Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-02-19
A PATH THAT SHINES.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE breaches UPON
THE LIGHTNING OF THE SEA.

An Unusually ATTRACTIVE ana EIoquehI ser
mon-The Pathway of the Almighty-An
Irradiated Wave of Gladness-The Glow
of Good Deeds.
BROOKLYN, Feb. 1S.-In the Brooklyn
Tabernacle this forenoon Rev. DR.. Tai
mage preached an unusually attractive
and eloquent gospel sermon to a crowd
ed audience, who listened with rapt in
terest. The subject was ''The Lightning
of the Sea-" the text selected being Job
xii, 80, ssHe maketh path to shine after
him."
If for the next thousand years minis
tiers of religion should preach from this
Bible, there will yet be texts unexpound-
ed and unexplained and unappreciated.
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 distur bling the sea. What creature it
was know not. Some say it was whale.
Some say it was crocodile. My own
opinion is it was sea monster now ex-
tinct. No creature now floating in Med
iterranean or Atlantic waters CORE
spends to Jobs description.
Of If1E Ola.
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 a path
to shine after him." What was that IL
1umined path? 1t was phosphorescence.
You find lie in the wake of a ship in the
night, especially after rough weather.
Phosphorescence is the lightning of the
sea. That this figure of speech is cor
rect in describing its appearance [ am
certified by an incident After crossing
the Atlantic the first time and writing
from Basic, Switzerland, to an Ameri-
can magazine an account of my voyage,
in which nothing more fascinated me
than the phosphorescence in the ships
wake, 1 called it the lightning of the sea.
Returning to my hotel, found book
of John Ruskin, and the first sentence
my eyes fell upon was his description of
phosphorescence, in which he called it
1.-THE lightning of the sea-
Down to the postoffice I fastened to
get the manuscript, and with great labor
and some expense got possession of the
magazine article and put quotation
marks around that one sentence al
though 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 appear
ance called phosphorescence, and I 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 in
horescence of the pillows; the waves of
the sea crimsoned as was the deep after
~ G L 10. IL e
the sea on fire.
There are times when from horizon to
horizon the entire ocean seems in con-
fagration with this strange splendor as
it changes every moment to tanner or
more dazzling color on all sides of you.
You sit looking 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 it's garments Of
glcry in the pathway Of the Almighty as
he walks the deep; it is an inverted firma-
ment with all its stars gone down with
it. No picture can present it, for pho
tographer's camera cannot be success
fully trained to catch it, and before it
the hand of the painter drops its pencil,
overawed and powerless.
This phCsphorescence is the appear
ance of myriads Of the animal kingdom
rising, falling, playing, flashing, living,
dying These luminous animalcules for
nearly $50 years have been the study of
naturalists and the fascination and sol
emnization 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 him."
WAKE MADE BY A BAD MAN.
Is that true of us now, and will it be
true of us when we have gone? Will
there be subsequent light or darkness?
Will 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 transact
business in the same store, and write on
the same table, and chisel in the same
studio, and thrash in the same barn, and
worship in the same church, we are in
motion and are in many respects NOV
ing on, and we are not where we were
10 years ago, nor where we will be 10
years hence. Moving on!
Look at the family record, or the al
manac, or into the mirror, and see if any
one of you is where you were. All in
motion. Other feet may trip and STUN
BILE and halt, but the feet of not one mo-
ment for the last so centuries has tripped
or stumbled or halted. Moving on! So
ciety moving on! The world moving on!
Heaven moving on! The universe NOV
ing on! Time moving on Eternity NOV