbor Day, or the day for the
planting of trees, recognized by the
Legislatures of many of the States,
be observed by all our people, and the
next one hundred years do as much in
planting these leafy glories of God as the
last one hundred years have accomplished
in their destruction. When, not tlong before
his death, 1 saw on the banks of tho
back, George P. Morris, the great song
writer of America, found him grandly
emotional, and could understand how he
wrote "Woodman, spare that treem the
verses of which many of US have felt like
quoting in belligerent spirit, when under
the stroke of some one without sense or
reasCn we saw a beautiful tree prostrated.
AS we rode along on these the mountains
Of Lebanon. we bethink how its cedars
spread their branches and breathe their
aroma and cast their shadows all through
the Bible. Solomon discourSed about them
in his botanical works, when he spoke OF
trees from the cedar tree that is ir Lebanon
even unto the hyssop that springeth out OF
the wall" The Psalmist says, THE right
eous shall grow like cedar in Lebanon"
and in one his magnificent doEologies calls
| on the cedars to praise the Lord. And Solo
| mon says the countenance of Christ is excel
lent as the cedars, and Isaiah declares "The
| day of the Lord shall be upon all the cedar;
| of Lebanon" And Jeremiah and Ezekiel
! and Amos and Zephaniah and Zechariah
weave its foliage into their sublinest utter
| ances
AS we ride over Lebanon to-day there is
a howiing wind sweeping past and a dash Of
rain, all the better enabling US to appreciate
| that description of a tempest which no
doubt was suggested by what David had seen
| with his own eyes among these heights, for
as soldier he carried his wars clear up to
| Damascus, and such poet as he, warrant,
spent many day on Lebanon. And perhaps
while he was seated OH this very rock against
which our carriage jolts, he writes that Won
derful description of thunder storm: "The
voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice OF
| the Lord is full of majesty. The voice OF the
| Lord breaketh the cedars Of Lebanon. Yea,
| the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
He maketh them also to skip like calf, LeG-
anon and Sirion like young unicorn. The
voice of the Lord divideth the flames of
/ fire."
AS the lion is the monarch of the fields and
behemoth the monarch of the waters, the
, cedar is the monarch Of the trees And
think one reason why it is so glorihed oil up
and down the Bible is because we need more
Of its characteristics in our religious life.
| Wehave too much of the willow, and ara
easily bent this way or that; too much of
the aspen, and we tremb!e under every