The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-01-01
SODOM AND GOMORRAH.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage's Fifth
Sermon of the Holy Land Series.
Thoughts Suggested by Contemplation
of the Dead Seattle Power of God
to Punish, Not Alone Indivldu-
al, but National Sin.


I. Dewitt Talmage in Brooklyn and
New York City, from the text:
He toucheth the hills and the" smoke
Psalm civ, 20.
David, the poet, here pictures vol
cano 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 touch
eth the hills and they smoke"
God is the only being who can man
age volcano, and again and again has
He employed volcanic action. The
pictures on the walls of Pompeii, the
exhumed Italian city, as we saw them
last November, demonstrate that the
city was not fit to live. In the first
century, that city, engirdled with pal
aces, unparalleled with gardens, pill
Jared into architectural exquisiteness,
was at the foot of the mountain up the
sides of which it ran with vineyards
and villas of merchant princes, and all
that marble and bronze and imperial
baths, and arborculture and rainbowed
fountains and coliseum at
the dedication of which nine thousand
beasts had been slain and 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 or heard. But the bad morals
of the city had shocked the world. In
the year 79, on the 4th of August,
black column rose above the adjoining
mountain and spread out, Pliny says,
as he saw it, like great pine tree,
wider and wider. until it began to rain
upon the city, first thin ashes, and
then pumice stone, and sulphur
Gus fumes scooped, and streams of mud
poured through the streets till few peo-
pie escaped, and the city was buried,
and somo of the inhabitants eighteen
hundred years after were found en-
balmed in the scori@ of that awful
doom. The Lord called upon volcanic
forces to obliterate that profigate city.
He touched the hills and they smoked.
Nothing but volcano action can ex-
plain what / shall show you at the
Dead Sea, upon which / looked last De-
cember, and of whose waters 1 took a
bitter and singing taste. Concerning
all that region there has been con-
troversy enough to fill libraries, science
saying one thing, revelation saying an
other thing. But admit volcanic action
Divinely employed and both testimonies
are one and the same. Geology, chem
istry, geography, astronomy, ichthyolo-
gy, ORTHODOXY and zoology are coming
one by one to confirm the Scriptures.
Two leaves of one book are revelation
and creation, and the penmanship is by
the same Divine hand. Our horseback
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, if possih Bile,
be more thrilling, and by the time the
horses snuff the sulphurous atmosphere
of Lake Asphaltites, or the Dead Sea,
we will 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 detour and pass along by the
rocky fortress of Masada, where oc-
Cured something more wonderful in
the way of desperation than you have
ever heard of, unless you have heard of
that. Herod built palace amid these
heaps of black and awful rocks which
look like tumbled midnight. great
ban1 of robbers, about one thousand in
GLIDING their families, afterward held
the fortress. When the Roman army
stormed that steep and the bandits
could no longer hold the place, their
chieftain Eleazar, made a powerful
speech which persuaded them to die be-
fore they were captured. First the
men kissed their families a loving and
fearful goodbye and then Iput dag
ger into their hearts and the
women and the children were slain.
Then ten men were chosen BY
lot to slay all the other men, and each
man lay down by the dead wife and chill
dren and waited for these executioners
to do their work. This done, one mar
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
slaughtered. Great and rugged natural
scenery makes the most tremendou.
natures for good or evil Great states
men and great robbers, great orator:
and great butchers, were nearly all Lorr
or reared among mountain precipices
Strong natures are hardly ever borI
upon the plain. When men lave any
thing greatly good or greatly evil to do
they come down off the rocks
Pass on from under the shadow O
Masada, the scene of concentrated
diabolism, and come along where the
salt crystals crackle under the horses
hoofs. You are near the most God
Jorsaken region of all the earth. Yo,
to whom the word lake has heretofore
suggested those bewitchments of beauty
Luzerne or Cayuga, some great pear
set by loving God in the bosom of tn,
luxuriant valley, change all your idea
about lake, and see this sheet o
water which the Bible calls the Salt Sea
or the Sea of the Plain, and Josephu
calls Lake Asphaltites. The muleteer
will take care of the horses while we ge