The Monitor-register., 1897-01-22
HILLS THAT HINDER
DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON ON THE
OBSTACLES CHRISTIANS MEET.

Sunday Efort-Mountains That May Be
Made Level Plains by Gods Grace-The
Cuth@ans Are Not All Dead Yet.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 17.-In the presi-
dents church and before an audience in
which were prominent senators and
members of the house of representatives
and people of all nationalities this dis
course of sublime encouragement was
delivered. DR.. Talmage's subject was
'Storming the Heights" and his text,
Zechariah iv, Z: "Who art thou, o
great mountain? Before Zerubbabel
thou shalt become plain.
Zerubbabel! Who owned that difficult
name, in which three times the letter
''b'' occurs, disposing most people to
stammer in the pronunciation? Zerub-
babel was the splendid man called to
rebuild the destroyed temple at .Jerusa-
lem. Stone for the building had been
quarried, and the trowel had rung at the
laying of the cornerstone, and all went
we'll, when the Cuth@ans offered to help
in the work. They were a bad lot of
people, and Zerubbabel declined their
help, and then the trouble began. The
Cuth8ans prejudiced the secretary of the
treasury against zerubbabel, so that the
wages of the carpenters and masons
could not be paid, and the heavy cedar
timbers which had been dragged from
Mount Lebanon to the Mediterranean
and foated in RATS from Beirut to
Joppa and were to be drawn by OK team
from Joppa to Jerusalem had halted,
and as result of the work Of those
jealous Cuthaans for IS years the build
ing of the temple was stopped. But
after 16 years Zerubbabel, the mighty
soul, got a new call from God to go
ahead with the temple building, and
the angel of the Lord in substance said:
"They have piled up obstacles in the
way of Zerubhabel until they have be-
come as mountain, height above
height, crag above crag, but it shall all
be thundered down and made fiat and
smooth as the floor of a house. who
art thou, o great mountain? Before
Zerubbabel thou shall become plain. "
Heaping Obstacles In the Way.
Well, the Cuthaans are not all dead
yet. They are busy in every neighbor-
hood and every city and every nation of
every age, heaping obstacles in the way
of the cause of God They have piled
up hindrances above hindrances until
they have become hill, and the hill
has become a mountain, and the noun
tain has become an Alp, and there it
stands, right in the way of all move
ments for the worlds salvation. Some
people are SO discouraged about the
height and breadth of this mountain in
front of them that they have done moth
ing for 6 years, and many of those who
are at work trying to do something to-
ward removing the mountain toll i'll
such a way that 1 can see they have not
much faith that the mountain of him
ORANGES will ever be removed. They feel
they must do their duty, but they feel
all the time-I can hear it in their
prayers and exhortations-that they are
striking their pickaxes and shovels into
the side of the Rocky mountains. If the
good Lord will help me while preach,
Twill give you the names of some OF the
high mountains which are really N the
way and then show you that those
mountains are to be prostrated, torn
down, ground up, leveled, put out of
sight forever. "Who art thou, o great
mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt
become plain.
First, there is the mountain of preju-
dice, as long as a range of the Pyrenees.
Prejudice against the Bible as a dull
book. an inconsistent book, cruel
book, an unclean book and in every way
an unfit book. The most of them have
never read it. They think the strata of
the rocks contradict the account i'll Gen
esis. The poor souls do not know that
the Mosaic account agrees exactly with
the geological account No violin Or
flute ever was in better accord. By
crowbar and pickaxe and shovel and
blasting powder the geologist goes down
in the earth and says, "The first thing
created in the furnishing of the earth
was the plants. % Moses says, "Aye,
told you that in the book of Genesis,
The earth brought forth grass and herb,
yielding seed after his kind and the
tree yielding fruit. "
The geologist goes on digging in the
earth and says, ''The next thing in the
VI tuS 6ctClu WA ttl0 lIidh1LS
of the creatures of the sea-" Moses
says, "Aye, told you that was next in
the book of Genesis, God said, Let the
waters bring forth abundantly the NOV
ing creatures that have life, and God
created great whales. F." The geologist
goes on digging and says, ''The next
thing in the furnishing Of the earth
was the creation of the cattle, and the
reptiles, and the beasts of the field"
Confirming the Scriptures.
"Aye," says Moses, 81 told you that
was next in the first chapter of Genesis,
And God said, Let the earth bring
forth the living creature after his kind,
cattle and creeping thing and beast of
the earth, after his kind. The geolo-
gist goes on digging in the earth and
says, "The next creature was the hu-
man family" "Aye," says Moses. 81
told you that was next in the book of
Genesis, so God created man in his
own image, in the image of God created
he him; male and female, created he
them. " Those prejudiced against the
Bible do not know that the explorations
in Egypt and Palestine and Syria are
confirming the Scriptures-the same
facts written on monuments and on the
walls of exhumed cities as written in
the Bible. The city of Pithom has been
unburied, and its bricks are found to
have been made without straw, exactly
corresponding with the Bible story of
the prosecuted Hebrews. On terra Gotta
cylinder, recently brought up from
thousands of years of burial, the cap
ture of Babylon by Cyrus is told. On
Babylonian gem recently found are the
figures of tree, man, woman and
a serpent, and the hands of the man
and woman are stretched up toward the
tree as if to pluck the fruit. Thus the
Bible story of the fall is confirmed.
In museum at Constantinople you
see a piece of the wall that once in the
ancient temple of Jerusalem separated
the court of TIE Gertiles and the court
of the Israeites, to which Paul refers
when he says of Christ, HE is our
peace, who hath broken down the mid
die wall of partition between u.s." On
tablets recently discovered have been
found the names of prominent men OF
the Bible, spelled a little different, ac-
cording to the demands of ancient Ian
guage. "Adamu' for Adam, ''Abramn"
for Abraham, "Ablu'' for Abel. and SO
on. Twenty-Five feet underground has
been found a seal inscribed with the
words t'Haggai, son of Shebaniah,
thousands of years ago cut, showing
tkat the Prophet Haggai. who wrote a
part of the Bible. was not myth. The
royal engineers have found, so feet be-
low the surface of the ground at Jerusa-