The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-08-14


 mon the reader is taken into an enchanted realm beneath the waves, and novel and strange interpretation is given to the mystery of the sea The text Is Revela- tions xxi, l, And there was no more sea"
 Who was the writer? Where were his feet planted when he saw the spectacles which he describes in his divinely in- spired Apocalypse? These two conal- tions must be clearly understood peioie one can in any true way grasp the mean ing of the words of my text lnoeeu' 'o properly appreciate the words or actlohs
 of any man we must first put ourselves in that mans place.
 We all understand this condition In everyday life. Why, then can we not put ourselves in the biblical writers p1aces when we try to interpret the holy book? During the darkest days of the civil war Congressman Dixon of New York state entered the White House with long list of grievances, which he and some of his colleagues had drawn up against the government Abraham Lincoln heard him patiently until he was through. Then he said: "Dixon, be- lieve you and your friends were truly honest men when you drew up those crit icisms against my administration. But the trouble is you fellows do not put yourselves in my place. If you did you would do just about what I am doing. I tell you how l will fix those matters. You go home and think up all the things you would like me to do, and then come back tomorrow and tell me the result, and l win do just what you wan, me to do."
 Congressman Dixon said: "I went back to my hotel that evening with my head high up among the clouds. Why said l to myself Lincoln said he will do any thing 1 want him to do; that makes me tonight practically president of the Unit ed States But after supper that night Congressman Dixon went to his room. He laid the wtite sl.eet of parer upon his desk and began to plan what he wanted Lincoln to do. The more, how ever he thought, the more difficult u was for him to find anything to write. Why? Because the more he put himself in the presidents place the more he felt he would do just as Lincoln was doing and had done. "The next day came. I did not go to the White House." said Congressman Dixon, neither did 1 go the
 
 later l attended public reception at the White House As soon as I entered the room the president saw me and called out. Hello, Dixoni Why did you not keep your appointment with me the day after our conversationg Because l was ashamed to do so 'Ah. yes,' sad. Lin- coln, I thought you would not come back The actions and word of a man appear entirely different when you put yourself in that mans place than when you criticise them from an out sider's standpoint"
 Put Yourself in Ills Place.
 Today, in order to rightly interpret the words of my text, we must first put our selves in St. Johns place. In the first instance, we notice that he Is an old man. His life's work was nearly done. A man at eighty looks at conditions In heaven and on earth differently from the way a young man at twenty looks at them. The struggles of life were to St. John very real and intense For years he had been a resident of Ephesus in Asia Minor He had been a mighty factor In the spreading of the gospel through all those regions. He had suffered for Christ; he had almost been martyred. The second fact that we must notice is that St. John is an exile. Like Napo- leon at St. Helena, he knew that in all probability he could never again go pack to his earthly work. Under the Domitian persecution, he was sent to this lonely, rock bound island of the Mediterranean. Therefore, the sea meant more to him than 1t might mean to some of us. It meant, as I shall try to show, first the "sea of mystery, secondly, the sea of hate;" thirdly the "sea of spiritual strug gle" and fourthly the "sea of spiritual struggle" By putting ourselves in St. Johns place as exiles upon the island of Patnos. I believe we can symbolize all these facts
 First. the sea is a mysterious monster. Do we have to go to a Johnannian vis- ion to know that? Has any man, wo- man or child ever stood upon the beach and looked off upon the mighty deep and not wondered about what was happening away down in the depths that no fath- om line has ever yet been allie to sound? For years and years Africa was called the dark continent. No white mans foot had penetrated it's secret haunts until the last century. But the dark continent was never more dark than Is the dark ocean. What Henry M. Stanley has been to darkest Africa in one sense Sir Wyvile Thomson, and after his death Sir John Murray, have been to the depths of the sea. The scientists have unraveled a few of the seas mysteries. They have