Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-10-05
We could have afforded them they were

III the depths of the sea. The bodies Of our
ioundered and sunken friends are girdled
pnd canopied and housed with such glories
Us attend no other Metropolis.
They were swamped in lifeboats, or they
struck on Goodwin sands or Deal beach or
the Skerries, and Were never heard of, or dis
appeared with the City of Boston, or the
Vile de llavre, or the Cymbria, or were run
down in a fishing smack that put out from
Newfoundland. But dismiss your previ-
Gus gloom about the horrors of ocean ell
tombment.
When Sevastopol was beseQed in the
Anglo-Frcnch war, Prince Mentchikof.
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 100
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.
SUBLIME BURIAL.
One hundred buried ships But it is that
way nearly all across the Atlantic ocean.
Ships sunk not by command of admirals,
but 10y the command of cyclones But they
all had sublime burial, and the surround
ings amid which they sleep the last sleep
Al Il
the mGusoleum with walls incrusted with
precious stones and built by the great mo
gul of India over his empress Your de-
parted ones We're buried in the gardens of
the sea, fenced off by hedges of coralline
The greatest obsequies ever known on
the land were those of Moses, where no one
but God was present. The sublime report
OF that entombment is in the book of Den
teronomy, 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 shipwreck-
ed friends and those who could not survive
till they reached port were put down amid
iridescence-"In the midst of the garden
there was a sepulcher''
1t has always been a mystery what was
the particular mode by which George G.
Goodman, the pulpit orator of the Metho-
dist church and the chaplain of the Ameri-
can congress- left this life after EN- barking
for England on the steamship President
March IL, 1871. That ship never arrived in
port No one ever signaled her, and on
both sides of the ocean it has for 50 years
been questioned what became of her But
this know about Cookman-that whether
it was iceberg or conhagration midsea or
collision he had more garlands on his ocean
tomb than if, expiring on land, each of his
million friends had put bouquet on his
casket. In the midst of the garden was his
sepulcher.
JoNAH'S MISTAKES.
But that brings me to notice the misno-
mer in this Jonahitic expression of the
text. The prophet not only made n mis-
take by trying to go to Tarshish when God
told him to go to Nineveh, but he made
mistake when he styled as weeds these
growths that enwrapped him on the day
he sank. A weed is something that is use
less. 1t is something you throw out from
the garden. 1t is something that chokes the
wheat. IL is something to be grubbed out
from among the cotton. 1t is something
unsightly to the eye. 1t is an invader of
the vegetable or floral world. But this
growth which sprang up from the depth of
the Mediterranean or floated on its sur
face was among the most beautiful things
that God ever makes.
1t was water plant known as the red
colored alga. and no weed at all. 1t comes
from the loom of infinite beauty. 1t is
planted by heavenly love. 1t is the star of n
sunken armament. 1t is lamp which the
Lord kindled. 1t is a cord by which to bind
whole sheaves of practical suggestion 1t
is poem all whose cantos are rung bv
dlVlhe goodness Aet we all make the mis-
take that Jonah MADE IN regard TO 1t and
can IL weed ne weeds We're wrapped
ABOUT my mead An! that IS the trouble
on the land as on the sea We call those
weeds that are flowers.
Picked up on the beach of society are
children without home without oppor-
tuhlty lor anything but SIN seemingly
without God. They are washed up help
less. They are called ragamuflins. They
are spoken OF as the rakings of the world.
lhey are walls. They are street arabs.
They are fiotsam and jetsam of the social
sea. They are something to be left alone,
or something to be trod on, or something to
give up to decay, Nothing but weeds.
They are up the rickety stairs of that gar
ret. They are down in the cellar of that
tenement house. They swelter in summers
when they see not one blade of green grass,
and shiver in winters that allow them not
one warm coat or shawl or shoe
Such the city missionary found in one of
our city rookeries, and when the poor WON
an was asked if she sent her children to