Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-02-23

|
Talmage preached an unusually at
tractive and eloquent gospel sermon
to crowded audience who listened
with rapt interest. The subject was
The Lightning of the Sea-" the text
selected being Job 81 : xxi, HE
maketh path to shine after him."
| If for the next thousand years min
listers of religion should preach from
this Bible there will yet be texts un-
expounded, and unexplained, and un-
appreciated. 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 as disturbing the
sea. What creature it was know not.
Some say it was whale Some say it
was crocodile. My own opinion is it
was a sea monster now extinct. No
creature now floating in Mediterranean
or Atlantic waters corresponds 10 Jobs
description.
What most interests me is that as it
moved on through the deep it left the
waters flashing and resplendent- In
the words of the text: He maketh
path to shine after him." What was
that illumined path? 1t was phospho-
rescence. You find it in the wake of
ship in the night, especially after
rough weather. Phosphorescence is
the lightning of the sea. That this
figure of speech is correct in de-
scribing its appearance l am certi-
fed by an incident. After crossing the
Atlantic the first time and writ
ing from Basic, Switzerland, to an
American an account of my voyage, in
which nothing more fascinated me than
the phosphorescence in the ships wake,
called it the lightning of the sea.
Returning to my hotel found a book
of John Rusbin, and the first sentence
my eyes fell upon was his description
of phosphorescence, in which he called
it THE Lightning of the Sea-" Down
to the postofiice l fastened to
get the manuscript, and with
great labor and some expense
got possession of the magazine arti-
Gle and put quotation marks around
that one sentence, although it was 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 phos-
phorescence and hope that the other
one tenth may some day be so happy
as to witness it. 1t is the waves of the
sea diamonded; it is the inhorescence
of the pillows; the waves of the sea
crimsoned, as was the deep after the
sea-fght of Lepanto; the waves OF the
sea on fire. There are times when
from horizon to horizon the entire
ocean seems in conhagration with this
strange splendor, as it changes every
moment to tanner or more dazzling
color on all sides of you. You sit look
ing over the taffrail of the yacht or
ocean steamer watching and waiting
to see what new thing the God OF
beauty will do with the Atlantic
1t is the ocean in TRANSPORTATION:
it is the marine world casting its gar
ments Of glory in the pathway OF the
Almighty as he walks the deep; it is
an inverted armament with all its
stars gone down with it. No picture can
present it, for photographers camera
can not be successfully trained to
catch it, and before it the hand of the
painter drops its pencil overawed and
powerless This phosphorcscence is
the appearance of myriads OF the ami
NAL kingdom rising, falling, playing,
flashing, living. dying. These lumi-
nous animalcules for nearly one hun
dred and fifty years have been the
study of naturalists and the fascina-
ton and solemnization of all who have
brain enough to think. Now, God,
who puts in his Bible nothing trivial
or useless, calls the attention of Job,
the greatest scientist of his day, TO
this phosphorescence, and as the
leviathan of the deep sweeps
past, points out the fact that 'he
maketh path to shine after hEn."
Is that true of us now and will it be
true of MS when we have 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 truthfully
as the text says of the leviathan of the
deep, He maketh path to shine after
him?" For we are moving on. While
we live in the same house, and tran
sact business in the same store, and
write on the same table, and chisel in
the same studio, and 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 be ten years hence.
Moving on! Look at the family 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. and halt, but the
feet of not one moment for the last
sixty centuries has tripped. or
stumbled, or halted. Moving on! So
ciety moving on! The world moving
chi Heaven moving onl The universe
moving onl Time moving onl
Eternity moving onl Therefore, it
is absurd to think that we our
selves can stop, as we must move with
all the rest. Are we like the creature
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