Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1893-10-13
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine'S Sun.
day Sermon.
Subject: "The Gardens of The Sea-"

| 1EAI L ~ WCSIS tCtlS ETQDDeI UOOUt III
head. Jonah H., 5.
"The Botany OF the Bible or, God Anon,
the Flowers" is fascinating subject. holt
IN my hand book which brought from
Palestine. bound in olive wood, and With
1t are pressed flowers which have not onl,
retained thor color, but their aroma. Flow
ers from Bethlehem, flowers from Jerusl
lem, flowers from Gethsemene. flowers iron
i Mount OF Olives, flowers from Bethany, flow
ers from Sloan flowers from the valley o. Je
hoshaphat, red anemones and wild migno
nette, buttercups, daisies, cyclemens, camo
mile, blue6ells, ferns. moses, grasses and q
wealth OF fora that keep me fascinated by
the hour, and every time | open it it is q new
revelation. 1t is the New Testament OF the
fields. But my text leads us into another
realm of the botanical kingdom.
Having spoken 10 you in course Of ser.
mons about "Goi Everywhere on "Tne
J Astronomy Of the Bible; or, God Among the
/ Stars; !" "The ORTHODOXY Of the Bible; or,
God Among the Birds ;" "The Ic5thyology
of the Bible; or, God Among the Fishes .
1.-THE Mineralogy of the Bible ;or. God Among
the Amethysts :" "The Conchology of the
Bible; or, God Among the Shells : "The
Chronology OF the Bible; or, God Among the
Centuries speak now TO you about "Tne
Botany Of the Bible; or, God in the Gardens
OF the Sea-" Although purposoly take tDis
morning for consideration the least Observed
and least appreciated OF all the botanical
products of the world. we shall find the con-
temptation very absorbing.
| In all our theological seminarles where we
make ministers there ought to be professors
to give lessons in natural history. Physical
science ought 10 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. What freshening up
| 1t would be to our sermons to press into
them even fragment OF Mediterranean sea-
weed We should have fewer sermons
awIully dry il We initiated our blessed / ord,
and in our DISCOURSE like Him, we would
| let lily bloom, or crow fly, or hen
brood her chickens or a crystal OF salt fash
| out the preservative qualities of religion.
The trouble 'is that In many Of our theo-
| logical seminaries men who are so dry them
selves they never could get people to come
AMI 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.
That was an awful plunge that the recreant
prophet Jonah made when, dropped over the
gunvales of the Mediterranean ship, he sank
F>many fathons down into tempesiuous sea.
Both before and after the monster OF the deep
swallowed him, he was entangled in seaweet.
The jungles OF the deep threw their cordags
OF vegetation aroun1 him. Some ofthis sea-
weed was anchored to the bottom OF the
watory 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 alter he was horribly imprisoned he
could exclaim and did excaim in the words
OF my text, "The weeds were wrapped about
my head"
Joanah was the arst 10 record that there
are growths upon the bottom Of the sea rs
we'll as upon land. The first picture | ever
owned was handful Of seaweeds pressed on
q page, and called them "the s5orn locks
of Neptune" These products OF the deep,
whether brown or green or yellow or pur-
pie or red or intershot Of many co'ors, ara
most fascinating. They are distributed AL
over the depths an from Arctic to Antarctic
That God thinks we'll OF them 1 conclude
from the fact that he has made 5000 species
of them. Sometimes these water plants
are 400 or 700 feet long, and they cable
the sea. One specimen has o growth OF
1900 feet.
On the northwest shore o. or country isa
seaweed with leaves thirty or forty feet long,
amid which the sea otter makes his home,
resting himself on the huoyancy OF the leaf
and stem. The thckest jungles of the trcp-
les are not more full of vegetation than the
depths Of the sea- There are forests down
there and vast prairles all abloom, and God
walks there as he walked in the Garden OF
Eden Sin the cool of the day." Oh. wbst
enhancement, this subaqueous world Oh,
the God given wonders OF the seaweed Its
birthplace is palace OF crystal. The cradle
that rocks it is the storm. Its gray " sar-
cophagus of beryl and sapphire. There is
no night down there.
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 gaaxies of impos-
ing luster. The sea featheris lampighter. !
The gymnotus is an electrician, and he is
unchanged with electricity and makes the
deep bright with the lightning Of the sea.
The gorgonia flashes like jewels. There are |
sea anemones ablaze W tn light. There are |
the starfsh ami the moon isb, so called be- |
cause they so powerfully suggest stellar and |
lunar illumination.
Oh, these midnight lanterns Of the ocean
caverns these professions of fame over the |
white floor OF the deep; these Examinations
three miles down under the sea; these
gorgeously upholstered castles of the AL
mighty in the underworld The author OF
the text felt the pull of the hidden vegetation
OF the Mediterranean. whether or not he ap-
preclated 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 sea or in
our great American lakes. Which of us
brought up on the Atlantic coast has not had
kindred or friend thus sepuchered? We had
the useless horror OF thinking that they were
denied proper resting place. We said ooh,
If they had lived TO come ashore and had
then expired What an alienation of our
trouble it would nave been to put them in
some beautiful family plot, where we could
have planted flowers and trees over them"
Why, God did better for them than we could
have done for them. They were let down
into beautiful gardens. Before they had
reached the bottom they had garands about
their brow.
In more elaborate and adorned place than
We could have afforded them they were put
away for the last slumber. Hear it, mothers
and fathers Of sailor boys whose ship went
down in our last August hurricane There
are no Greenwoods or Laurel Hills or Mount
Auburns so beautiful on the land as there are
banked and terraced and scoOped and hung
In the depths Of the sea. The bodies OF our
and sunken friends are girdled
and canopied and housed with such glories
rs attend no other Metropolis.
They were swamped in lifeboats, or they
struck on Goodwin sands or Deal beach or
he Skerries, and were never heard OF, or dis
appeared with the City OF Boston. or'the Vile
lie Havre, or the Cymbria or were run down
n fishing smack that put out from New
oundland. But dismiss your previous gloom
lbout the horrors OF ocean entombment.
When Sebastopol WAS beS.eget in the
Anglo French war, Prince Mentchikoi, COM
nan1ing the Russian navy, saw that the
,nly way to keep the Eng'ish out 81 the har- I
,or was TO sink all the Russian ships OF war {