The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-10-13
BOTANY OF THE BIBLE.
DIR. Ta,mege Discourses on Gods
Wonderful Works.
-JoDab's "Weeds'' Were Glorious Flowers
The Forests of the Ocesn-The
Burial Place of Those Lost
at Sea.

through an untried region of thought
and found subject for most practical
gospelization in 1.-The Gardens of the
the Sea" The text selected was Jonah
ii. 5: 1.-The weeds were wrapped about
any head" DR.. Talmage said:
The botany of the Bible or God
among the flowers, is a fascinating sub
-5ect. / hold in my hand a book, which
] 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 Bethlehem, flowers from Jerusa-
lem, flowers from Gethsemane, flowers
from Mount of Olives, flowers from
Bethany, flowers from Sloan, flowers
from the valley of Jehosaphat, butter
cups, daisies, cyclamens, chamomile,
blue bells, ferns, MOSES, grasses and
a wealth of fora that keep me fascinat-
ed by the hour, and every time open
it it is new revelation 1t is the New
Testament of the fields. But my text
leads us into another realm of the bo-
tanical kingdom.
Having spoken to you N the course
of sermons about God everywhere; on
the astronomy of the Bible, or God
among the stars; the ornithology of the
Bible, or God among the birds; the
ichthyology of the Bible, or God among
the fishes; the mineralogy of the Bible,
or God among the amethysts; the
chronology of the Bible, or God among
the centuries, speak now to you about
the botany of the Bible, or God in the
gardens of the sea. Although pur-
,posely take this morning for considera-
ton the least observed and least appre-
sciated of all the botanical products of
the world we shall find the contempla-
ton very absorbing. In all our theo-
logical seminaries where we make
ministers, there ought to be pro-
fessors to give lessons in natural
history. Physical science ought
to 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 Scriptural
world. We should have fewer sermons
awfully dry if we initiated our blessed
Lord, and in our discourses, like him,
we would let lily bloom, or a crow
fly, or a hen brood her chickens, or a
crystal of salt fash out the preserva-
tive qualities of religion. The trouble
is that in many of our theological SEM
inaries men who are so dry themselves
they could never get people TO come
and hear them preach, are now trying
to teach young men how to preach.
That was an awful plunge that the
recreant prophet Jonah made when,
dropped over the gunwales of the Med
IL l. e.
down into a tempestuous sea. Both
before 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 afioat
and swallowed by the great sea mon
-ster. so that, while the prophet was at
the bottom of the deep after he was
horribly imprisoned, and he could ex-
claim and did eXclaim in the words of
my text: 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. These products of the deep,
DTONn green VI NclIOW
purple or red or intershot of many col
-ors, are most fascinating. They are
distributed all over the depths and
from Artic to Antarctic That God
thinks well of them l conclude from
the fact that He has made 5000 species
of them. Sometimes these water
plants are 400 or 200 feet long, and
they cable the sea- 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 in the cool of the day." There
are creatures of God on the bottom of
the sea so constructed that, strewn all
along, they make armament besprent
with stars, consultations and galaxies
of imposing luster. The author of the
text felt the pull of the hidden vegeta
ton of the Mediterranean, whether or
not he appreciated its beauty, as he
cries out: THE weeds were wrapped
about my head.
Let my subject cheer all those who
had friends who have been buried at
sea or in our great American lakes
Which of us brought up on the Allan
tic coast has not had kindred or friend
thus sepulchered? We had the useless
horror of thinking that they were de-
MED proper resting place. We said:
''Oh, if they had lived to come ashore,
and had then expired! What an allie
Walton of our trouble it would have
been to put them in some beautiful
L.,
planted flowers and trees over them"
Why, God did better than we could
have done for them. They were let
down into beautiful gardens. Before
they had reached the bottom they had
.garlands about their brow. In more
elaborate and adorned place than we
could have afforded them they were
put away for the last slumber. The
bodies of our foundered and sunken
friends are girdled and canopied and
housed with such glories as attend no
other Metropolis
When Sebastopol was besieged in the
Anglo-French war, Prince Mentschi-
koff, commanding the Russian navy,
saw that the only way to keep the En-
glish out of the harbor was to sink all
of the Russian ships of war in the road |
stead, and SO one hundred vessels sank. |
When, after the war was over, our |
American engineer, Gowan, descended |
to the depths in diSing-bell, it was an |
impressive spectacle. One hundred |
buried shipsi But il is that way nearly |
all across the Atlantic ocean. Ships |
sunk not by command of admirals but |
by the command of cyclones. But they |
all had sublime burial and the sur-