The Princeton union., 1892-06-09
PLACE OF THUNDER,
Or. Talmage Says That Science Has
Revealed Considerable
About 1t,
But, There is Still Some Mys-
terry and Always
Will Be.

BROOKLYN, N. Especial DIR.
Talmage gave a fresh illustration this
morning Of the power he possesses of
extracting valuable lessons for q text
which preachers have generally neg
lected as barren ground. His sermon
was based on the text, Psalms lxxxi.,
z: II answered thee in the secret
OF thunder"
It is past midnight, and 2 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, it's
waters haying been set up on their
side in masonry of sapphire, for God
can make a wall as solid out OF water
as out of granite, and the trowels with
which these two walls were built we're
none the less powerful because invisi-
BILE. Such walls had never before been
Lifted. When I saw the waters of the
Red Sea rolling through the Suez
Canal, they were blue and beautiful
and flowing like other waters, but to-
night, as the Egytians look up to
them built 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 prostrate. A
great lantern Of cloud hung over this
chasm between the two walls. The
door OF that lantern was opened tow
ard the Israelites ahead, giving them
light, and the back of the lanternswas
toward the Egyptians, and it growled
and rumbled and Jared with thunder;
not thunder like that which cheers
the earth after a drought, promising
the refreshing shower, but charged
and surcharged with threats of doom.
The Egyptian captains lost their pres
ence 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
charioteers were hurled headlong, 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 asked
the Almighty God to ensepulchre their
Egyptian pursuers in one great sarco-
phagus, and the splash and the roar
OF the Red Sea as it dropped to it's
natural bed were only the shutting of
the sarcophagus on a dead host.
That is the meaning OF the text when
GOD says: II answered thee in the
secret place of thunder"
Now, thunder, all up and down the
Bible, is the symbol of power. Small
wits depreciate the thunder and say,
"It is the lightning that STRIKES" But
God evidently thinks the thunder of
SOA1AC 1lpOI CcAACc VI 1lS WOulu lOO
make so much OF it. That man must
be without Imagination, and without
sensitiveness, and without religion
who can without emotion see the
convention of summer clouds called
to order by the falling gavel OF the
thunderbolt. There is nothing in the
natural world that so awes and
solemnizes me as the thunder. The
Egyptian plague OF hail was
accompanied with this full diapason
of the heavens. While Samuel and
his men were making a burnt Offering
of a lamb, and the Philistines were
terrorizing thunder they were discom-
flied.
But, when my text says, ri answered
thee in the secret place Of thunder"
it suggests there is some
MYSTERY ABOUT THE THUNDER. -,
To the ancients the cause OF this bonn
harding the earth with loud sound
mast have been more of a mystery
than it is to us. The lightnings,
which were to them wild monsters
ranging through the skies, in our time
have been domesticated. We harness
electricity to vehicles, and we cage it
in our lamps, and every school boy
knows something about the fact that
it is the passage OF electricity from
cloud to cloud that makes the heaven
ly racket which we call thunder. 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 be true,
that there is some secret about the
place of thunder.
Now, right along by a natural law,
there is always a spiritual law. AS
there is a secret place of natural
thunder, there is a secret place OF
moral thunder. In other words, the
religious power that you see has a
hiding place and in many cases it is
never discovered at all. Twill use a
similitude. lean give only a dim out
line OF particular case, for many of
the remarkable circumstances l have
forgotten. Many years ago there was
a large church: 1t was characterized
by
STRANGE AND UNAccouNTABLE coNvER-
SIONS. .
There were no great revivals, but in.
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