Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1893-02-11
REV. DR.. 7ALNAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
sabieet: GOD Among the Fishes


What new book the Bible is? After
thirty-six years preaching from it and dis.
cussing over 80 20 different subjects founded
on the word of God, the book is as fresh to
me as when learned, with a stretc of in
fantile memory, the shortest versfi in the
Bible, Jesus wept.n and | opeuel a few
weeks ago new realm of Biblical interest
that neither my pulpit nor any o,b elses
bad ever explored, and having spbken to
yon IN this course o. sermons on Go every
where concerning the Astronomy of the
Bible; OF, God Among the Stais;" the
chronology of the Bible; or, God Among
the Centuries the 'Ornithology of the
Bible; or, God Among the Birds" the
'Mineralo y Of the Bible; or. Col Among
the Amethysts," this morning. as may be
dlvinely helped, will speak to yo,i about
the "Ichthyology of the Bible; Dr.. Col
Among the Fishes"
Our horses were atherei an I'll out
and their fetlocks were red with the blooi
cut out by the ROCKS, and could haf lily get
my feet out OF the stirrups as on Saturday
night we dismouuted on the beach of Lake
Galilee. The rather liberal supply of food
with which we had started fro Jerusalem
was well nigh exhausted, and the articles OF
diet remaining had by oft repetition three
times day for three weeks ceased 60 appe-
tie. never want to see fig again. and
dates with me are all out of date
For several DAYS the Arab caterer, who
could speak but half a dozen English words,
would answer our requests for soma of the
styles OF food with which we had been delec-
tated the first few days by crying out "Fin.
ished" The most piquant appstizer is alb
stinance, and the demand of all the party
was, "Let us breakfast on Sunday morning
on fresh fish from Lake Gennesareth," for
you must know that that lake has four
names. AMI it is wort a profusou OF nomen-
clature, and it is in the Bible called Chin
nereth Tiberias, Gennesareth and Galilee.
70 our extemporizsd table on Sabbath
morning came broiled parch, only few
hours before lifted out of the sacred waters.
lt was natural that our minds should revert
TO the only breakfast that Christ ever pre-
pared, and it was on those very shores where
we breakfasted. Carist hal in those olden
times struck two fiiuts together AMI set on
hre some shavingso or light brushwoo1 and
then put on larger wood and pile of glow
ing bright Goals was Toe consequence.
Meanwhile the disciples fishing on the lake
had awfuily poor luck" and every time
they drew up the net it hung dripping with.
out fluttering fin or squlrming scale. But
Christ from the shore shouted to them ami
told them where to drop the net, and 1873 big
fish rewarded them. Simon and Nathaniel,
having cleaned some of those large fish,
brought them to the Goals which Christ had
kindled, and the group who ha / been out all
y,
sat down aud began mastication. All that
scene came back to us when on Sabbath
morning, Decsmber, 1882 just outside the
ruins OF ancient Tioerias and within soun
Of the ripping GaIilee, we breakfastei.
now. 1t is not strange that the Bible i'm
agery is so inwrought from the fisheries
when the Holy LAM is for the most part,
an inland region? Only three lakes two be.
sides the one already extraordinarily,
the Dead Sea, where fish cannot live at all,
ana as soon as they touch it they die, AMI
the birds swoop on their tiny carcasses. AMI
the third, the Pools OF Heshoou, which ara
alternately full and dry. Only three rivers
OF the Holy Land-Jabnok, Kishon and Jor-
lap.
About all the fish now in the waters Of the
Holy Lan1 are the perch, the carp, the
Dream, the minnow, the blenny, the birbel
$50 called because Of the barb at its mouth,
the club, the Gogish, none of them worth
Delaware shad or an Adirondack trout.
We'll, the worlds geography has changed,
and the worlds bill of fare has changed.
Lake Galilee was larger and deeper and bet
ter stocked than now, and no DOUBT the
rivers were deeper and the fisheries were of
far more Importance then than now.
Besides that, there was the Mediterranean
| ga only thlrty-hve miles away, and fish
were sailed or dried AMI brou yht inland,
and so much Of that article OF food was sold
| in Jerusalem that fish market gave the
name to one OF the gates Of Jerusalem near
/ by, and it was called the fish gate. The
cities had great reservoirs in which fish
were kept alive and bred. The pool of Gideon
was fish poo. Isaiah and Solomon refer
to fish pools. Large fish were kept alive
: and tied fast by ropes to a stake in thess
reservoirs, ring having been run through
their gills, and that is the meaning OF the
Scripture passage which says, "Canst thou
put hook into his nose or bore his jaw
through with thorn
So important was the fish that the god
Dagop, worshIpei by the Phiitstines, was
made half fish and half man, aud that is the
meaning of the Lords Indignation when in
! Samuel we read that this Da gon, the fish
god, stood beside the ark OF the Lord, and
Dagon was by invisible hands dashed to
pieces because the Pnilistine5 had dared to
make the fish g, god. That explains the
Scripture passage "Tne hea 1 Of Dagon AMI
both tha palms of his hands wer3 cut off up
/ on the threshold; only the stump OF DIgon
was left to him." Now, toe stump of Dagon
was the fish part. The top part, yfaicn was
the figure of a man. was DASHED 10 pee IS,
and the LORD, by demoishjng every thing
but the stump or fish part of the idol, prac-
tically said, You may keep your fish, but
know from the way L have demolished the
rest OF the idol that it is nothing divins.n
Layard ant Wilkinson found the fisn an
object OF idoatry all through AssyrIa and
Egypt. The Nile was full of fish, AMI that
explains the horrors of the plague that
slaughtered the filny tribe all no and down
that river, wIicn has been and is now the
main artery of Egytts life. In Job you
hear the plunge OF the spear into the nip.
popotamus as the great dramatic poet cries
out, "CapsJ thou fill his SKIN with barbe1
irons or his heat with fish spearsY' Yea,
the fish began to SWIM in the very first book
of Genes s, where my text records, And
God said, Let the waters briug forth abund-
antly this moving creature that hath life"
DO you realize that the first living
thing that God created was the fish? 1t
preceded the bird the quadrupe1, the
human race. The fish has priority OF resi-.
dence over every living thing. The next
thing done after God had kiniled for ouT
world the golden chandelier OF the SUI AMI
the silver chandelier of the moon was to
make the fish The first motion of the
principle of life, principle that all the
thousands of years since have not been able
to define or analyze-the very first stir OF
life-was in fish
What an hour that was when in the Eu.
pirates, the Gihon. the Pison and the Hid
deGel, the four rivers Of Paradise, the waters
swirled with fins and frightened with
scales. All the attributes OF the infinite
God were called into action for thu making
cent miracle. There is enough wonder in
the pate of sturgeon or in the cartilage Of
a shark to confouni the scientist. 1t does
no. take the universe to prove a Col. A
fish does it. No wonder that Ljnneus ami
Cuvier and Agassiz and the greatest minds
of all the centuries sat enrapturei before its
anatomy.
On, its beauty an | the iapte iness of It's
structure to the element in wlic1 it must
ha nj al inry m of ha
mountain trout unveiled as they spring up
to snatch the fIes; the graylIng. called the
flower Of fishes; toe salmon, ascen ing the
Oregon an the Severn easily lesping the
falls that would stop thsn tle boil percn,
the guigeon. silver AMI black spotted: the
herring, moving in squitrons five miles
long. the carp tor cunlinE clllei ths t)I
OF nsnes, the won1rous stur yeons. rcrmerly
reserved for the tables of royal famiif Q and
the isinglass ma ie out of their membrane.
the teuch, called the physician of fishes be-
cause when applied to human ailments il ia
said to be curative; the lampreys, so TEMPT
ing TO the epicurean that too many of the n
slew Henry U-aye the whole world OF
fishesi
Enough of them floating up and down the
rivers to feed the hemisph sres il every ear OF
corn and every head of wheat and every
herd of ouadruped aud if every other article
Of food in all the earth vera destroyed
Universal drou yht, leaving not SO much ~
spear OF grass on the round planet, would
leave in the rivers ami lakes and seas for
the human racs staple commodity of fool
which, il brought to shore. would be enough
not only to feed but fatten the entire human
race.
In times to come the worli nav b. so
populated that the harvesss and vineyards
and land animals may be insu tficiert TO feed
the human family, and the nations NAV bs