The times., 1898-01-10
DOWN IN THE DIVING BELL.
DR.. TaImage Discusses the Gardens
of the Sea.

DIR. TaImage Discusses the Gardens
of the Sea.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., took
Presbyterian Church, 1.-THE Gardens OF
the Sea; or, God in the Deep" His text
was Jonah ii: s.: "The weeds were
wrapped about my head
He said, among other things:
1.-The botany of the Bible, or God
among the flowers, is delightful sub
ject.
What freshening up it would be
to our sermons to press into them even
a fragment of Mediterranean seaweed.
I'VE should have fewer sermons
awfully dry If we initiated our blessed
Lord.
"Ih some of our theological seminaries
the student is put between two great
presses of dogmatic theology and
squeezed until there is no life left in
him. Give the young man at least one
lesson on the botany of the Bible.
Let my subject cheer all those who
had frienus who have been buried at
sea or in our great American lakes.
There are no Oak Hill cemeteries, or
Greenwoods. or Mount Auburns so
beautiful on the land as they are
banked and terraced and Scooped anu
hung in the depths of the sea.
THE greatest obsequies ever known
on the land were those of Moses, Whefe
no one but God was present. Ine SUP
lime report of that entOlnbment rs III
the Book of Deuteronomy, which says
that the Lord buried him, and of those
who have gone down to slun5er IN the
deep. the same may be said-"The Lofd
buried them
1T has always been a mystery what
was the particular mode by which
George G.. Goodman, the pulpit orator
of the Methodist church and the chap
lain of the American Congress. lett tnlS
life after enbarking for England on the
steamship President, March Il, lh4l-
That ship never arrived in port. NO
one ever signaled her, and on both sides
of the ocean it has for more than nifty
years been questioned what became OF
her. But this 1 know about Cooknan.
that whether it was iceberg or coniliG-
ration mid-sea, or collision. he had
more garlands on his ocean t9inb thah
if. expiring on land, each of his million
friends had put bouquet on MS
casket.
But that brings me to notice the
Inisnomer in this Jonahitic expression
of the text The prophet not only inade
a mistake by trying to go To IafshlSA
when God told him to go to Uneven,
but he made a mistake when ne 5tylso
as weeds these growIhs that enWTapped
him on the day he sank. weed rs
something that is useless. But this
growth that sprang up from the depth
of the Mediterranean or fiOated on It's
surface was among the most be2utlI ui
things that God ever makes. lt was
water plant known as the Ted-cotofed
alea and no weed at all. 1t comes
from the loom of infinite beauty. III IS
planted by heavenly love
yet we all make the mistake that
Jonah made in regard TO 1t, and call II
a weed. All. that is the trouble on the
land as on the sea We can those
weeds that are flowers. Pitched up on
tbe beach OF society are children with
our home. without opportunity for any
thing but sin, seemingly without 'iod.
They are washed up helpless. They are
waits.
Jonah did not more completely mis-
represent the red algae about ms
head i'm the Mediterranean than most
people rnisjudge those poor and foriorn
and dying children of the street.
They are not weeds. Ihey are M
mortal flowers. / ad1ure you as tne
friends of all newsboys' lodging houses,
for friendless girls. and for the many
reformatories and humane associations
now on foot.
..Of u, 900 of those picked up out OF
the streets and sent into country MONIES
only twelve children turned out padly-
In the last thirty years number that
NO man can number of the VagrantS
have been lifted into responsibility and
usefulness and a Christian ire
.. l.
MY hearers. ] implead you Tor the
newsboys of the streets. many OF them
the brightest children of the city put
no chance
There is a great comfort that rolls
over uuon from this study OF the So
called seaweed. and that is the demon
strated doctrine of a particular ProNl-
dence. When / find that the Lord pro-
yides in the so-called seaweed the pas
t,Irage for the thronged marine world,
so that not a fin or scale in all that
oceanic auuarium suffers need, i con-
clude He will feed us, and II lie SUITS
the aIgae to the animal life or the deep
He will provide the food for our phys-
icaI and spiritual needs. What matters
who in earth or hell - against US II
He is for us? Omnipotence TO defend
ne omnipresence to companion us and
infinite love to enfold and uplift and en-
rapture US. And when God does small
things so well, seemingly taking as
much care with the coil of seaWeed
as the out branching of Lebanon ce-
dar. and with the color of a Vesetaple
growth which is hidden fathoms out OF
sight as He does with the solfer1no ana
nlIrpIe of a summer sunset, we VIII De
determined to do well all we are called
to do. though no one can see or apPre-
cate us.
Mighty God! Roll in upon our ad-
miration and appreciation more OF the
wonders of this submarine world! My
iov is that after we are quit OF all
earthly hindrances we may come back
to this world and explore what we can
not now fully investigate. If we snail
have power to. soar into the atmos-
pheric without fatigue, think we snail
have power to dive into the aqueous
without peril You cannot make me
believe that God hath spread out all
that garniture of the deep merely Tor
the poIyps and crustacea to look at
French Secret Police Methods.
IFrom HarDpr'S Weekly