Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1893 — THEY CROSSED OVER. [ARTICLE]

THEY CROSSED OVER.

( The Miraculous Pathway That Led to Canaan's Shore. “Sweet fields Arrayed tn Lirins Green”— Crowing of the Jordan by the Israelite* —Dr. Talmage's Sermon. Dr. Talmage preached at Detroit, Mich., Sunday, at the Fort Street Presbyterian Church. Text: Joshua Ui, 17. “And the priests .that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all the Israelities passed over on dry until all ths people were passed clean over Jordan.” He said: Washington crossed the Delaware when crossing was pronounced impossible, but he did it by boat. Xerxes crossed the Hellespont with 2,000,000 men, but he aid it by bridge. The Israelites crossed the Red sea, but the same orchestra that celebrated the deliverance of the one anny sounded the strangulation of the other. This Jordanic passage differs from all. There was no sacrifice of human life—not so much as

the loss of a linchpin. The vanguard of the host, made up of priests, ad-, vanced until they puttheir foot at the brim of the river, when immediately the streets of Jerusalem were no more dry than the bed of that river. It was as if all the water had been drawn off, and then the dampness had been soaked up with a sponge, and then by a towel the road had been wiped dry. Standing on the scene of that affrighted, fugitive, river Jordan, I learn for myseif and for you, first, that obstacles when they are touched vanish. The text says” that when these priests came down and touched the water —the edge of the water with their feet—the water parted. They did not wade in chin deep or knee deep or ankle deep, but as soon as their feet touched the water it vanished. And it makes me think that almost all the obstacles of life need only be approached in order to be conquered. Difficulties but touched vanish. It is the trouble, the difficulty, the obstacle far in the distance that seems so huge and tremendous. There is a beautiful tradition among the American Indians that Manitou was traveling in the invisible world, and one day he came to a barrier of brambles and sharp thorns, which forbade his going on, and there was a wild beast glaring at him from the thicket, but as he determined to go on his way he did pursue it, and those brambles were found to be on’y phantons, and that beast was found to -be ' a powerless Sjhost. and tin impassable river that forbade him rushing to embrace the Yaratilda proved to be only a phantom river.

Well, my friends, the fact is there are a great many things that look terrible across our pathway which when we advance upon them are only the phantoms, only the apparitions, only the delusions of life. Difficulties touched are conquered. Put your feet into the brim of the water and Jordan retreats. I always sigh before I begin to preach at the greatness of the undertaking, but as soon as I start it becomes to me an exhilaration. And any duty undertaken with a confident spirit becomes a pleasure, and the higher the duty the higher the pleasure. Good John Livingston. once on a sloop coming from Elizabethport to New York, was dreadfully frightened because he thought he was going to be dr*» med as a sudden gust came up. F eople were surprised at him. If any man in all the world was ready to die, it was good John Livingston. So there are now a great many good people who shudder in passing a graveyard, and they hardly dare think of Canaan because of the Jordan that intervenes, but once they are down on a sick bed then'all their fears arc gone. The waters of death dashing on the beach are like the mellow voice of ocean shells—the smell of the blossoms of. the tree of life. The music of the heavenly choirs steals over the waters, and to cross now is only a pleasant sail. How long the boat is coming! Come, lord Jesus, come quickly! One would have thought that if the waters of Jordan had dropped until they were only two or three feet deep the Israelites might have marched through it and have come un on the other bank with their clothes saturated and their garments like those of men coming ashore from shipwreck, and that would have been as wonderful a deliverance, but God does something better than that. When the priests’ feet touched the waters of Jordan and they were drawn off, they might have thought there would have been a bed of mud and slime through which the army should pass. Draw off the waters of the Hudson or the Ohio, and there would be a good many days, and perhaps many wejiks, before the sediment would dry up, and yet here, in an instant, immediately, God provides a path •through the depths of Jordan; it is so dry the passengers do not even get their feet damp. Oh, the completeness of everything that God does!

If God makes a Bible, it is a complete Bible. Standing amid the dreadful and delightful truths, you seem to be in the midst of an orchestra where the wailings over sins and the'rejoicing over pardon and the martial strains of victory make the chorus like an anthem of eternity. This book seems to you the ocean of

truth, on every wave of which Christ walks—sometimes in the darkness of, prophecy, again with the splendors with which he walks on Galilee. In this book apostle answersto prophet, Paul to Isaiah. Revelation to Gene-sis-—giorious light, turning midnight sorrow into the midnoon joy, dispersing every fog, hushing every tempest. Take this book; it is the kiss of God on the soul of lest man. Perfect Bible, complete Bible! God provided a Savior. He is a complete Savior—God-man —divinity and humanity united in the same person. He set up the starry pillars of the universe and the towers of light He planted the cedars and .AheTteavenly Lebanon. He struck out of the rock the rivers of life, singing under the trees, singing under the thrones. He quarried the sardonyx and crystal, and the topaz of the heavenly wall. He put down the jasper for the foundation, and heaped up, the amethyst, for the capital and swung the twelve gates, which are twelve pearls. In one instant he thbught out a universe, and yet he became a child, crying for his mother, feeling along the sides the manger, learning to walk. Oh, the complete Savior, rubbing his hand over the place where we: have the pain, yet the stars of heaven the adorning gems of his right hand. Holding us in his arms ■ when we take the last view of the dead. Sitting .iown with us on the tombstone, and while we plant roses there he planting consolation in our heart, every chapter a stalk, every verse a stem, every word a rose. A complete Savior, a complete Bible, a complete universe, a complete Jor- . daniac passage. Everything that God does is complete.

God didn’t intend this world for an easy parlor, through which we are to be drawn in a rocking chair, but we are to work our passage, climb masts, fight battles, scale mountains and ford rivers. God makes everything valuable difficult to get at, for the same reason that he put the gold down in the mine and the pearl clear down in the sea —to make us dig and dive for them. We acknowledge this principle in worldly things: oh, that we were only wise enough to acknowledge it in religious things! And so there is, my friends, a tug, a tussel, a trial, a push, an anxiety, through which every man must go before he comes to worldly success and worldly achievement. You admit it. Now-be wise enough to apply it in religion. Eminent Christian character is only gained by the Jordanic passage; no man just happened to get good. The Christian has passed the Red sea of trouble, and yet he thinks there is a Jordan of death between him and heaven. He comes down to that Jordan of death and thinks hojr many have been lost there. When Molyneux was exploring the Jordan in Palestine he had his boats knocked to pieces in the rapids of that river. And there are a great many men who have gone down in the river of death; the Atlantic and Pacific have not swallowed so many. It is an awful thing to make shipwrecks on the rock of ruin; masts falling, hurricanes flying, death coming, groanin gs in the water, rooanings in the wind, thunder in the sky, while God with the finger of the lightning writes all over the sky, “I will tread them in my wrath, I will trample them in my fury.” The Christian comes down to this raging torrent, and he knows he must pass out, and as he comes toward the time h ? 's breath gets

shorter, and dtis last breath leaves him as he steps into the stream, and no sooner does he touch the stream than it is parted, and he goes through dry shod while all the waters wave their plumes, crying: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” I remember my mother in her dying hour said to my father, “Father, wouldn’t it be pleasant if we could all go together?” But we cannot all go together. We must go one by one, and we must be grateful if we get there at all. What a heaven it will be if we have all our families there to look around and see all the children are present! You would rather have them all there, and you go with bare brow forever, than that one should be missing to complete the garlands of heaven for your coronal. One word of comfort on this subject for all the bereaved. You see, our departed friends have not been submerged—have not been swamped in the waters. They have only crossed over. The Israelites were just as thoroughly alive on the western banks of the Jordan as they had been on the eastern banks of the Jordan, and our departed Christian friends have pnly crossed over —not sick, not dead, not exhausted, not extinguished, not blotted out, but with healthier respiration,and stputer pulses, and keener eyesight, and better prospects —crossed over. Their sins, their physical and mental disquiet, all left clear this side, an eternally flowing, impassable obstacle between them and all human and satanic pursuit. Crossed over! Oh, I shake hands of congratulation with all the bereaved in the consideration that our departed Christian friends are safe.

Oh, ye army of departed kindred, we hail you from bank to bank. Wait for us when the Jordan of death shall part for us. Come down and meet us hall way between the willowed banks of the earth and palm groves of heaven. May our great High Priest go ahead of us’ and with his bruised feet touch, the water, and then shall be fulfilled the words of my text, “All Israel went over ou dry ground until all the people were gone clear through Jordan.”