The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1893-02-07
IN THE TABERNACLE
DIR. TALM.4GE breaches TO Il
LARGE AEEIEECE
On "The Ichthyoloey of the Bible; or, God
Among the Fish Sc enesis 1:GO
Furnished tho Text.

oIoohlSH, cUIuit l.! c.-Nolf~Cidl'/ -ANC'.
T. Dewitt Taiiiioge this morning preached
to q great audience in the tabernacle
remarkably intel sung and eloquent SER
mon on THE technology of the Bible, or
God Among the Fishes" being a continue
ton of his series oi discourses on God
Everywhere The text chosen was Cen
esis 1:2O and God said let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life"
What a new book the Bible is! After
thirty-six wears preaching from it and dis
cussing over three thousand different sub
jects founded on the facts of God, the book
is as fresh TO l.c as when l learned OF
infantile memory, the shortest verse i'll the
Bible Jesus WUpt," AMI | opened q few
weeks ago a new realm of Biblical interest
that neither my pu,ilt nor anyone else's had
ever explored, and having spoken to you III
this course of sermons Oh God everywhere
concerning the astronomy OF the Blble Oh
God among the stars, the chronology of the
Bible Of God among the centuries, the orni-
thology of the Bible or God among the birds,
the minerology of the Bible or God among
the ameuhysts this morning. as l may be
divinoly helped, / will speak to you about
the ichthyology of the Bible OF God among
the fishes.
Our horses We're lathered and tired out,
and their tetlocke were red with the blood
cut out by the locks, and L could hardly
get my feet out OF the stirrups as on Sat
urday night we dlsmounted on the beach of
Lake Galilee. The rather liberal supply
OF good with which we Gad started from Je-
rusalem was well night exhausted, and the
articles of diet remaining, had, by OFT re-
petition, three times Il day for three weeks,
ri. | nj IN 600 40
again, and dates with me are all out OF
date. For several days the Arab caterer,
VINO could speak but halt Il dozen i-n-
gilSh words would answer our requests
tor some of The styles OF food with Which
We had been delectated the first few days,
by crying out. FINISHED" The most
plquant appetizer is abstlncnce, and the
demand OF ali Inc party was, Let us break
fast on Sunday morning on fresh hsh
from Lake Gennesareth,' for you must
know that that lake has four names, aud
it is worth a profusion of nomenclature, and
it is in the Bible called Chinnereth, Ii
berias, Gennesareth and Galllee. 10 our
eXtemporized table Oh Sabbath morning
came broiled perch, only Il few hours be-
fore lifted out OF the sacred waters. 1t
was natural that. our minds should revert
to the only hrcakfas: that Christ ever pre-
pared, and it wa on those very shores
where we breaktaSted. Christ had, III
those olden times, struck two tilntS together
ana set on ire some shaylngS or hight
brush wood, and then put on larger wood,
and pile Of glowing bright Goals was the
consequence. Meanwhile, the disciples,
fishing on the LAKE, bad aWfully poor luck,
and every time they drew up the net 1t
hung dripping without Il tlulteung hn or
4sQuTImnG scale. But Christ, from the
shore, shouted to them, and told them
where 10 -rop the uet,~ and one hundred
anI tifty-three big fish rewarded tim.
Simon and Nathaniel having cleaned some
Of those large fish, brought them to the
Goals which Christ had kindied, and the
group who had been out all night and were
chill and wet ana hungry, sat down and be-
gan mastic.tion All that scene came back
to us when on Sabbath morning, December,
1889, just outside the ruins Of ancient
Ilucrlas and within sound of the ripping
Ga.ilee brcaklastcd.
Now, is il not strange that the Bible i'm
aGery is SO iuwrought from the fisheries.
when the Holy Land is, for the most part,
IN inland region: Only three lakes, two
beside the one already mentioned, namely,
the Dead sea, where fish cannot live at all
and as soon as they TOUGH it they die, and
the birds SWoop OH their tiny carcaSeS,
and the third, tire Pools of HesAbon, which
are alternately full and dry. Only three
and Jordan. About ali the fish now in the
waters of the Holy Land are the perch,
the carp, the Dream, the minnow the b!cn-
ry, the barbel lSo-c&lled because of the
barb at its MOUTH, the club, the doS-fish,
none OF them worth delaware shad or
an Adirondack trout. Wei, the worlds
geography has changed and the world
bill OF Iale has changed. Lake Galilee was
larger and deeper ald better stocked than
now. and no doubt the rivers were deeper
and the fisheries were OF far more impor-
tance then than now. Beside that, there
was the Mediterranean sea only thirty-fiye
miles away, and fish were salr2d or dried
and brought inland, and SO much Of that
article Of food was sold in Jerusalem that
n fish market gave the name to one Of the
gates OF Jerusalem near by and it was
called the Fish Gate. Ine cities had great
reservoirs, in which fish We're kept alive
and bred. The Pool of Gideon was a fish
pool Isaiah and Solomon refer to fish
pools. Large fish We're kept alive and tied
fast by ropes to q stake in these reservoirs,
Il ring having been run through their gil!s,
and tl2t is the meaning of the scripture
passage watch says. "Canst thou put a
with Il thornT SO important was the fish
that the god Dagon, Worshipcd by the
philistneS, was made half fish and half
man, and that is the meaning of the Lords
indignation, when in First Samuel we read
that this Dagon, the fsh-god stood beside
the ark OF the Lord, and Dagon was by
invisible hands dashed to pieces, because
the phiIistines had dared to make the fish
Il god. That explains the scripture passage:
Tho head of Dagon and both the palms of
his hands were cut off upon the threshold;
only The stump of Dagon was left to him."
Now the stump of Dagon was the fish part
The top part, which was the figure of Il
man, was dashed to pieces, and the Lord,
by demo!ishing everything but the stump
or the fish part OF the idol. practically
said, You may keep your fish, but know
from the way / have demolished the rest
of the Idol that it is nothn" divine"
Layard and Wilkinson found the fish
an OBJECT OF idoajry all through Assyria
and Egypt. The Nile was full Of fish, and
that explains the horrors of the plague
that slaughtered the tinny tribe all up ana
down that river, which las been and is
now the main artery of Egypts life. In
Job you hear the plunge of the spear into
the hippopotamus. as the great dramatic
poet cries out: ''Cau5t thou fill his skin
with barbod irons or his head with FISH
spears!" Gea. the fish began 10 swim in the
very first book Of Genesis where ny text
records, And God said, let the waters
bring forth abandantly die moving creature
tlat hath life" DO you realize that the
first living thing that God created was
the fish: 1t preceded the bird the quad
rUped. the human race. The fish has priori-
t. Of residence over every living thing.
The next thing done after God had kindled
for our world the golden chandelier Of the
sun and the silver chandelier Of the
moon was to make the fish. The first mo-
tor OF the principle OF life, a principle
that all the thousands of years since have