The times., 1898-02-14
TRACKWAYS AFTER LIFE
Shining Pathways Mortals May
Leave Behind Them.
DR.. TaImage Discourses on the Phos.
phorescence ofthe Bibie-Twelfth
Sermon on "God Everywhere"

The Rev. T. De Witt Talmage preach.
ed sermon yesterday at the First
Presbyterian Church on the subject
"Phosphorescence of the Bible; or, Goo
on the Sea" 1t was the twelfth and
last of the course of sermons on God
Everywhere, and was, perhaps, the
most beautiful in thought and imagery
of the twelve discourses.
The text was Job xii: 80: He maketh
path to shine after him."
IF for the next thousand years" he
said, ministers of religion should
yet be texts unexpounded, and unex-
planned, and unappreciated. What lit
tie has been said concerning this chap
ter in Job from%hich my text is taken
bears on the controversy as to what
was really the Ieyiathan described as
disturbing the sea. What creature 1t
was l know not0 My own opinion is II
was a sea monster now extinct No
creature now floating in Mediterranean
or Atlantic waters corresponds to Job S
description.
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 illumined path? 1t was phosphor-
escence, which is the lightning of the
sea.
Il suppose that nine-tenths of you
have watched this marine appearance
called phosphorescence, and I hope that
\, Yl.<, L.
so happy as to witness 1t. 1t is the
waves of the sea diamonded; il is the
infiorescence of the pillows; the waves
of the sea crimsoned, as was the deep
after the sea fight of Lepanto; the
waves of the sea on fire. No picture
can present, for photographers camera
cannot be successfully trained To catch
il, and before it the hand of the painter
drops It's pencil, overawed and power
less. This phosphorescence is the ap-
pearance OF myriads of the animal
kingdom rising, falling, playing, flash
ing, living, dying.
rs that true of us now and will 1t
be true of us when we have gone? Will
there be subsequent light or darkness?
Will there be trail of gloom or good
cheer? We are in motion. Moving on!
Society is moving on, The world NOV
y
verse moving on. Time moving on
Eternity moving on! Therefore. it Is
absurd to thing that we ourselves can
stop, as we must move with the rest.
Are we, like the creature Of the text,
making our path to shine after us? 1t
may be peculiar question, but my
text suggests it. What influence will
we leave In this world after we have
gone through 1t?
viii that father make a path to
shine after him? VIII that mother
make path to shine after her? You
will be walking along these streets or
along that country road two hundred
years from now in the character of
your descendants, They will be affected
by your courage or your cowardice,
your purity or your depravity. your
holiness or your sin. You will make
the path to shine after you or blacken
after you.
we see a man planting a tree and
treading the sod firmly on either side
of It. and watering it in dry weather,
and taking a great care of its culture.
and he never plucks any fruit from
its boughs, but his children will. We
are planting trees that Will yield fruit
hundreds of years after We are dead
orchards of golden fruit, or groves of
deadly upas.
There were in the seventeenth CEN
tury men and women whose names you
never heard Of who are to-day influence
ing schools. colleges, churches, ma
tions. You can no more measure the
gracious results of their lifetime than
you could measure the length and
breadth and depth of the phoSphores-
cencte last night following a ship 1900
miles out a sea.
With gratitude and penitenCe and
worship. | mention the grandest life
that was ever lived. That ship of light
was launched from the heavens nearly
1900 years ago. angelic hosts chanting,
and from the celestial wharves the ship
sprang into the toughest sea that ever
tossed. Its biliows were made up of
the wrath of men and devils, Herodic
and Sanhedrimic prosecutions stirring
the deep with red wrath, and all the
of woe SmCte it, until. on the
rocks of Golgotha that life struck with
a resOund Of agony that appalled, the
earth and the heavens. But in the wake
of that life what phOSphorescence of
and lives reformed and nations re-
deemed. The millennium itself is only
one roll of that irradiated wave of
gladneSs and benediction. In the sub
limest Of all senses it may be said of
Him. He maleth a. path to shine after
Him
IA