The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-08-12
DIR. TAIMAGE'S SERMON
D o BY THE REV. FRANK DE WITT TALMAGE, D. D.

Los Angeles. Cal, August 5.-In this ser mon the preacher shows that in order to make one's life work of real value to the world and humanity the foundations of character must be laid deep and true. The text is Matthew vii, 27. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon the house, and 1t fell, and great was the fall of it."
 The reason the Bible is not as plain and interesting to some people as it might be Is because they do not understand the geographical and geological and me- neurological conditions of the Holy Land In order to intelligently follow the "earth- ly footsteps of the Man of Galilee" the tourist should not be content with cur sory or superficial examination. He should study the meteorology of Palestine to the last detail. He should not only study the tornadoes and hurricanes and thunderstorms which unsheath their swords of destruction and tumble down upon the earth huge masses of water when the windows of the heavens are opened by great cloudbursts, but he should also study the freshets and those movable sands mixed with water, commonly called 'quicksands," and the simooms, or sroc- cos, sweeping over it's nearby deserts where there is but little moisture in the furnace heated air, for the atmosphere of Palestine would not be what 1t is if the Arabian desert was not on it's border. All these meteorological studies will clarify the lessons of many Of Christ's parables and give an added meaning to some of the strange, weird oriental customs of the Hebrew race.
 It Is said that Gen. Lew Wallace wrote his great religious masterpiece, Ben Hur,' before he as a tourist had ever seen Jerusalem. But, though Lew Wallace might have evolved a true idea of the Holy Land out of books, I am frank to confess that with all my theological studies I never knew what the Holy Land was like until I set foot in those sacred valleys and saw with my own eyes those hallowed hills. l expected to find Pales- tine almost tropical land. I expected to find its hills covered with dense forests, it's valleys dotted with farms, Its bees turning every mound into honeycomb. all its vineyards growing huge grapes of Es- chol and it's flowers crowding every nook and corner of the soil. Now. what did I find? I found the Holy Land nothing more or less than a parallel of southern OhHlOTDla Wllu Ieople WilD have been to Los Angeles and ridden through San Diego county. can form an Idea of the Palestine hills.
 Like Southern California.
 The soils of both lands are rich enough if you can only get water upon them, but the trouble is to get the water In stead of every two or three weeks having a gentle rain or shower, as we used to have in the New England and middle states, we have in these two lands the dry and the rainy seasons. When 1t Is dry 1t is awfully dry. Day in and day out. week in and week out, month in and month out, that dry weather will con tinue Not one drop of water will fall from the heavens during all that time. Literally not one shower will come. Then the grass withers The soil becomes like baked clay. The dust Is everywhere.
 But when the rainy season comes, then, in order to compensate for her paucity of moisture, nature sends storms in perfect deluges. Every canyon has it's raging tor rent. The hillsides are cut into deep gull lies. The water seems to be everywhere. This fact is due to the geographical con ditions, because the waters cannot find their drainage outlets as they do in the verdure covered hills of the east. No man, except the bravest, dare venture out of doors when the storms break upon Los Angeles In the rainy seasons. The sewers will he chol1ed with water Every street from curb to curb will be huge rusing river. The car lines will be blocked. All traffic will come to standstill. Then the hillsides and the valleys will blossom as the rose The flowers and the rich grasses will spring up. as If by magic on every side. No New Yorker or New Englander can fully understand this atmospheric condition unless he has been in Palestine or in southern California. Thus you must study the meteorological influences of Pal estine before you try to interpret the par able of my text.
 Christ is not here saying. Every one who heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be lilSened unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sands in Pennsylvania or in Germany or in France, where 1t will rain two or three days every two three weeks in every season of the year and the water will be drained quietly and quickly away. ; Christ is saying: Every one who hearetn these sayings of mine and doeth them not is to be likened unto a foolish man who builds his house on the sands at the foot of some Palestine canyon in dry sea- son." The dry season may continue months and even years, but when the rainy season comes the deluge will come. Then the hurricane will beat upon that house rom aDOVe, ana the lFcSnel VIII undermine that house from beneath, and 1t will fall and great will be the fall of It. With these few words of geographical and atmospheric explanation let us now approach the parable a little more In de- tail and find therein practical gospel les sons for the work of everyday life.
 Ills Judgment Just.
 The parable, in the first place, proves that God never takes snap judgment upon any one. He is not like the cruel marks man-I will not call him sportsman = who shoots pigeons from a trap. There the poor doomed bird Is brought out of cage. Then by pulling string the cage tumbes to pieces Then, before the dazed and frightened bird can stretch its wings. bang goes the gun, and the birds poor mangled body falls over a quiverins corpse. God does not destroy an immortal soul as treacherous, murderous Indian would stealthily creep up and tomahawk and scalp the sleeping immigrants before they could leap to their feet and grasp their rifles and fight for their lives. God does not deal with man In this matter as if he had to build as Robert Louis Steven sons grandfather built That great en- gineer, Robert Stevenson, built the fa- nous lighthouse upon the dangerous rocks of Little Cumbrac He built it be- tween the storms that often howl about and lombard the Scottish coasts. When