Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-05-30
REV. DR.. TALMAGR.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divines Sun
day Sermon.

The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
Subject. zone Weeks work"
TEXT: And the erenin1 and the morn
Eng tcere the sirth ddy.n-Genesis l., 81.
From Monday morning to Saturday night
gives US weeks work. If we have filled
that week with successes we are happy. But
am going to tell you what God did in one
week. Cosmogony, geology, astronomy, or
orthodoxy, ichthyology, botany, anatomy
are such vast subjects that no human life is
long enough to explore or comprehend any
one of them. But have thou hit might
in an unusual way tell you little Of what
make it week OF days or a week of ages l
care not, for l shall reach the same practi-
cal result OF reverence and worship.
The first Monday morning found swinging
in space the piled up lumber of rocks aud
metal aud soil ami water from which the
earth was to be builded. God made up his
mind to create a human family, and they
must have house to live in. Bat wheres
Not roof, not wall, not door, not
room was fit for human occupancy. There
is not pile of black basalt in Yellowstone
Park or an extinct volcano in Honolulu so
this globe at that early period Moreover,
there wasno human architect to draw plan
no quarrymaa to blast the foundation stones,
no carpenter to hew out a beam, and no
mason to trowei wall
The first thing needed was light 1t was
not needed for God to worS by for He can
work as well in the darkness But light NAV
be necessary, for angelic intelligences are to
see in its full glory the process of world build
ing. But where are the candles, where are
the cande!abra, where is the chandelier? No
rising sun will roll in the morning, for il the
sun is already created its light will not yet
reach the earth in three days. Nor moon
nor stars can brighten this darkness. The
moon and stars are not born yet, or il
created their light will not reach the earth
for some time yet. But there is need of im-
mediate light Where shallit come from?
The record makes me think that, standing
over this earth that spring morning Col
looked upon the darkness that palied ths
heights of this world aud the chasms of it,
and the awful reaches of it, ana uttered.
whether in the Hebrew OF earth or some
language celestial [ know not, that word
which stands for the subtle, bright, glowing
and all pervading fluid, that word which
thrills and garlands and lifts every thing it
touches that word the full meaning OF which
all the chemists of the ages have busted
themselves in exploring. that word which
suggests force that flies one hundred and
ninety thousand miles in a second, and by
fluctuations seven hundred and twenty-seven
trillions in a second, that one word that God
utters-Lightl
And instantly the darkness began to shin-
rner, and the thick folds of blackness to lift
and there were scintillations and corusca-
tons and flashes and billowing up of resplen-
dence and in great sheets it spread out
northward, southwark, eastward westward,
and radiance filled the atmosphere until it
could hold no more of the brilliance Light
now to work by while supernatural intelli-
gences look on. Light, the first chapter of
the first day of the week. Light the joy of
the centuries. Light, the greatest blessing
that ever touched the human eye. The robe
of the Almighty is woven out of it, tor He
covers Himself with light as with gar
ment. oh, blessed light! | am so glad this
was the first thing created that week. For
lack of it the body stumbles. o thou Father
of Lights, give us light!
Now it is Tuesday morning. A delicate
and tremendous undertaking is set apartfo
this day There was a great superabun-
dance Of water. God. by the wave of His
hand, this morning gathers part of it in sus-
pended reservoirs and part OF it He orders
down into the rivers and lakes and seas.
How to lang whole Atlantic oceans in the
clouds without their spilhng over except in
right quantities and at right times WITS an
undertaking that no one but Omnipotence
would have dared. But God doesit as easily
asyou would lift a glass OF water There He
hoists two clouds, each thirty miles wide and
five miles high, and balances them. Here
He lifts the CIRCUS clouds and spreads them
out in great white banks as though it had
been showing in heaven. And the GIRO
stratus clouds in long parallel lines, SO
straight you know an infinite geometer has
drawn them. Clouds which are the armory
from which thunder storms get their bayo-
nets Of fire. Clouds which are oceans on
the wing. No wonder, long after this first
Tuesday OF creation week, Ehhu confounded
Job with the question: "Dost thou know ths
balancing of the clouds"
Half of this Tuesday work done, the other
half is the work of compelling the waters TO
lilo down in their destined places. So God
picks up the solid ground and packs it up iu-
to the five elevations which are the CONT
nents. With his finger he makes deep de-
presslons in them, and these are the lakes,
while at the piling up of the Alleghanies and
Sierra Nevadas and Pyrenees and Alps and
Himalayas the rest OF the waters start by
the law of gravitaton to the lower places,
and in their run down hill become the
rivers, and then all around the earth these
rivers come into convention and become
oceans beneath, as the clouds are oceans
above.
Now it is Wednesday morning of the
worlds first week Gardening and horticul-
hills look and so unattractive they seem
hardly worth having been made. But now
all the surfaces are changing color. Some
thing beautiful is creeping all over them. It
has the color of emerald, ~, it is heritage.
HAL TO the green guest, Gods favorite color
and Gods favorite plant, as | Judge from
the fact that he makes q larger. number. of
them than of anything else. But look Won
der! Something starts out of the ground
and goes higher up, higher and higher and
spreads out broad leaves 1t is a palm trea
on1er is another growth, and its leaves
hang tar down, and it is a willow tree. And
Wonder Is a growth with a mighty sweep OF
branches. And here they come tue pear.
ana the apple, and the peach, and the ponce
granate. aud groves and orchards, and for
ests, their shadows and Their fruit girdliny
the earth.
Now it is Thursday morning OF the worlds
first week. Nothing will be created to-day.
The hours will be passed in scattering fogs
anl mtSts and vdpors. The atmosphere
must be swept clean. Other worlds are to
heave in sight This little snip of the earth
has seemed to have all the ocean OF inn
m9nsity to itself. But mghtiar craft are to
be hailed to-day on the high seas of space.
First, the moons white sail appears and
does very well until the sun bursts upon thu
scene The light that on the previous thres
mornings was struck from an especial word
nov gathers IN 6ha sun, moon and stars
OIe for the day, the other for the night.
And the sun now appears afterwar1 to be
found eight hundred AMI lightweight thou
sand miles in diameter, anil put in astro
nomical scales, to be found to weigh nearly
four hundred thousand times heavier than
our earth, mighty furnace, its heat kept
W by meteors ponriug intoi it as fuel, a world
devoufing other worlds with its laws OF
name. Aud the stars coma o1t. taos, strait
lamps OF heaven, thoso keys of pe1rl, upo1
which Gods fingers play the music of tina
spheres. How bright thew look in this orr
entail evening! Consultations Galaxiesl
What twelty-four hours of this first wee!z
solar, lunar, stellar APPEARANCES! All this
Thursday AMI the adjoining nights employed
IN pulling aside tas curtain of vapor from
these flushed or pale-facs1 worlds.
Now it is Friday morning in the first wee,
OF the worlds history Water but NOT a fin
swimming it; air but not wing avinr il
II is silent world. Can it be that it wa,
made only foc vegeta5les2 But har5t Th9r,
IS swirl and a splasliug in all thu four
rivers OF Pisol, Giho1 Hide&sl aud Euphra.
te;. They are all aswim with life, SON,
darling like arrows tig ugh s0lit crystal
and othe-s quiet in darS po,ls like shadows.
EVERYTHING, from spotted trout to behenoth
all colored, all SHAPED, the ancestors of
hnnv tribes that shall ny their wonders of
construction contoun1 the Agasszss, the
Cuviers and the Linu@1sss and the ichthvo-
logistS OF the more than six thousand years
following this Friday of the first week.