The Opelousas courier., 1891-01-24
REV. DR.. TALMAGE
THE BROOKLYN DIvlNE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.

. bill, calu1.snd still and for ages immovabIa
but the Iord out of the heavens n,ts IT,
finger on the top OF it and from it rise fhick
Iyapors intershot with fire. "He toucheth
the hills and they smoke"
Hod is the only being who can manaoa a
volcano, and again and again has He q
ployed volcanic action. The pictures IN
the walls OF Pompeii, the exhufned Italian
city, as we saw them last November DC
imonstEage that the city was not fit to live
In the first century that city. enpirdled
with palaces emparadlsed with gardens.
pilared into architectural exauisiteness
was at the foot of a mountain. nm fhe sidas,
of which 1t ran, with vineyards and villas
Of merchant princes, and all that marbIo
and bronze and imperial baths and arhor;-
culture n rainbowed fountains. and a
coliseum at the dedication of which nine
thousand beasts had been slain. and .
gupernal landscape in which the shore gaya
roses to the sea n the sea gave CRYSTALS to
the shore, yea, all that beauty and non,p
and wealth could give was there to he seem
or heard. But the bad morals of the CITY had
shocked the world. In the year 10, on the 4th
ot august, a black column rose above the
adjoining mountain and spread out. Pliny
says, as he saw it, like a great pine tres
wider and wider, until it began to rain upon
the city first thin ashes and then num;ca
stone, and sulphurous fumes scooped. and
streanis OF mud poured through the streets
I'll few people escaped, and the city was
buried, and some of the inhabitants eightean
hundred years after were found emba]med
IN the scorise OF that awful doom. The Lord
called upon volcanic forces to obliterate that
prohigate city. He touched the hills and
they smoked.
Notling but volcanic action can explain
waat | shall show you at the Dead Sea upcn
winch / looked last December. and of whose
waters / took a bitter and singing taste.
Concerning all that region there has been
controversy enough to I'LL libraries. science
saying one thing, revelation saying another
thing. But admit volcanic action divinely
Employed and both testimonies are one and
the same. Geology, chemistry, geography,
astronomy, i~chthyology, ornithology and
zoology are coming one by one to confirm
the Scriptures. Two leaves of one book are
Revelation and Creation, and the penman-
ship is by the same divine hand. Our horse
back ride will not be so steep to-day, and you
can stay on without clingilsg to the pommel
of the saddle, but the scenes amid which we
ride shall, it possible, be more thrilling, and
by the time the horses snuff the suIphurous
atmosphere of Ashaltites, or the Dead Sea,
we win 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 a detour and pass along by the rocky
fortress of Masada, where occurred some
thing more wonderful in the way of despera-
tion than you ever heard Of, unless you have
heard of that. Herod built a palace amid
these heaps Of black and awful rocks which
look like a tumbled midnight. A great band
of robbers, about one thousand including
their families, afterward held the fortress.
when the Roman army Stormed that steep
iand the bandits could no longer hold the
place, their chieftain, Eleazar, made a pow
arfui speech which persuaded them to die
before they were captured. First the men
kjccnd THAR fnmiliQc n l0uin0 and faarful
good-by and then put a 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 Town 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 committed suicide. Two
women and five children had hid them
selves, and after all was over came forth to
tell OF the nine hundred and sixty slaugh-
tered. Great and rugged natural scenery
makes the most tremendous natures Tor good
or evii. Great statesmen and great robbers,
great orator. and great butchers, were
nearly all born or reared among mountain
preciDices. Strong natures are hardly ever
born upon the plain. When men have any
thing greatly good or greatly evil to 90 they
come down eff the rocks.
rass on nom under Che shadow OF Masada,
tstC Sscu0 III CuuC6IlidUcu UldDOlIS1l ,duQ COn0
along where the salt crystals crackle under
the horses hoofs. You are near the most
Sod forsaken region of all the earth. You
to whom the word lake has heretofore sug-
gested those bewitchments of beauty, Luz
zefiie or Cayuga, some great pearl set by q
lowing God i'm the bosom of the ldxuriant VAL
ley, change all your ideas about q 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 muieteers will
take care of the horses while we go down to
the brink and dip up the liquid mixture In
the palm of the hand. The waters are q COM
s1aingling of birthstone and pitch, and have
six times larger percentage Of salt than
those of the Atlantic Ocean, the ocean hay-
ing four per cent. of salt and this lake 26R
per cent. Lake Sir-i-kol, of India is the
highest lake in the world. This lake, on the
banks Of which we kneel, is the lowest lake.
It empties into no sea, among other things,
Tor the simple reason that water cannot run
up hill. tt swallows up theriver Jordan and
makes no respons 81 thanks, and never re-
ports what it does with the twenty millions
cubic feet Of water annually received from
Shat sacred river. It takes the tree branches
and logs Hoated into it by the Jordan and
pitches them on the banks OF bitumen TO de-
cay thers.
nameof Callirhoe, where King Herod came
to battle of his illnesses, no sooner pour in
TO this sea than they are poisoned. Not a
fish scale swims it. Not an insect walks Il.
It hates life, and il you attempt to swim
there it lifts you by an unnatural buoyancy
10 the surfaces as much as to saystge want NO
life here, but death is our preference dea1n.
Those who attempt to wade into Ems lake,
and subnerge themselves, come OUT aimosg
m~addened, as with the sting Of q hundred
wasps and hornets, and. with Lips ana eye
lids swollen with tbs strange RbluGion.