The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1892-05-31
"A VALUABLE LESSON.
EXTRACTED FROM A TEXT APPAR-
EMILY BARREN OF SUGGESTIONS.

His Ability to Be Eloquent and Earnest
in Novel Lines of Pulpit OratOry.
BROOKLYN, May 29.TDr. Talmage
gave a fresh illustration this morning of
the power he possesses of extracting
valuable lessons from text which
preachers have generally neglected as
barren ground. His sermon was based
on the text Psalms XXI, :, Il answered
thee in the secret place of thunder
1t is past midnight, and two o'clock n
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 bot
tom of the Red sea, its waters having
been set up on either side III masonry of
sapphire, for God can make Il wall as
solid out of water as out of granite, and
the troweis with which these two walls
We're 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, rs the Egyp-
tians 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 tine same power
that lifted them up might suddenly fling
them PROSTATE. A great lantern of cloud
hung over this chasIn between the two
walls. The door of that lantern was
opened toward the Israelites ahead, Civ
ing them light, and the back of the Ian
tern was toward the Egyptians, and it
growled and rumbled and Jared with
thunder; not thunder like that which
cheers the earth after a drought, promis-
ing 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 inter
locked and torn off. and the characters
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, aud their feet
bleeding, and their bodies decrepit with
the suffering of whole generations, they
had asked Almighty God to ensepulcher
their Egyptian pursuers in one great
sarcophagus, and the splash and the
roar of the Red sea as it dropped to its
natural bed were only the shutting of
the sarcophagus on a dead host. That
is the meaning of the text when God
says, Il answered thee in the secret place
of thunder"
A POWER AND \ MYSTERY.
Now thunder, all TIP and down the
Bible, is the symbol of power. The Egyp-
Of boil
with this full diapasOn of the heavens.
While Samuel and his men were making
a burnt offering of lamb, ans the Phil
istines were about to attack them, it was
by terrorizing thunder they We're dis
comfited. job, who was combination
of the Dantesque and the MiltOnic, was
sOlemuiZed on this reverberatiOn of the
heavens, and cried, The thunder of has
power, who can understands" and he
challenges the universe by saying, "Canst
thou thunder with Il voice like him.
and he throws Rosa BonheUr's "Horse
Fair" into the shade by the Bible photo
graph of Il warhorse, When he describes
his neck as clothed with thunder" Be
cause Of the power of James and John
they We're called 1.-The sons OF thunder
The law given on the baaaltic crass OF
Mount Sinai was emphasized with this
cloudy ebullition. The skies I'll around
about ST. John at Paliuos 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, u answered
thee in the secret place Of thunder" i
suggests there is some mystery about
the thunder. To tho Hncients the cause
of this bomSarding the earth with lOuC
sound must have been more of a mys
terry than it is to US. The hghtnings
which were to them wild monster
ranging through the skies, IL our time
have been domesticated. We harness
electricity to vehicles and we cage it il
lamps. and every schOolbOy knows some
thing about the fact that it is the passag
of electricity from cloud to cloud tina
makes the heavenly racket which w
call thunder. But, after all that chem
istry has taught the world, there ar
mysteries about this skyey resonance
and my text, true in the time of tn
Psalmist, is true now and always will b
true, that there is some secret about tn
place of thunder.
To one thing known about the thur
der there are a hundred things nc
known. After all the scientific batterie
have been doing their work for a thou
sand years to come and learned me
have discoursed to the utmost abou
atmospheric electricity and magnet
electricity and galvanic electricity an
ther1notic electricity and FRACTIONAL eleC
tricity and positive electricity and negi
tive electricity my text will be as suE
gestive as it is today, when it speaks
the secret place of thunder.
RESULT OF A woMAN's PRAYERS,
Now right along by natural la
there is always "a spiritual law,
there is a secret place of natural thu
der, there is a secret place of NOR
thunder In other words, the religion
power that you see abroad in the churc
in the world has a hiding place, and
many cases it is never discovered at all