The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-02-17
GOD AMONG THE FISHES.
DR.. Talmage Discourses Upon the
Ichthyology OF the Bible.
Importance of the Fish as an Article OF
Human Food-Bibie StmiIes From
the Fisheries - Fishirs
FOR Souls.


sn continuing his sermons at Brook
Ign upon the subjecs, God Every
WHERE Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage re-
Gently spoke on The Iehthvology Of
the Bible, or God Among the Fishes"
The text chosen was Genesis. L 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-six years preaching from it and
discussing over 5000 different subjects
founded on the word of God. the book
is as fresh to me as when first learned.
with stretch of infantile memory, the
shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus
wept," and | opened few weeks ago
a new realm of biblical interest that
neither my pulpit nor any one else's
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 Ornithology
OF the Bible, or God among the Birds;
the Mineralogy of the Bible, or God
among the Amethysts. this morning, as
/ may be divinely helped, 1 will speak
TO you about the Ichthyology of the
Bible. or God among the Fishes
Our horses We're lathered and tired
out, and their fetloclzs were red with
the blood cut out by the rocks, and
could hardly get my feet out of the
stirrups 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
US breakfast on Sunday morning on
fresh fish from lake Gennesareth," for
you must know that that lake has four
names, and it is worth a profusion of
nome nclature, and it is in the Bible
called Chinnereth, Tiberias, Gennesa-
reth and Galilee. To our extemporized
table on Sabbath morning came broiled
perch, only a 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, and it was on those very shores
where we breakfasted.
Now, is it not strange that the Bible
imagery is so iuwrought from the fish
cries wheL 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
fish cannot live at all and as soon as
they touch it they die and the birds
swoop on their tiny carcasses, and the
third, the Pools CT Heshbon. which are
alternately full and dry. Only three
rivers of the Holy Land, Jabbok, Kish-
on 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
a 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
far more Importance then than now.
Beside that, there was the Mediterran-
can sea only thirty-five miles away, and
fish 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 70 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 1st
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 god
That explains the Scripture passage:
THE head of Dagon and both the
palms of his hands were cut off upon
the threshold: only the stump of Dagon
was left to him" Now, the stump of
Dagon was the fish part The top part,
which was the figure of 4 man, was
dashed to pieces, and the Lord, by de-
molishiug everything but the stump or
fish part of the idol. practically said,
you may keep your fish, but know
from the way l have demolished the
rest of the idol that it IS nothing divine.
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
6nay tribe all up aud 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
nv text records: And God said. Let
the waters bring forth abundantly the
moving creature that hath life" Do
you 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 of resi-
dence over every living thing The
next thing done, after God had kindled
for our world the golden chandelier Of
the sun and the silver chandelier of the
moon. was to make the fish The first
motion of the principle of life, prin-
cfpIe that all the thousands OF years
since have not been able to define or
analyze, the very first stir of life was
in a fish. What an hour that was when
in the Euphrates, the Gihon, the Pison
and the Hiddelzel. the four rivers OF
Paradise. the waters swirIed with fms