The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-08-21
WATERING PLACES.
DR.. TAlMAoE DRAWS COME LGssokS
FROM SUMNER OUTINGS.


The Necessity For . Period Of Iaoo-
cupation - Dangers and TsmDta-
lions Of Popular Res ,rts-Np Sur-
plus OF Piety 1t Those Places.
Copyright Louis Klopsch. 1881
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20.-At this sea-
son Of the year, when all who can get
vacation are taking 1t, this discourse Of
DR.. Talmage Is suggestive and appro.
pirate. The text Ia John v, 2, 8: "A pool,
which Is called In the Hebrew tongue
Bethesda, having five porcies. In these
lay a great multitude Of impotent folk,
Of blind. halt, withered, waiting for tho
moving of the water"
Outside the city Of Jerusalem there
was sanntive watering place, the pop
uiar resort for invalids. TO this day
there is dry basin Of rock which shows
that there may have been pool there
800 feet long, 100 feet wide and rs feet
deep. This pool was surrounded by five
piazxas, or porches, or bathing houses,
where the patients tarried until the time
when they were to step into the water.
30 far as reinvigorating was concerned,
1t must have been a Saratoga and a
Long Branch on small scale; Lean
ington and Brighton combined--med-
ical and therapeutic. Tradition says
that at a certain season Of the year there
was an officer Of the government who
would 60 down to that water and pour
In it some healing quality, and after that
the people would come and get the medi.
cation. But prefer the plain statement
Of Scripture, that at a certain season an
angel came down and stirred up or trou-
bled the water, and then the people came
and got the healing. That angel of God
that stirred up the Judaean watering
place had his counterpart 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 Nahant, where multi
tudes who are worn out with commercial
and professional anIieties, as well as,
those who are afflicted with rheumatic,
neuralgia and splenetic diseases, 80 and
are cured by the thousands. These
blessed Bethesdas are scattered all up
and down our country.
We are at 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 re-
storative absence. The city heats are
pursuing the people with torch and fear
of sunstroke. Tho long, silent halls of
sumptuous hotels are all abuzz with ex-
cited arrivals. The antlers of Adiron-
dack deer rattle under the shot of city
sportsmen, the trout make fatal snap at
the hook of adroit sportsmen, who toss
their spotted brilliants into the game
basket; the baton OF the orchestral lead
err taps the music stand on the hotel
green, and American life has put on fes-
tai array, and the rumbling Of the tenpin
alley, and the crack of the ivory balls on
the green baized billiard tables, and the
joitlng Of the barroom goblets, and the
explosive uncorking Of the champagne
bottles, and the whirl and the rustic of
the ballroom dance, and the Gathering
hoofs of the race courses and other signs
Of social dissipation attest that the sea-
son for the great American watering
places Is in full play. Music! Flute and
drum and cornet-a-piston and clapping
cymbals wake the echoes of the noun
tains. Glad nm that tagged out Amer
lean life for the most part has an oppor-
tunlty to rest and that nerves racked and
destroyed will find Bethesda. ! believe
in watering places. They recuperate for
active service many who were worn out
with trouble or oyerwork. They are ma
tional restoratiyes.