The Penn's Grove record., 1894-02-23
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE's SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject; "The Lightning of the
Seas

TEXT: lie maEeia a path 10 shine az
han. job xii, 80.
II for the next thousand years ministers o
religion should preach from this Bible, ther
will yet be texts unexpolldod and unex
planned and unappraciated. What llttl
has been said concerning this chapter in Jo'
from which my text is taken bears on tn.
controversy as TO what was really the levia
than described as disturbing the sea. VIVA
creature 1t was | know not. Somesay it wa.
q whale Some say It was a crocodile. N,
W opinion is II was a sea monster now ex
tinct. No creature now floating In Medlter
ranean or Atlantic waters corresponds t
Jobs description.
What most interests me is that as it moved
on through the deep it left the waters flash
ing and Respondent. In the words OF the
text, "Te maketh a path TO shine aftel
him" What WIS that illumined path2 II
was phosphorescence. You find it in the
wake Of 4 ship in the night, especially after
rough weather. Phosphorescence is the
lightning Of the sea. That this figure o.
speech is correct in describing its appear
ance l i'm certified by an incident. After
crossing the Atlantic the first time and
writing from Basic, Switzerland, to an Amer.
lean magazine an account OF my voyage, in
which nothing more fascinated me than the
phosphorescenee in the ships wake, 1 called
1t the lightning of the sea. Returning to my
hotel, / found a book Of John Ruskin, and
the first sentence my eyes fell upon was his
description of phosphorescence, in which he
called 1t ''the lightning of the sea-"
Down to the postoffice / fastened to get
the manuscript, and with great labor and
some expense got possession of the maya
zine article and put quotation marks around
that one sentence, although it was as orig
inal with me as with John Ruskin. 1 sup
pose that nine-tenths of you living so near
the seacoast have watched this marine up
pearance called phosphorescence, and Ihope
that the other one-tenth may some day be so
happy as to witness it. 1t is the waves of the
pillows the waves of the sea crimsoned as
was the deep after the sea fight of Lepanto
the waves Of the sea on fire.
There are times when from horizon to
horizon the entire ocean seems in conflag-
ration with this strange splendor as it
changes every moment to tanner or mors
dazzling color on all sides of you. You sit
looking over the ~taffrail OF the yacht Or
ocean steamer. watching and waiting to SEQ
what new thing the God of beauty will do
with the Atlantic. 1t is the ocean in trans
flguration it is the marine world casting its
garments Of glory in the pathway of the
Almighty as He walks the deep it Is an in
verted armament with all its stars gone
down with it. No picture can present it, for
photographers -aamera cannot bs success
July trained TO catch it, and before 1t the
hand of the painter drops its pencil, over
awed and powerless.
This phosphorescence is the appearance
OF myriads of the animal kingdom rising,
falling, playing, flashing, living, dying.
These luminous animalcules for nearly $50
years nave been the study OF naturalists and
the fascination and solemntzation OF all WHO
have brain enough to think. Now. God,
who puts in His Bible nothing trivial or use
less, 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 she maketh a path
10 shine after him."
Is that true OF us now and will it be true
OF us when We lave gone? VIII there be
subsequent light or darkness? VIII there be
a trial OF gloom or good cheer? Car any one
between now and the e. 100 years say Of
us truthfully as the text says OF the leviathan
of the deep, "He maketh a path to shine
after him?" For we are moving on. While
we live in the same house, and transact bust
ness in the same store, and write on the same
table, and chisel il the same studio, and
thrash 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 II 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 CEN
turtles has tripped or stumbled or halted.
Moving on! Society moving on The world
moving oni Heaven moving IN The uni
verse moving on! Time moving on Eter-
MIA, ~ 4. - nLa.o.. - a. oI.,.I -
think that we ourselves can stop. as w must
move with all the rest. Are we like the crea-
ture Of the text. making our path to shine
after use? 1t may be a peculiar question.
my text suggests II.
What influence will we leave In this world
after we have gonethroueh it? "None,' an
swer hundreds of voices 1--WE are not one OF
The immortals. Fifty years after we are out
Of the world it will be rs though we never in
it." You are wrong in saying that.
| pass down through this audience and up
through these galleries, and l nm looking for
one whom 1 Inc find.
l am looking for one who will have no in
fuence in this world 100 years from now.
/ have found the man who has the least
influence, and ! inquire into his history, and
find that by a yes or a no he decided some
one's eternity. In time OF temptation he gave
IN Affirmative or a negative TO some tempta- |
49, 80 AAORAs 4 olg na1
10 decide in the same way.
Clear on the other sid Of the next million
years may be the first you hear of the long
reaching influence of that yes or no, but
near OF it you will. VIII that father make a |
path to shine after him2 win that mother |
make a path TO shine after her? You will be |
walking along these streets or along that |
country road 200 years from now in the |
of your descendants. They will
% affected by your courage or your cow
lrdice, your purity or your ~depravity, your
Holiness or your sin. You will make the |
'ath to shine after you or blacken after you. |
Why should they point out to us on some |
mountain two ~rivulets, one Of which passes |
own into the rivers watch pour out into the |
'aclfc Ocean, the other rivulet flowing |
Town into the rivers which pass out into the |
OCEAN, Every man, every woman, |
tands at a point where words uttered, or
leeds done, or prayers offered, decide oppo-
lite destinies and opposite eternities. We |
Iee a man planting a tree, and traadinC sod
IN either side OF it, and watering it in dry
weather, and taking a great care in its cui-
ure, and he never plucks any fruits from its
)ough. But his children will. We are all
trees that will yield fruit hundreds
II years after we are dead-orchards of gol-
len fruit or groves of deadly upas.
/ am so fascinated with the phosphor-
,scence in the track OF a ship that l nave
ometimes watched for a long while and have
cen nothing on the face Of the deep but
'~lackness. The mouth of watery ehasms
hat looked like gaping jaws Of hell. Not a
park as big as a tlreiy not a white scroll
Il surf not q taper to illuminate the mighty
epulchers OF dead ships darkness 5000 feet
leep, and more thousands of feet long and
vide. That is the kind of wake that a bad
nan leaves behind him as he plows through
he ocean Of this life toward the vaster ocean
Il the great future.
Now, suppose a man seated In a corner |
.rocery or business office among clerks gives
Iimself to jolly skepticism. He laughs at
he Bible, makes sport OF the miracles,
peaks Of perdition in jokes and laughs at
evivals as a frolic, and at the passage of a
uneral procession, which always solemnizes
enslble people, says, ''Boys, let's take a
There Is in that group a young
nan who is making a great struggle against
emptation and prays night and morning and
eads his Bible and Is asking Ged for help
lay by day. But that guffaw against Chris
ianity makes him lose his grip OF sacred
hings, and he gives up Sabbath and church
md morals and goes from bad to worse, till
falls under designations. dies in a lazal
lcuse and is buried in the potter's field.
AnnfhaE ~ ~ ~ ., ~. Lx.-I -. ~