Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1890 — WATERS OF MEROM. [ARTICLE]

WATERS OF MEROM.

1 JTHE FIELD WHERE JOBHUA TRIUMPHED. San Bklti at Noon la the Career of the 'Wicked. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn and New York Sunday and Sunday Text: Joshua ii, 5. He said: j We are encamped to-night in Palestine by the waters of JMerom. After a long march we hare found our tents pitched, our fires kindled, and, though |far away from civilization, a variety ■of food that would not compromise a first-class American hotel, for the most k»f our caravan starts an hour and a half earlier in the morning. We detain only two mules, carrying so much tof our baggage as we might accident* ally need and a tent for the noonday luncheon. r The malarias around this lake Merom are so poisonous that at any other season of the year encampment here is perilous; but this winter night the air is tonio and healthful. In this neighborhood Joshua fought his last gqpat battle, The nations had banded themselves together to crush this Joshua, but along the banks of these waters Joshua left their carcasses. Indeed, It is time that we more minutely examine this Joshua, of whom we have In these discourses caught only a momentary glimpse, although he crossed and recrossed Palestine, and, next to Jesus, is the most Btirring and mighty character whose foot ever touched the Holy Land. The snows of Mount Lebanon had just been melting and they poured down into the valley, and the whole valley was a raging torrent. So the Canaanites stand on one bank and they look across and see Joshua and the Israelites, and they laugh and say: “Aha! Aha! they cannot disturb us in time, until the freshets fall;-it is impossible for them to reach usT” BuF after a while they look across the water and see a movement in the army of Joshua. They say, ‘‘What’s the matter now? Why, there must be a panic among these troops and they are going to fly, or perhaps they are going to try to cross the river Jordan. Joshua is a lunatic.” But Joshua the chieftan looks at his army and cries: “Forward march!” and they stirt for the bank of the Jordan, One mile ahead go two priests carrying a glittering box four feet long and two feet wide. It is the ark of tho covenant. And they come down, and no sooner do they just touch the rim of the water with their feet than by an almighty flat Jordan parts. The army of Joshua marches right on without getting their . loet wet over the bottom of the river, a path of chalk and broken shells and pebbles, until they get to the other, bank. Then they lay hold of the oleanders and tamarasks and willows and (>ull themselves up a bank thirty or orty feet high, and they clap their shields and their cymbals and sing the praises of the God of Joshua. But no sooner have they reached the bank Ihrn the waters begin to dash and rear, and with a terrific rush they break loose from their strange anchorage. ■, Dut yonder they have stopped, thirty tniles of distance they have halted, On this side the waters roll off toward ihe salt sea. But as the hand of the Lord God is taken away from the uplifted waters, perhaps uplifted half a mile, those waters rush down, and some Of the Israelites say: “Alas! alas! what a misfortune! Why could those waters not have stayed parted, because perhaps we may want to go back. Oh, Lord! we are engaged in a risky business. Those Canaanites may eat us up. How if we want to go back? Would’t it have been a greater miracle If the Lord had parted the waters to let us come through, and kept them open to let us go back if we are defeated?” My friends, God makes no provisions for a Christian’s retreat. He blears the piath all The way to danaari- To go back is to die. The same gatekeepers that swing back the amethystine and crystalline gate of the lordan to lot Israel pass through now Swing shut the amethystine and crystalline gate of the Jordan to keep the Israelites from going back. I declare It iu your hearing to-day: victory ahead, water thirty feet deep in the rear. Triumph ahead, Canaan ahead; behind you death and darkness and woo.and hell. But you say: “Why didn’t those Canaanites, when they had such a splendid chance—standing an the top of the bank thirty or forty feet high, completely demolish the poor Israelites down in the river?” I will tell you why, God had made a promise, and he was going to keep it I‘Tnere shall not be any man able to stand before thee all the days of thy life.”

Cut this is no plaoe for the host to stop. Joshua gives the command, “Fo/ward, march!" In the distance th-re Is a long grove of trees, and at Ihe end of the grove there is a city. It is a city of arbors, a city with walls seeming to reach to the heavens, to buttress the very sky. It is the great metupolia that commands th 3 mountain pass. It is Jericho. There shall be no swords.no shields, no battering rams. There shall be only one weapon of war, and that a! ram's horn. The horn of the slain i ram was sometimes taken and holes j were puncturod in it. and then the musician would put the instrument to his lips, and he would run his fingers over this rude musical instrument and make a groat deal of sweet harmony for the ! people. That was the only kind of| weapon. Seven priests were to take’ these rude, rustic musical instruments and they wore to go around the city ' evo-y day for six days—once a! day for ■ six days; and then on tha seventh day they wore to go around blowing these ! rude uuieical instruments seven times. ! and thear at the close of the seventh blowing O' the rams’ horns on the seventh day the peroration of the

whole scene was to be a shout, at which those great walls should tumble from capstone to base. The seven priests with the rude musical instruments pass all around the city walls bn the first day, and a failure. Not so tnaehas a piece of plaster broke loose from the wall—not so much as a loosened rock, not so much as a piece of mortar lost from its place. “There,” say the unbelieving Israelites, “didn’t I tell you so? Why, those ministers are fools. The idea of going around the city with those musical instrumeats and expecting in that way to destroy it! Joshua has been spoiled; he thinks because be has overthrown and destroyed the spring freshet he can overthrow the stone wail. Why, it is not philosophic. Don’t yop sec there is ( norelation betweentheblowing of these musical instruments and the knocking down of the wall? It Isn’t philosophy.” The second day the priests blowing the musical instruments go around the city, and a failure. Third day, and a failure; fourth day, and a failure; fifth day, and a failure; sixth day, and a failure, The seventh day comes, the climacteric day. Joshua is up early in the morning and examines the troops, walks all around about, looks at the city wall. The priests start to make the circuit of the city. They go all around once, all around twice, three times, four times, five, six times, and a failure.

There is only one more thing to do, and that is to utter a great shout. I see the Israelitish army straightening themselves up, filling their lungs for a vociferation such as was never heard before and never heard after. Joshua feels that the hour has come, and he cries out to his host; “Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city!" All the people begin to cry: “Down, Jeriicho! Down. Jericho!” and the long line of solid masonry begins to quiver and to move aQd to rock. Stand from under! She falls! Crash go the walls. the temples, the towers, the palaces; the air blackened with the dust.

But Joshua’s troops may not halt hero. The command is. ’'Forward, inarch!” There is the city of Ai: it must be taken. How shall it be taken? A scouting party comes back and says: ♦•Joshua we can do that without you; it is going to be a very easy job; you just stay hero while we go and capture it.” They march with a small regiment in front of that city. The men of Ai look at them and give one yell, and the Israelites run like reindeer. The Northern troops at Bull Run did not make such rapid time as these Israelites with the Canaanites after them. They never cut such a sorry figure as when they were on the retreat, Anybody that goes out in the battles of God with only half a force, instead of your taking the men of Ai. the men of Ai will take you. Look at the Church of God on the retreat. Theßorneslan cannibals ate up Munson, the missionary. “Fall back!” said a great many Christian people. “Fall back, O Church of God! Borneo will never be taken. Don’t you see the Bomesian cannibals have eaten up Munson, the missionary?” Joshua falls on his face and begins to whine, and he says, “Oh, Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Would to God we had been contont and dwelt on the other side of Jordan! For tbe Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round and cut off our name from the earth.” God comes and rouses him. How does ho rouse him? By complimentary apostrophe? No. He says. “Get the up. Wherefore liest thou upon thy face?” Joshua rises, and I warrant you with a mortified look. But his old courage comes back. The fact was, that was not his battle. If he had been in it he would have gone on to viotory, and says: “Now let us go up and capture the city of Ai: let us go up right away.” They march on. He puts the majority Of the troops behind a ledge of rocks in the night, and then he sends eomparatively small regiments up in front of the city. The men of Ai come out with a shout. The small regiments of Israelites in stratagem fall baok and fall back, and when all the men of Ai have left the city and are in pursuit of these scattered, or seemingly scattered regiments, Joshua stands on a rock—l see his locks flying in the wind as he points his spear toward the (doomed city, and that is the signal. The men rush out from behind the rocks and take the city, and it Is put to the torch, and then these Israelites return, and between these two waves of Israelitish prowess men of Ai are destroyed and the Israelites gain the victory. But this is no place for tho host of Joshua to stop. “Forward march!” cries Joshua to the troops. There is the city of Gibou. On the morning of the third dav he is before tbe enemy. There are two long lines of battle. The battle opens with groat slaughter, but tbe Canaanites soon disoover something. They say: “That is Joshua: that is tbe man who conquered the spring freshet, and knocked down the stone wall and destroyed sia city of Ai. There is no use fighting.” And they sound a retreat, and as they begin to retreat Joshua and his host spring upon them like a panther, pursuing them Over the rocks, and as these Canaanites, with sprained ankles and gashed foreheads, retreat, the catapults of tho Bky pour a volley of haii-stones L into the valley and all the artillery of the heavens with bullets of iron pound the Canaanites against the ledges of Beth-horon. • •Oh!” says Joshua, “thisis surely a “But do you not see the sun going down? Those Amorites are going to get away after all, and then they will come up some other time and

bother, us, and perhaps destroy us." See the sun is going down. Oh for a longer day than has ever been seen in this climate! Wh&t is the matter with Joshua? Has he fallen in an apoplectic fit? No. He Is in prayer. Lookout when a good man makes the Lord his ally. Joshua raises his face. Radiant with prayer, and looks at the deoending sun over Gibeon and at the faint orescent of the moon, for yoq know the queen of the night sometimes wiH linger around the palaces of the day. Pointing one hand at the descending sun and the other hand at the faint crescent of the moon, in the name of that. God who shaped the worlds and moves the worlds,he cries: ‘‘Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” They halted it wa9 by refraction of the sun’s rays, or by the stopping of the whole planetary system, I do not know, and Ido not care. 1 leave it to the Christian Scientists and the infidel Sciences to settle that question. Massillon preached the funeral sermon over Louis XVI. Who will preaehed the funeral sermon of those five dead kings, King of Jerusalem, King of Hebron,' King of Jarmutk, King of Lachish, King of Eglon? Let it be by Joshua. What shall be the epitaph put on the door of tho tomb? “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life.”

But before you fasten up the door I want five more kings beheaded and thrust in—King Alcohol, King Fraud, King Lust, King Superstition, King Infidelity. Let them be beheaded and hurl them in. Then fasten up the door forever. What shall the inscription and what shall the epitaph be? For all Christian philanthropists of all ages are going to come and look at it. What shall the incription be? “There shall not any man be able to stand Before thee all the days of thy lifer.” . But it is time for Joshua.to go h ome. He is 110 years old. Washington went down the Potomac and at Mt. Vernon closed his days. Wellington died peacefully at Apsley House. Now, where shall Joshua rest? Why. he is to have his greatest battle now. After 110 years he has to meet a King who has more subjects than all the present population of the earth, his throne a pyramid of skulls, bis parterre the the grave-yards and the cemeteries of the world, his chariot the world’s hearse--the king of terrors. But if this is Joshua’s greatest battle, it is going to bo J oshua’s greatest) victory. He gathers his friends around him and gives his valedictory and it is full of reminiscence. Young men tell what they are going to do; old men tell what they have done. And yefc you have heard a grandfather or greatgrandfather, seated by the evening fire, tell of Monmouth or Yorkstown, and then lift the crutch or staff as though it were a musket, to fight and show how the old battles were won, so Joshua gathered his friends around his dying couch, and he tells them the story of oyhat he has been through, and as he lies there, his white locks snowing down on his wrinkled forehead, I wonder if God has kept His promise all the way through. As he lies there he tells the story one, two or three times, you have heard old people tell a story two or three times over, and he answers: “I go the way of all the earth, andnot one WQrdofthe promise has failed, riot one word thereof has failed.” And he turns to his family, as a dying parent will, and says: “Choose now whom ye will serve, the God of Israel, or the God of the Amorites. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” A dying man can not be reckless or thoughtless in regard to his ohildren. Consent to part with them at the door of the tomb we can not. By the cradle in which their infancy was rocked, by the hQaomuQnjgJbifihJjmY.Jk.6t lay, by the blood of the covenant, by the Cod of Joshua, it shall not be. We will not part. Jehovah Jireh. we take thee at thy promise. “I will be a God to thee and thy seed after thee.” Dead, tho old chief t ain must be laic out. Handle him very gently. That sacred body is over 110 years of age. Lay him out—stretch out those feet that walked dry-shod the parted Jordan. Close those lips which helped blow the blast at which the walls of Jorieho fell. Fold the arm that lifted the spear toward the doomed oity of Ai. Fold it right over the heart that exulted when the five kings fell. But where shall we get the burnished granite for the headstone and the footstone? 1 bethink myself now. I imagine that for the head it shall bo the sun that stood still upon Gibeon, aod for the foot, the moon that stood still in the Valley of Ajalon.