The Newtown bee., 1895-04-19
Around the Preside.
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.

THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.
 AS TYPE OF LIFE.-A SERMON BY REV
 0. H. SMITH OF PLYMOUTH.
 went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground and the waters were wall unto them on their right hand and on their left."
 It is one of the peculiar things about the wanderings of the children of Israel that their experiences are symbols of hu- man life. Whether it is because life changes so little from age to age or whether it is because God so designed it | will not attempt to say. But certain 1t is that you cannot read the experiences of the wilderness wanderings without be- ing reminded of how like life to-day were their adventures. They were afraid of God when He would talk with them just as we are in this age. They mur- mured when God was dropping mama plentifully on the sod around them, for all the world just like 18th century grum- blers. They were ready to kill their leaders when hunger began to gnaw, just as a modern city mob or Coxey army re- bels and rages when the stomach's emp ty and food not to be had. So out of these experiences, symbolic of human life, want to-day to take the one found in the text, which is full of suggestive lessons for the year 1895 and for us who are living in the midst of 18th century intensity and peril. For is it not true that there are many things in our lives to-day which make them Red sea pas sage. Universities and dangers are on the right hand and on the left like the upheavipg crest of a raging sea. As we | journey toward the Heavenly Canaan the ! enemy are hooting and bowling and rag l ing behind us in very truth like Phara- | oh's host behind the children of Israel. But our own God is watching as He watched with loving care those ignorant | slaves and feeble women and tottering children, the descendants of the faith of Abraham as they trod the sands in the midst of the sea. My topic then, this morning, is the passage of the ''Red sea as type of lite." Let us look, first, at ths geographical and historical setting of !! the story. I will not weary your pa- tence or strain your credulity by any | discussion of the location of PihakirOtto, the place where the sedge grows, or try to advance any theory as to tide, wind or tempest, which might have laid bare
 the shoals to give a passage for Gods chosen people. It is easier for me to be- lieve the simple Bible story than it is to bolt undigested some of the theories of
 scholars who do not believe in the mirac ulous or in the Interpretation of God in
 nature for the saving of his people. ac- cept the fact that God was guiding that
 army of twenty million people whom He had called out of slavery for His owr
 glory. He directed Moses to lead them
 into the wilderness; the hosts of Phara'
 oh pursued them. They all came to the
 Red lsea, which barred their passage ! hN cf f h1 Yam Suph or the wider expanse of it matters not, the barrier was in the way etfectual and complete. And God opened
 the way through the waters for Israe
 and closed it upon the hosts of Meneph-
 tab, the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Geo graphically then we find the children o1
 Israel passing through the Red Sea a ! some place probably near the extremity
 of the
 ! WESTERN ARM OF THE RED SEA, which divides it from the promontory O.
 Sinai. Historically this people of Goo are just thrust out of Egypt and are ol
 their way to the land of promise. Goo
 is their guide, Moses is their leader anC
 they themselves are like lot of ehildrer just out of school, happy, Irresponsible
 and with little thought of what fortune
 has in store for them. And now they come to the waters, and God making Z path for them, they march through and
 with praises, continue on their way tC
 Sinai and to Canaan.
 The typical circumstance in that Rec
 sea passage is the peril of the waves anC
 pillows which threatened to engulf witt
 roaring surge those sons of Jacob. Deal 7 friends, do you realize the perils and dan
 gers which every day threaten the phys
 ical and spiritual life of every one of us , How short &nd uncertain human life is
 as Job prays to God, 50 remember tha | my life is wind,'' and again says 'My days are passed away as the eagle tha hasteth to the prey" One has but t'
 look into history to see how that the hu
 man race is, after all, like the poor He brew children down there walking on th' sand, and the waters at Gods command
 rearing themselves aloft on either sid
 and the foam from the wave crests fall ing upon them they hurry across to tn 9 dry land. History tells us that the Elm
 peror Vespasian died while he was in tn
 very act of uttering a jest. The famou 3 painter Zeuxis drew cOmical pictur } and while laughing at his own produo t tion fell over dead. Sophocles, the ol
 Greek, was choked to death by a grap
 stone. Diodorus, the logician, ashame, g because he could not answer a question ! pTOpUsCu Uy ukcA OA sAAamS l. Augustus Caesar, passing compliment
 passed also to the presence of his God Rabdair, the great French dramatist f when he saw that life was ending erie |. out with laugh, ssDraw the curtain, tn farce is played out, and so entered with
 in the veil. But you do not need to de t pend on the story of history to teach yo that life is full of dangers as of thos |, ! who are in the midst of wall of waters
 The pages of memory record the account
 of the young man who by some acciden f was cut of in moment. We recall som j. friend who went out from our door on g day in health and who was brought bacl
 the next pale in the embrace of death
 An, what type of human life that Ret , sea passage was. Only the hand of Go, ) between His people and death by drown 2 ing and only the hand of God between u
 and death by pneumonia or accident il r the shop or fall in the house. How VI
 ought always to part with our dear one
 in love lest it be the last time, and hoy ] we ought to live, with but a step between
 us and death. Then, too, what type 0 ' the dangers which are near to our spir itual life and threaten us with eternal de
 struction is that sand walk through thu
 sea. A man has but to question his owi thoughts to learn how near
 HE IS TO SPIRITUAL OVERTHROW.
 It almost makes person tremb1e to thinl
 of the evil which he might do were ht
 deserted of God. We are in such an era
 of dedication in business, of embez
 clement of trust funds, of abscondine cashiers, of recreanJ husbands and way ward children and unfaithful wives, that it Is enough to shake any mans faith 1T humanity and in his own ability to dc