Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1893-10-11

into beautiful gardens. Before they
had reached the bottom they had gar
lands 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 hurricanei There
are no Greenwoods or Laurel Hill or
Mt. Auburns SO beautiful on the land
os there are banked and terraced and
scooped and hung in the depths of the
sea The bodies of our foundered and
sunken friends are girdled and cano-
pied and housed with such glories as
attend no other Metropolis.
They were swamped in life-boats, or
they struck on Goodwins Sands, or
Deal Beach, or the Sherries and were
never heard of. or disappeared with
the City of Boston or the Vile de Havre
or the Cymbria, or were run down in a
fishing smack that put out from New
foundland. But dismiss your previous
gloom about the horrors of ocean en-
tombment
When Sebastopol was besieged in the
Anglo-French war, Prince Mentschi-
koff, commanding the Russian navy,
saw that the only way TO keep the
English out of the harbor was TO sink
all Of the Russian ships of war in the
roadstead, and so hundred vessels
sank When, after the war was over.
our American engineer, Gowan, de-
scended TO the depths in diving bell,
it was an impressive spectacle.
One hundred buried ships. But It is
that way nearly all across the At
lantic ocean Ships sunk, not by the
command of admirals, but by the com
mand of cyclones. But they all had
sublime burial, and the surroundings
amid which they sleep the last sleep are
more imposing than the Tai Mahal. the
mausoleum with walls encrusted with
precious stones, built by the great Mo
gul OF India over his empress. Your
departed ones were buried in the gar
dens Of the sea, fenced Off by hedges of
coraline The greatest obsequies ever
known on the land were those of Moses,
where nc one but God was present.
The sublime report of that en- tombment
is in the book OF Deuteronomy, which
says that the Lord buried him. and of
those who have gone down to slumber
in the deep the same may be said-"The
Lord buried them" As Christ was
buried in a garden, so your ship
wrecked friends and those who
could not survive till they reached
lport, were put down amid rides
cence-"in the midst of a garden
there was a sepulcher." It has always
I been mystery what was the particular
mode by which George G.. Goodman, the
pulpit orator of the Methodist church
and the chaplain of the American con-
gress, left this life after embarlIing for
England on the steamship President,
March II, 1871. That ship never arrived
, in port No one ever signaled her, and
on both sides of the ocean it has for
fifty years been questioned what be-
came of her. But this 1 know about
Goodman, that whether it was iceberg,
or contiagration mid-sea, or collision,
he had more garlands on his ocean
tomb than il, expiring on land, each of
his million friends had put bouquet
on his caslIet. In the midst of the gar
den was his sepulcher.
But that brings mo to notice the mis-
homer in this Jonahitic expression of
the text The prophet not only made
mistake by trying to go to Tarshish
when God told him to go to Nineyah,
'-e AAN AAAiNAC q AAAASl1Nt NFlGn ne hINleQ
aswecds these growths that enwrapped
him on the day he sank. A weed is
something that is useless, 1t is some
thing you throw out from the garden.
1t is something that chokes the wheat
1t IS something TO be grubbed out from
among the cotton. 1t is something un-
slightly to the eye. 1t is an invader of
the vegetable or floral world. But this
growth that sprang up from the depth
of the Mediterranean, or fioated on its
surface, was among he most beau
tiful things that God ever makes.
1t was water-plant known as the red
colored alga, and no weed at all It
comes from the loom of infinite beauty.
1t is planted by heavenly love. 1t is
the star of a sunken armament It is n
lamp which the Lord lSindled. 1t is a
cord by which to bind whole sheaves OF
practical suggestion. II is n poem all
whose cantos are rung by divine good
ness Yet we all make the mistake
that Jonah made in regard to it. and
call it n weed. THE weeds were
wrapped about my head" All. that is
the trouble on the land as on the sea.
We call those weeds that are flowers
Pitched up on the beach OF society are
children without home, without op-
portunity for anything but sin. seem
ingly without God. They are washed
up helpless They are called ragamuf-
fms They are spoken OF as the rak-
ings Of the world They are waits.
They are street Arabs. They are fiot-
sam and jetsam OF the social sea They
are something 20 give mp To decay.
Nothing but weeds They are up the
riclSety stairs OF that garrett They are
down in the cellar Of shat tenement
house. They swelter in summers when
they see not one blade OF green grass.
and silver in winters taat allow them
not one warm coat. or shawl or shoe.
Such Che city missionaries found in one
Of our city rookeries, and when the
poor Woman was asked IL she sent her
Children 70 school, she replied: "No.
sir I never did send 'em TO school I
know b. they ought TO learn, but I
couldnt I try 90 shame him some
times lit is my husband. sir). but he
drinks and then beats me- look at
that btuise on my facet. and tell him
90 see shat Is comm 70 his children.
There's Peggy, goes scllin' fruit every
night in those cellars ia Water street.
and they rc hollis. sir shes learuing
all sorts % bad words there and done