The Globe-republican., 1892-06-13
DIR. TALNAGE'S SERMON.
THE GREAT PREACHER ILLUM-
MATES AN OBSCURE TEXT.
Significance OF the Verse, IL Answered
Thee In the Secret Place OF Thunder"
In tho Bible Thunder u tho Typo OF
Power Al Mystery.

DR.. Talmage gave fresh illustration
OF the power he possesses of extracting
valuable lessons from a text which
preachers have generally neglected as
barren ground. His sermon was based
on the text Psalms Ixxxi Z. II answered
thee in the secret place Of thunder"
1t 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, its waters having been set
up on either side in masonry Of sapphire.
for God can make wall as solid out of
water as out Of granite. and the trowels
with which these two walls were built
were none the less powerful because in
visible. Such walls had never before
been lifted.
When / 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 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 pros
trate. A great lantern Of cloud hung
over this chasm between the two walls
The door OF that lantern was opened to-
ward the Israelites ahead, giving them
light, and the back OF the lantern was
toward the Egyptians, and it growled
and rnmbled and Jared with thunder;
not thunder like that which cheers the
earth after drought, promising the re-
freshing shower, but charged and sur
charged with threats Of doom.
The Egyptian Captains lost their pres
ence OF mind, and the horses reared and
e0Orted and would not answer to their
bits, and the chariot wheels got inter-
locked 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 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 nat
ural 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 The
Egyptian plague Of hail was accom-
heavens. While Samuel and his men
were making burnt Offering of a lamb,
and the Philistines were about to attack
= hx-t hau
were discomfited. Job, who was COM
binatiOn Of the DantesQue and the Mil
tonic, was solemnized on this reverbera-
tion Of the heavens, and cried: THE
thunder Of his power, who can under
stand?" and he challenges the universe
by saying, "Can'st thou thunder with
voice like him?" and he throws Rosa
Bonheur's Horse Fair" into the shade
by the Bible photograph Of a war-horse,
when he describes his neck as clothed
with thunder" Because Of the power
Of James and John, thev were called
''the sons of thunder. The law given
on the basaltic crags of Mount Sinai
was emphasized with this cloudy ebulli-
tion. The skies all around about St
John at PatmOS were full Of the thunder
of war and the thunder of Christly tri-
umph and the thunder Of resurrection
and the thunder of eternity.
But when my text says, II answered
thee in the secret place Of thunder" it
suggests there Is some mystery about
the thunder. To the ancients the cause
of this bombarding the earth with loud
sound must have been more Of a mystery
than it is to US. The li9htnings. 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 lamps, and
every schoolbOy knows something about
the fact that it is the passage Of cleo
tricity 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 be true, that there is
some secret about the place of thunder.
To one thing known about tae thun-
der there are q hundred things not
known. After all the scientific batter
les have been doing their work tor
thousand years to come and learned men
have discoursed to the utmost about at
mospheric electricity and magnetic
electricity and galvanic electricity and
thermotic electricity and frictional cleo
tricitv and positive electricity and mega
tive electricity, my text will be as sug-
gestive as it Is to-day, when it speaks Of
the secret place Of thunder.
Now right along by q natural law
there Is always q spiritual law. As
there is secret place OF natural thun-
der, there is secret place OF moral
thunder. In other words. the religious
power that you see abroad in the church
and in the world has hiding place, and
in many cases it is never discovered at
all I will use similituda can give
only the dim outline of particular case,
for many Of the remarkable circum-
stances have forgotten. Many years
ago there was large church. 1t was
characterized BY strange and unaccount-
able conversions There were no great
revivals, but individual cases Of spirit
ual arrest and transformation.
A young man sat In one Of the front
pewA He was graduate Of Yale,
brilliant As the north star and notori-
ousiy dissolute. Everybody knew him
and liked him for his geniality, but de-
Il