Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-25
THE CREATIVE WEEK
Described in the Picturesque Lam
guage of DR.. Talmage.
A THOROUGHLY ORTHODOX VIEW.
Lessons of Physical and Moral Cleanliness
Are Inculcated.
JEHOTATS WONDERFUL OMNTPOTENCE

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DTSPATCE.l
BROOKLYN, May 24-The striking SER
mon DR. Talmage delivered this morning to
an audience which filled the new Taber-
nacle in every part, dealt with a topic of
interest to all who have watched the discus
sions now agitating the churches Wher-
ever the question of the inspiration of the
Bible is raised, the trustworthiness of the
Mosaic narrative of the Creation is always
the point chiefly assailed. The fact that so
prominent and eloquent a preacher as DR..
Talmage places himself clearly on record on
the side of orthodoxy will doubtless have a
marked influence on public opinion. His
text was Genesis i.,31: "And the evening
and the morning were the sixth day."
From Monday morning to Saturday night
gives us a weeks work. Il We have filed
that week with successes, we are happy.
But am going to tell you what God did in
one week. Cosmogony, geology, astronomy,
ornithology, ichthyology, botany, anatomy
are such vast subjects that no human life is
long enough TO explore or comprehend any
one OF them. But have thought might in
an unusual way tell you a little of what God
did in one week and that the first week.
n
And whether you make it week of days
OF week of ages, care not, for / shall
reach the same practical result of reverence
and worship. The first Monday morning
found swinging in space the piled-up lumber
of rocks and metal and soil and water from
which the earth was to be builded. God
made up his mind to create q human family
and they must have house to live in. But
the time was coming when being called
man was TO be constructed and he was to
have a bride; and where he could find
homestead to which he could take her must
have been q wonderment to angelic intelli-
gcnces? There had been earthquakes
enough, and volcanoes enough, and glaciers
enough, but earthquakes and volcanoes and
glaciers destroy instead of build. A worse
looking world than this never swung. 1t
was heaped up deformities, scarifications
and monstrosities. The Bible says it was
God never did take any one in His coun-
sells, but if He had asked some angel about
the attempt to turn this planet into place
for human residence, the angel w9uld have
said: "No, no; try some other world: the
crevices of this earth are too deep; its crags
are too appalling; its darkness is too thick"
But Monday morning came. l think it was
a spring morning and about 4:SO o'clock.
The First Task of the Creation.
The first thing needed was light. 1t was
not needed for God to work by, for He can
work as well in the darkness. But light may
be necessary, for angelic intelligences are to
see in its full glory the process ofworld build
ing. No moon or stars can brighten this
darkness. The moon and stars are not born
vet, or, if created, their light will not reach
the earth for some time yet. But there is
need of immediate light. Where shall it
come from2 4
Desiring to account for things in a natural
way YOU say, and reasonably say, that heat
and electricity throw out light Independent
of the sun, and that the metallic bases
throw out light Independent of the sun, and
that alkalies throw out light independent of
the sun. Oh, yes; all that is true, but do |
not think that is the way light was created.
The record makes me think that, standing
over this earth that spring morning, God |
looked upon the darkness and uttered, |
whether in the Hebrew of earth, or some |
language celestial 1 know not, that word /
which stands for the subtle. bright. glowing !
and all-pervading fluid that word which /
thrills and garlands and lifts everything 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 100, 600 miles |
in second and by undulations 727 ,OO0, 100000 |
Natural and Spiritual Light.
Oh! blessed light l am so glad this was the |
first thing created that week. Good thing to |
start every week with is light. Give us more |
light natural light intellectual light, spirit |
ual light, everlasting light For lack of it |
the body stumbles, and the soul stumbles. |
Oh thou Father of Lights, give US light |
Heaven itself is only more light. It is Mon
day night. "AnG the evening and the morn
ing were the first day"
Now it is Tuesday morning. A delicate and |
undertaking is set apart for this /
day. There was great superabundance of |
water. God, by the wave of his hand, this /
morning gathers part of it in suspended re-
serVoirs and part of it He orders down into /
the rivers, and lakes and seas. How to hang
whole Atlantic oceans in the clouds without |
their spilling over, except in right quantities /
and at right times, was an undertaking that |
no one but OmnipOtence would have dared.
But God does it as easily as you would lift
glass of water.
Half of this Tuesdays work done, the
other half is the work of compelling the
waters to lie down in their destined places. |
So God picks up the solid ground and packs
1t up into five elevations, which are the con-
tinents.
Continents and Oceans Appear.
With his finger he makes deep depressions
in them, and these are the lakes while at the
piling up Of the Alleghenies and Sierra
Nevadas and Pyrenees and Alps and Hima-
layas the rest of the waters start by the law
of grayitation 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. How soon
the rivers got to their places when God said:
Hudson and James and Amazon, down to
the Atlantic; Oregon and Sacramento, down
10 the Pacific" Three-quarters of the earth
being water and only one-quarter being land,
nothing but Almightiness could have Gagged
the three-fpurths so that they could not have
1evoured the one-fourth: Thank God for
water and plenty of 1t. What a hint that
Sod would have the human race very clean:
1hree-fourths of the world water.
Pour il through the homes and make them |
pure. Pour it through the prisons and make
their occupants moral. Pour it through the
streets and make them healthy. There never |
was filthy street that remained a moral
street.
Cleansed of Guilt by the Deluge.
How important an agency of reform water
is was illustrated by the fact that when the
lncient world got so outrageously wicked it
was plunged into the deluge and kept under
-Or months till its iniquity was soaked out
1f il. But rejoice that on the first Tuesday |
IF the worlds existence the water was |
aught to know its place, and the Mediter-
-anean lay down at the feet of Europe, and
ihe Gulf of Mexico lay down at the feet of
North America.
Now it is Wednesday morning of the |
worlds first week. Gardening and horti- |
,ulture will be born to-day. Hail to the
,reen grass, Gods favorite color and Gods |
avorite plant, as judge from the fact that |
le makes a larger number of them than of |
nything else. We are pushing agriculture
md fruit culture to great excellence in the
century, but we have nothing |
low to equal what see on this first Wednes- |
lay of the worlds existence. The banquet |
or the human race is being spread before the
LrrlVal OF the firstgueSt. In the fruit of that |
garden was the seed for the orchards and
gardens of the hemispheres. Notice that
he first thing that God made for food was
ruit, and plenty of it. Slaughter-houses are
# later invention.
Meat Is the Food of Sayages.
Far am from being a vegetarian but an