Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-02-11
GOD AMONG THE FISHES.
DR.. Talmage Discourses Upon the
Ichthyology Of the Bible.
amportanco OF tho Fish M an Article Of
Human Food--IlibIe SMILES From
tho Fisheries - Fishing
For Souls.

where, lev. 1. Dewitt Ialmlgc re
Gently spoke on "The Ichthyology ,
the Bible, or God Among the Fishes
The text chosen was Genesis, |. 90
And God said, let the waters bring
forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life" DIR. Talmage said.
What new book the Bible is! After
thirty-siS years preaching from it and
discussing over 5000 different subjects
founded on the word of God the book
is Us fresh to me as when first learned,
with stretch of infantilc memory. the
shortest verse in the Bible, 'Jesus
wept,' and opened few weeks ago
a new realm of biblical interest that
ncithcr my pulpit nor any one elses
had ever explored, and having spoken
to you in this course OF sermons on God
Everywhere. concerning the Astronomy
of the Bible, or God among the Stars;
the chronology Of the Bible, or God
among the Centuries; the 0rnithology
of the Bible, or God among the Birds;
the Mineralogy of the Bible, or God
among the Amethysts this morning, as
i may be divinely helped, will speak
Bible, or God among the Fishes
Our horses were lathered and tired
out, and their fetlocks were red with
the blood cut out by the rocks, and /
could hardly get my feet ont of the
'stiTups as on Saturday night we dis
mounted on the beach of lake Galilee.
The rather liberal supply of food with
which we had started from Jerusalem
was well nigh exhausted, and the arti-
cles of diet remaining had by oft repe-
tition, three times a day for three
weeks, ceased to Appetite. The most
piquant appetizer is abstinence, and
the demand of all the party was: Let
rs breakfast on Sunday morning on
fresh fish from lake Gennesareth," for
you must know that that lake has four
names, and it is worth profusion of
nomenclature, and it is in the Bible
called Chinnereth, Tiberias, Gennesa-
reth and Galilee. To our eXtemporized
table on Sabbath morning came broiled
perch, only few hours before lifted
out OF the sacred waters 1t was
natural that our minds should revert to
the only breakfast that Christ ever pre-
pared, ard it was on those very shores
where we breallfasted.
Now, is 1t not strange that the Bible
imagery is so inwrought from the fish
cries when the Holy Land is, for the
most part, an inland region? Only |
three lakes, two besides the one already |
mentioned, namely, the Dead sea, where |
Sich lix,n OF oil nj /
they touch it they die and the birds |
swoop on their tiny carcasses, and the |
third. the Pools of Heshbon. which arc
alternately full and dry. Only three
rivers of the Holy Land, Jabbols, Kish-
Non and Jordan. About all the fish now
in the waters of the Holy Land are the
perch, the carp, the Dream, the min
NOW, the blenny, the barbel, $50 called
because of the barb in its mouth), the
club, the dog fish, none of them worth
delaware shad or an Adirondack
trout Well, the worlds geography
has changed and the worlds bill of
/, fare has changed. Lake Galilee was
larger, deeper and better stocked than
now, and no doubt the rivers were
deeper and the fisheries were OF
tfar more Importance then than now.
beside that, there was the Mediterran-
can sea only thirty-fve miles away, and
Gsh were sailed or dried and brought
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. So important was
the fish that the god Dagon, worshiped
by the Philistines, was made half fish
and half man, and that is the meaning
of the Lords Indignation, when in LIST
Samuel, we read that this Dagon, the
fish-god, stood beside the ark of the
Lord, and Dagon was by invisible hands
dashed to pieces, because the Philis-
tines had dared to make the fish a god.
Layard and Wilkinson found the fish
an object of idolatry all through
Assyria and Egypt The Nile was full
of fish, and that explains the horrors
of the plague that slaughtered the
6nny tribe all up and down that river,
which has been. and is now, the main
artery of Egypt's life. In Job you hear
the plunge of the spear into the hippo
potamus, as the great dramatic poet
cries out: ''Canst thou fill his skin
with barbed irons or his head with fish
spears?" Yea, the fish began to swim
in the very first book of Genesis, where
INV text records: "And God said, Let
the waters bring forth abundantly the
moving creature that hath life" Do
Won realize that the first living thing
that God created was the fish? 1t pre-
.ceded the bird, the quadruped, the hui
man race. The fish has priority ofTesi-
deuee over every living thing. The
next thing done, after God had kindled
for our world the golden chandelier of
the san and the silver chandelier of the