The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-01-04
GOD AMID THE CORAL
REV. DIR. TALMAGE ONTAE SCULP
TURE OF THE DEEP
Picking UP q Coral, He Says He Feels Like
Crying Out, There Is q God, and Adore
Himp-Comfort for Faithful Christixn
Workers

CrylnK Out, . oco, A.
Himp'-Comfort for Faithful Christian
Workers
This picturesque discourse of DR.. Tal-
mage leads his hearers n readers
Through unwonted regions OF contem-
plation and is full of practical gospel;
text. job xviii, IS, NO mention shall
be made of coral"
why do you say that, inspired drama
fist? When you wanted to set forth
the superior value of our religion, you
fossed aside the onyx, which is used for
making exquisite canoes, and the sap
phire, sky blue, and topaz of rho1ablc
prism, and. the ruby OF frozen blood,
and here you say that the coral, which
is a miracle of shape and a transport
of color to those who have studied IT
lis not worthy of mention in compare
son with our holy religion. mo men
tion shall be made of coral" AT 81.
bloomsbury, VT, in a museum built 10y
the chief citizen, as I examined a specl-
men on the shelf, I first realized what
a holy of holes God can build and has
built in the temple Of one piece of coral.
I do mott wonder that Ernst Heckel,
THE great scientist, while in Ceylon
was so ntranc with tEle specimens
which some Cingalese divers had
Drought up for his inspection that ne
himself plunged into the sea and went
clear under the waves at the risk OF
his life, again and again and again,
that hi might know more of the coral,
the beauty of which he indicates can
-L---. l. -.1,aol uxy IL htNca Uyhuo II va
only seen it above water, and after the
polyps, which are it's sculptors and
architects, have died and the chief
glories of these submarine flowers
have expired. Job in my text did not
mean to depreciate this divine sculp-
ture in the coral reefs along the sea-
coasts.
No one can afford to depreciate these
white palaces of the deep, built undeT
Gods direction. He never changes his
plans for the building of the islands
and shores. and for u~ncounted thous-
ands of years the coral gardens and
the coral castle and the coral battle
ments go on and up. I charge you that
you will please God and please yourself
if you will go into the minute
tion of the corals-their foundations,
their pinnacles, their aisles, their pill
lars, their curves, their cleavages, their
TelCuEdIIOn, UIIGIT grouping
of them, towns of them and continents
of them. Indeed you cannot appreciate
the meaning Of my text unless you
know something of the cO~ral-laIbyTin-
thian, stellar, Colunnar, floral, dented
like shields from battle, spotted like
leopards, embroidered like lace, hung
like upholstery-twilisht and auroras
and sunbursts of beauty! From deep
crimson to milk white are it's colors.
W.. G~I tL:, VIZ, III If God tho-or1 OH,
the ~animalcules 80 fathoms down, or
amid the breakers, where the sea
dashes the widest and beats h might
lest and bellows the lOudeSt. These
creatures are ever busy. Now they
build islands in the centre OF the Paci-
fic ocean. Now they lift barriers
around the continent. INDIAN ocean,
Red sea- and coast of Zanzibar have
specimens of their infinitesimal but
sublime masonry. AT the recession of
the tides you may in some places see
the top of their Alpine elevations, while
elsewhere nothing but the deep sea
~soundings from the decks of the Chal-
1enger, the Porcupine and the Lightn-
ing of the British expedition can an
nounce them. The ancient Gauls en-
ployed the coral to adOrn their helmets
and the hiltS of swords. In many
lands it has been used as arnulets. The
Algerian reefs in one year Q873) had
at work amid the coral 81 vessels,
with $3.50 sailors, yielding in profit
$685. 600. But the secular and worldly
value of the coral is nothing as COM
pared with the moral and religious, as
when, in my text, job employs it in
comparison. 7 do not know how any
one can examine a coral the size OF
the thumb nail without bethinking
himself of God and ~worshiping him,
and feeling the opposite of the great
infidel surgeon lectuTing to the medical
students in the ddssecting room upon
a human eye which he held in his
hand, showing it's VIC of architec-
ture and adaptation, when the idea of
God flashed Upon him SO powerfully
he cried out to the students, Gentle
men, there is a God, but 1 hate him!"
Picking UP a coral, I feel like crying
out There is a God, and I adore HIM"
GOD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.
Nothing so impresses me with the
fact that our God loves the beautiful.
The most beautiful coral in the world
never comes to human observation
Sunrfses and sunsets he hangs up for
nations to look at; he may green the
grass and round the dew into pearl
and set on fire foliage to
please mortal sight, but those thOus-
ands of miles of coral achievement I
think he has had built for his wv de-
light. In those galleries he alone car
walk. The music of those keys, played
on by the fingers of the wave he only
can hear. The snow off that white n
the bloom of that crimson he alone
can see. Having garnitured this world
ITO please the human race and lifted a
glorious heaven to please the angelic
intelligencies, I am glad that he has
planted these gardens of the deep to
please himself. But here and there
God allows specimens of submarine
glory to be brought up and set before
us for sublime contemplation. While
I speak these great nations of ZOO
phytes, meandrinas, and mad repores,
with tentacles for trowel, are building
Just such coral as we find in our text.