The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-10-06
GARDENS OF THE SEA.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE ON THE BOTANY
OF THE BIBLE.

BROOKLYN, Oct. lin his sermon this
forenoon in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, as
in many other discourses, Rev. T. De
| Witt Talmage took his hearers and read
ers through an untried region of thought
and found a subject for most practical
gospelization in "The Gardens of the
Sea-" The text selected was Jonah ii,
5, 1.-THE weeds were wrapped about my
head"
1.-THE Botany of the Bible; or, God
Among the Flowers" is fascinating sub
ject hold in my hand book which l
brought from Palestine, bound in olive
wood, and within it are pressed flowers
which have not only retained their color,
but their aroma. Flowers from Bethle-
hem, flowers from Jerusalem, flowers
from Gethsemane, flowers from Mount
of Olives, flowers from Bethany, flowers
from Sloan, flowers from the valley of
Jehoshaphat, red anemones and wild
mignonette, buttercups, daisies, cycla-
mems, camomile, bluebells, ferns, moss
es, grasses and wealth of flora that
keep me fascinated by the hour, and
every time ! open it it is new revela-
ton. 1t is the New Testament of the
fields. But my text leads us into an.
other realm of the botanical kingdom.
Having spoken to you in a course of
sermons about God Everywhere"-on
1.-THE Astronomy of the Bible; or, God
Among the Stars" '"The Ornithology of
the Bible; or, God Among the Birds;n
THE Ichthyology of the Bible; or, God
Among the Fishes" "The Mineralogy
of the Bible; or, God Among the Anne
thysts;" THE Conchology of the Bible;
or, God Among the Shells" 1.-The Chro-
nology of the Bible; or, God Among the
Centuries"-I speak now to you about
1.-THE Botany of the Bible; or, God In
the Gardens Of the Sea-" Although
purposely take this morning for consid-
GRAFTON the least observed and least ap-
preciated of all the botanical products of
the world, we shall find the contempla-
ton very absorbing.
In all our Observation-Disclosures where
we mako ministers there ought to be
professors TO give lessons in natural his
tory. Physical science oughtto be taught
side by side with revelation. 1t is the
Same God who inspires the page of the
natural world as the page of the Scrip
tural world. What freshening up it
would be to our sermons to press into
them even fragment of Mediterranean
seaweed! We should have fewer ser
mons awftllly dry if we initiated our
blessed Lord, and in our discourse, like
him, we would let q lily bloom, or crow
fly, or a hen brood her chickens, or a
crystal of salt flash out the preventative
qualities of religion.
The trouble is that in many of our
theological seminaries men who are so
dry themselves they never could get
people to come and hear them preach
are now trying to teach young men how
to preach, and the student is put between
two great presses of dogmatic theology
and squeezed until there is no life left
in him. Give the poor victim at least
one lesson on the botany of the Bible.
WONDERS OF THE DEEP.
That was an awful plunge that the rec
reant prophet Jonah made when,
dropped over the gunwales of the Medi-
terranean ship, he sank many fathoms
down into tempestuous sea. Both be-
| fore and after the monster of the deep
| swallowed him, he was entangled in sea
weed. The jungles of the deep threw
their cordage of vegetation around him.
| Some of this seaweed was anchored to
the bottom of the watery abysm, and
some of it was ahoat and swallowed by
the great sea monster, so that, while the
| prophet was at the bottom of the deep
after he was horribly imprisoned he
could exclaim and did exclaim in the
words of my text, 1.-THE weeds were
wrapped about my head"
Jonah was the first to record that there
| are growths upon the bottom of the sea
| as well as upon land. The first picture
| ever owned was handful of seaweeds
pressed on a page, and I called them
"the shorn locks of Neptune" These
| products of the deep, whether brown OF
green or yellow or purple or red or inter.
| shot of many colors, are most fascinat
ing. They are distributed all over the
depths and from Arctic to Antarctic.
That God thinks well of them / conclude
from the fact that he has made 6,00C
species of them. Sometimes these water
plants are 400 or 700 feet long, AND they
cable the sea. One specimen has g
| growth Of l 800 feet.
| On the northwest shore of our country
is seaweed with leaves 80 or 40 feet
| long, amid which the sea otter makes
his home, resting himself on the buoy
ancy of the leaf and stem. The thickest
| jungles of the tropics are not more full
/ of vegetation than the depths of the sea
There are forests down there and vast
prairies all abloom, and God walks there
as he walked in the Garden of Eden ''ir
the cool Of the day." Oh, what entrance
ment, this subaqueous world! Oh, the
| God given wonders of the seaweed! Its
| birthplace is a palace of crystal. The
| cradle that rocks it is the storm. Its
grave is sarcophagus of beryl and sap
| phire. There is no night down there.
There are creatures of God on the bot
| tom of the sea SO constructed that, strewr
all along, they make armament be
sprent with stars, consultations and
galaxies of imposing luster. The sea
feather is a lamplighter. The gymnotus
is an electrician, and he is surcharged
with electricity and makes the deeI
bright with the lightning of the sea
The gorgonia flashes like jewels. There
are sea anemones ablaze with light
There are the starfsh and the moonfish
SO called because they so powerfully sug
gest stellar and lunar illumination.
Oh, these midnight lanterns of the
ocean caverns; these professions of flame
over the white floor of the deep; thest
Examinations three miles down under
the sea; these gorgeously upholstered
castles of the Almighty in the under.
world! The author of the text felt the
pull of the hidden vegetation of the
Mediterranean, whether or not he ap
preciated its beauty, as he cried out
'.The weeds were wrapped about my
head"
Let my subject cheer all those who
had friends who have been buried at ses
or in our great American lakes. Which