The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1894-02-24
A SHINING PATH.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
lightning of the Sea.
From Which, He lakes Some Useful DE
auctions for the Benefit OF tho HUI
man EamiIy-A Few OBJ
jcct Lessons.

In a late sermon ut Brooklyn Rev.
+. Dewitt Talmage too for his sub
ject: 1.-The Lightning of the Sea-" the
text selected being Job, xii ~: HE
maketh a path to shine after him"
DIR. Talmage said:
If for the next thousand years minis
tiers of religion should preach from this
Bible there will yet be texts unex-
pounded, and unexplained, and unap-
preciated. What little has been said
concerning this chapter in Job, from
which my text is taken, bears on the
controversy as to what was really the
leviathan described rs disturbing the
sea.
What most interests me is that as 1T
moved on through the deep it left the
waters flashing and Respondent. In
the words of the text: "He maketh Il
path to shine after him" What was
that illuminated path? 1t was phos-
phorescence. You find it in h wake
of "a ship in the night, especially after
rough weather. Phosphorescence Is
the lightning of the sea. That this
figure of speech is correct in distribu-
ting its appearance ! am certified by an
incident. After crossing the Allan
tic the first time and writing
from Rasle, Switzerland, to an
American magazine an recount OF
my voyage, in which nothing more
fascinated me han the phosphores-
epce in the ships wake, l called it the
lightning of the sea. Returning to
my hotel / found n book of John Rus
kin, and the first sentence my eyes fell
upon was his description of p%hosphor-
cscence, in which he called it 1.-THE
lightning of the sea-" Down to the
post Office | fastened to get the manu-
script. and with great labor and some
expense got possession of the magazine
article and put quotation marks around
that one sentence, although it vas as
original with me as with John Ruskin.
/ suppose that nine-tenths of you living
SO near the sea coast have watched
this marine appearance called
phosphorescence, and I hope that the
other one-tenth may some day be so
happy as to witness it. 1t is the a
of the sea diamonded; it is the inlor-
escence of the pillows; the waves Of the
sea crimsoned, rs was the deep after
the sea fight of Lepanto; the waves of
the sea on fire. Now, God, who puts in
his Bible nothing trivial or useless,
calls the attention of Job. the greatest
scientist of his day, to this phosphor-
essence. and as the leviathan of the
deep sweeps past. points out the fact
that she maketh a path to shine after
him"
Is hat true of us now and will it be
true of us when we hav gone? Will
there be subsequent light or darkness?
VIII there be a trail of gloom or good
cheer? Can any one between now and
the next 100 years say of us t%ruthfully
as the text says of the leviathan of the
deep: HE maketh u path to shine
after him?' For we are moving on
While we live in the same house, and
transact business in the same store, and
write on the same table. and chisel
in the same studio, aud thresh in the
| same barn, and worship in the same
church, we are in motion, and
are in MANY respects moving on, and
we are not where we were ten years
ago, nor where we will lie ten years
hence. Moving on! Look at the fam
lily record, or the almanac, or into the
mirror. and see if any one of you is
where YOU were. All in motion. Other
feet may trip, and stumble, aud halt,
but the feet of not n moment for the
last sixty centuries has tripped, or
stumbled, or halted. Moving on.
Society movin : on! The world moving
on. Heaven moving on! The universe
moving on. Time moving on! Eter-
nifty moving on. Therefore, it is absurd
to think that we ourselves III
stop, as we must o with all
the rest. Are we like the creature
of the text, making u path to shine
after us? 1t may be u peculiar ques-
tion, but my text suggests 1t. What in
Ruence will we leave in this world,
after we have gone through it?
None answers hundreds of voices,
1--WE are not one of the immortals.
Fifty years after we are ont of the
world it will be as though we never in
habited it." You are wrong in saying
that. 1 pass down through this audi
ence ard up through these galleries,
and | am looking for some n whom l
cannot find. ! am looking for one who
will have no influence in this world 100
years from now. But / have found
the man who has the least in
fuence, and | inquire into his his
tory aud find that by a yes or
a no he decided some ones eternity. In
time of temptation he gave an affirma-
tive or a negative to some temptation
which another, hearing OF, was in
duced to decide in the same way. Clear
on the other side of the next million
years may be the first you hear of the
long reaching influence of TINT yes or
no, but hear of it you will. We see a
man planting a tree, and treading the
sod firmly on either side of it, and
watering it in dry weather, n taking
a great care in its culture, and he never
plucks any fruit from its bough; but his
children will. We are all planting
trees that will yield fruit hundreds of
1 years after we are dead; orchards
of golden fruit, or groves Of
deadly upas. ! am so fascinated
with the phosphorescence in the
track of n ship hat l nave
sometimes watched for a long while,
and have seen nothing on the face OF
the deep but b~lackncss. The mouth OF
watcry chasms hat looked like gaping
Jaws of hell Not q spark as big as a
FREELY; not u white scroll of serf; not d
taper to illuminate the mighty sepul'
cheers of dead ships; darkness 5000 fee,
deep, and more thousands of feet long
and wide. That is the kind of wake
that a bad man leaves behind him as
he plows through the ocean of this life
toward the yaster ocean Of the grea'
future.
Now, suppose q man seated in a cor
ner grocery, or business among clerks
gives himself TO jolly skepticism. ii,
laughs at the Bible, makes sport of the
miracles, speaks of perdition in jokes
and laughs at revivals as a frolic, ant
at the passage of u funeral procession
which always solemnizes sensible PEG
pie, says: Boys, let's take a drink.
There is in that group a young nal
who is making n great struggle agains'
temptation, and prays night aud morn
ing, and reads his Bible. and is asking
God for help day by day. But tina
guffaw against Christianity makes
him lose his grip of sacred thing
and he gives up Sabbath, ant
church. and morals, and goes from bat
to worse, till he falls under dissipa'
tions, dies in q lazar house and is buried
In the potter's field. Another young
man who had heard that jollysskepti