The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-05-30
THE PLACE OF THUNDER.
TALMAGE ON THE OPENING OF
THE RED SEA.

Thunder a Symbol of Power AL
Through the B.ble-A Secret Meet
ing in the Top story OF the Preach
ers House That Was Followed by q
Great Revival
BROOKLYN, N. Y, May 29.-Dr
Talmsge gave fresh illustration this
morning Of the power he possesses Of ex-
tracing valuable lessons from text which
preachers have generally neglected as
barren ground. His sermon was based on
the text Psalms XXI, 7:"I answered thee
in the secret place of thunder"
1t is past midnight and two o'clock in the
morning. far enough from sunset
and sunrise to make the darkness
very thick, and the Egyptian army
in pursuit Of the escaping Israelites are
on the bottom of the Red sea, its waters
having been set up on either side in
masonry of sapphire, for God can make a
wall as solid out Of water as out OF granite.
and the uowels with which these two
walls were built were none the less
powerful because invisible. Such walls
had never before been lifted. When l
saw the waters of the Red sea rolling
through the Suez canal. they were blue and
beautiful and flowing like other waters, but
tonight, as the Egyptians look up to them
into walls, now on one side and now on the
other, they must have been frowning
waters, for it was probable that the same
power that lifted them up might suddenly
fling them PROSTATE. A great lantern of
cloud hung over this chasm betW cen the
two walls. The door of the lantern was
opened toward the Israelites ahead giving
them light, and the back of the lantern was
toward the Egyptians, and it growled
and rumbled ana Jared with thunder
not thunder like that which cheers the
earth after a drought, promising the re-
freshing shower, but charged and sur
charged with threats Of doom. The EgYp-
tian captains lost their presence of mind,
and the horses reared and snorted and would
not answer to their bits, and the chariot
wheels got interlocked and torn off, and the
Red sea fell on all the host. The confusing
and confounding thunder was in answer to
the prayer of the Israelites. With their
backs cut by the lash and their feet bleeding
and their bodies decrepit with the suffer-
ing Of whole generations, they had asked
Almighty God to ensepulcher their E2yp-
tian pursuers in one great sarcophagus, aud
the splash and the roar of the Red sea as it
dropped to its natural bed were only the
shutting of the sarcophagus or a dead host
That is the meaning of the text when God
says: 81 answered thee in the secret place
OF thunder"
Now, thunder, all up and down the Bible,
is the symbol Of power. Small wits depre-
ciate the thunder and say: 1T is the light
ming that strikes" But God evidently
thinks the thunder of some Importance or
he would not make so much OF it. That
man must be without Imagination, and
without sensitlveness, and without religion
who can, without emotion, see the conven-
ton of summer clouds called to order
by the falling gavel of the thunderbolt
There is nothingFin the natural world that
so awes aud solemniZ9S me as the thunder.
The Egyptian plague of hail was accompa-
MED with this full diapason of the heavens.
While Samuel and his men were making a
burnt offering OF lamb, and the Philis-
tines were about to attack them, it was
by terToriZing thunder they were dis
comfited. Job, who was O combination
Of the Dantesque and the Miltonic, was
solemnized by this reverberation of the
heavens, and cried: 1.-THE thunder of his
power, who can understandm and he chal-
lenges the universe by saying: "Canst thou
thunder with a voice like himP' aud be
throws Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fairn into
the shade by the Bible photograph of war
horse when he describes his neck as "clothed
with thunder" Because of the power of
James and John they were called 1.-THE sons
of thunder" The law given on the basatic
crags Of Mount Sinai was emphasized with
this cloudy ebulltion. The skies all around
about st. John at Patmos were full OF the
thunder of war and the thunder of Christly
triumph and the thunder of resurrection
and the thunder of eternity.
But when my text says ~ answered
thee in the secret place of thunder it sug-
gests there is some mystery about the thun,
der. To the ancients the cause of this
bombardtng the earth with loud sound must
have been more of a mystery than it is to
us. The lghtnings which were TO them
wild monsters ranging through the skies, in
our time have been domesticated. We har-
ness electricity to vehicles, and we cage il
in lamps, and every schoolboy knows s1me-
thing about the fact that it is the passage Of
electricity from cloud TO cloud that makes
the heavenly racket which we call thun.
der. But, after all that chemistry has
taught the world, there are mysteries
about this skyey resonance. and my text
true In the time Of the Psalmist, is true now
and always will he true, that there is some
secret about the place of thunder. To one
thing known about the thunder, there are q
hundred things not known. After all the
scientific batteries nave been doing theiI
work for thousand years to come and
learned men have discoursed to the utmost
about atmospheric electricity and magnetic
electricity and galvanic electricity anC
thermotic electricity and fractional cleo
tricity and positive electricity and negative
electricity, my text will be as suggestive al
it is to-day, when it speaks of the secre
place of thunder.
Now, right along by a natural law, there
| is always a spiritual law. AS there is
secret place OF natural thunder. there is
secret place Of moral thunder. In othe,
words, the religious power that you SCI
abroad in the church and in the world ha!
a hiding place and in many cases it is never
| discovered at all. / will use similitude.
can give only the dim outline of particu
lar case, for many of the remarkable cir
cumstances have forgotten. Many year
| ago there was a large church. 1t was char.
acterized by strange and unaccountabIe
| conversions There were no great revivals
but individual cases of spiritual arrest aat
transformation. A young man sat in one
| of the front pews. He was graduate o.
Yale, brilliant as the North Star anc
VIGOROUSLY dissolute. Everybody knew
him and liked him for his geniality bu
deplored his moral errantry. To pleas,
| his parents he was every Sabbath morn.
ing in church. One day there was q
ringing of the door bell of the pastor of tha
church, and that young man, whelmed with
repentance, lmplored prayer and advice
| and passed into complete reformation o.
heart and life. All the neighborhood wal
astonished and asked: Why was this2 Hi
father and mother had said nothing to hin
about his souls welfare. On another aislt
of the same church sat an old miser. hC
! paid his pew rent, but was hard on the poor
and had no interest in any philanthropy
! Piles OF money! And people said: What 6
struggle he Will have when he quits thi!
1