The Washington weekly post. (Washington, D.C.) 1878-1916, 1899-08-22

Places" as suggested by the text. John.
VIA pool. which is called in the
Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having Ave
! porches- In these lay a great multitude
| Of impotent folk, OF blind, halt, withered,
waiting for the moving OF the water" Or.
7. De Witt Talmage yesterday spoke as
follows:
Outside the city OF Jerusalem there
was sanatiYe watering place, the pop
ular resort for inyalids. To this day
there is a dry basin OF rock which shows
that there may have been a pool there
three hundred and sixty feet long, cne
hundred and thirty feet wide, and seventy
five feet deep. This pool was surrounded
by five piazzas, or porches. or bathing
houses, where tie patients tarried until
the time when they were to step into
the water. So far as reinvigoration was
concerned, IL must have been a Saratoga
and Long Branch on small scale:
bennington and a Brighton combined
medical and therapeutic.
Tradition says that at a certain sea-
son of the year there was an officer of
the government who would go down TO
that water and pour in 1t some healing
quality, and after that the people would
come and get the medication; but pre-
AtA tAlt Rldii 6tdtGiutHI OF sSCGiDIITt, tDlL
al certain season an angel came down
and stirred up or troubled the water, end
then the people came and got the healing.
A C"uaterpaft ia Our Day.
THAT angel of God that stirred I'D The
Judean watering place had his counter
part in the angel of healing, who in our
day. steps into the mineral waters of
Congress. or Sharon, or Sulphur Springs,
or into the salt sea at Cape May and Ma
hant, where multitudes who are worn
out with commercial and professional
anxieties, as we'll as those who are az
fiicted with rheumatic. neuralgia, and
splenetlc diseases, go, and are cured by
the thousands. These blessed Bethesdas
are scattered all up and down our coun-
try.
I'VE are at a season of the year when
rail trains are laden with passengers and
baggage on their way to the mountains
and the lakes and the seashore. Multi
tudes of our citizens are away for a res
torative absence. The city heats are pur-
suing the people with torch and fear of
sunstroke- The long, ailent halls of
sumptuou5 hotels are all abuzz with cx-
cited arrivals. The antlers of Adirondack
deer rattle under the shot OF city sports
d
hook of adrOit sportsmen, who toss their
SPOTTED brilliances into the same basket,
THE baton of the orchestral leader taps
the music-stand on the hotel green. and
American life has put-on festai array. and
the rumbling of the ten-pin alley, and the
crack of the ivory balls on the green
baized billiard-tableS, and the jolting of
the bar-room goblets, and the explosive
uncorking of the champagne bottles, and
hn n ri md h.
dance, and the Gathering hoofs Of the
race-courses, and other signs of social
attest that the season for the
great American wateTing-places is In full
play. Music! Flute, and drum. and cor
net-a-piston, and clapping cylnbals wake |
the echoes of the mountains. Glad am | |
that fagged-out American life, for the |
most part, has an opportunity to rest, |
and that nerves racked and destroyed will |
find q Bethesda. |
Season of Iaoccupstion.
81 believe in watering-places. They re- |
cuperate for active service many who |
were worn out with trouble or overwork. |
They are national restoratives. Let not |
the commercial firm begrudge the clerk. |
or the employer the journeyman, or the |
patient the physician, or the church its |
pastor, a season of inoccupation. Luther |
used TO sport with his children; Edmund |
Burke used to caress his favorite horse.
Thomas Chalmers, In the dark hour Of the
ehurch's disruption, played kite for recre-
Alfonso / was told by his own daughter
and the busy Christ said to the busy apos-
les. Come ye apart awhile into the desert
md rest yourselves And have observed
hat they who do not know how to rest
10 not know how to work. But nave to
leclare this truth to-day, that some of our
watering-places are the tenn
ooral and eternal destruction of a multi
-ude that no man can number and,
amid the congratulations of this season.
Ind the prospect Of the departure of many
,f you for the country. / must utter
plain, earnest, and unmistakable
THE first temptation that is apt 10
hover in this direction Is to leave your
)iety at home. You will send the dog
md cat and canary-bird to be well cared |
will be to leave your religion in the room |
With the blinds down and the door bolted. |
md then you viii come back in the au- |
umn TO find that ii IS starved and suffo-
,ated, lying stretched on the rug, stark
lead. There is no surplus of piety at the |
vatering-places. / never knew any one 10 |
row very rapidly in-grace at the Catskiii |
Mountain House, or Sharon Springs. or |
he Falls of Montmorency.
Sabbath Day of Carousal.
''It is generally the case that the Sab
'ath is more of a carousal than any other
lay, and there are Sunday walks, and
sunday rides. and Sunday excursions