Dr. Talmage's Journal

Dr. Talmage On A Camel.

       In my American home, on the Atlantic, on the Mediterranean, on camel's back, on mule's back, on horseback, under chandelier, by dim candle in tent, on Lake Galilee, in convent, at Bethel where Jacob's pillow was stuffed with dreams and the angels of the ladder landed, at the brook Elah, from which little David picked up the ammunition of five smooth stones, four more than were needed for crushing like an eggshell the skull of Goliath, in the valley of Ajalon, over which, at Joshua's command, Astronomy halted, on the plain of Esdraelon, the battlefield of ages, its long red flowers suggestive of the blood dashed to the bits of the horses' bridles, amid the shattered masonry of Jericho, in Jerusalem that overshadows all other cities in reminiscence, at Cana where plain water became festal beverage, on Calvary whose aslant and ruptured rocks still show the effects of the earthquake at the awful hemorrhage of the five wounds that purchased the world's rescue, and with my hand mittened from the storm, or wet from the Jordan, or bared to the sun, or gliding over smooth table, this book has been written.

       On the steamer " City of Paris," mid-ocean, a stranger, knowing I was on the way to the Holy Land in order better to write a Life of Christ, was overheard to say: "I hope Dr. Talmage will write a Life of Christ which a business man, getting home at eight o'clock at night, and starting from home next morning at seven o'clock, may profitably take up, and in the few minutes before he starts and after he returns, read in snatches and understand." So shall it be. Not a word of Latin or Greek in all the book, unless it be translated. We shall tell the story in Anglo-Saxon, the language in which John Bunyan dreamed, and William Shakespeare dramatized, and Longfellow romanced, and John Milton sang, and George Whitefield thundered. What is the use of dragging the dead languages into the service of such a book? Sailing on the Atlantic Ocean I asked where did all this water come from, and answered it by saying, "The Hudson, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Seine,, the Tagus, the Guadalquiver." And so I thought all the rivers of language, freighted with the thought of all lands and all ages, have emptied into the ocean of Anglo-Saxonisin. Blessed to me was the hour when my mother taught me how to frame the first sentence out of it, and my last word on earth shall be a draught upon its inexhaustible treasury.

WIDE THANKS.

       The saddle-bags that hung over my horse all the way from Jerusalem to Damascus were filled with volumes to which I am obligated. In making this book I have, as far as time and ability would allow, ransacked the world of literature, sacred and secular, and I hereby acknowledge my indebtedness to all who have helped fill up the reservoirs of information : Among others, to Josephus's Jewish Antiquities, Milman's History of Christianity, Jahn's Hebrew Commonwealth, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Dollinger's First Age of the Church, Kitto's Encyclopedia, Trench's Miracles and Parables, Lynch's Exploration of the Dead Sea, Guizot's Spirit of Christianity, Lightfoot's Revision of the New Testament, Strauss's New Life of Christ, Robinson's Biblical Researches, Atwater's Sacred Tabernacle, Thomson's Land and Book, Geikie's Life of Christ, Hanna's Life of Christ, Farrar's Life of Christ, Willitt's Miracles, Schenkel's Character of Jesus, Sweeney's Under Ten Flags, Young's Christ of History, De Pressense's Jesus Christ, Tischendorf's Synopsis of the Gospels, Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, Field's Among the Holy Hills, Hervey's Genealogies of Our Lord, Plumptre's Christ and Christendom, Prime's Tent Life in Palestine, Bishop Wordsworth's Four Gospels, Clark's Rambles Among Ruins, Stuart's Capernaum, Taylor's Life of Christ, Macduff's Brighter than the Sun, Eddy's Immanuel, and personal friends.

       The book is now launched. May the prayers of all good people waft it on a happy voyage.

Journal Entries

1. Travels in the Orient...
2. Across the Mediterranean
3. A Trip Through Egypt
4. Wondrous Sights in Egypt
5. Monuments of The Ages
6. The Mummy of Pharoah
7. Over the Way of the Israelites
8. Battlefield of Tel-el-Kebir
9. A Dangerous Harbor
10. Jonah and The Whale
11. All Abroad for Jerusalem
12. On the Sacred Hill Golgotha
13. The Glory of Solomon
14. The Grief of David
15. The Great Temple that Herod Built
16. Where Elijah Was Fed by Ravens
17. A Baptism in The Jordan
18. A Pilgrimage to the Birthplace of Christ
19. By Sacred Places of the Holy Land
20. At the Well of Jacob
21. A Watering Place
22. A Plague of Dogs
23. At the Sepulchre
24. Memorable Spots
25. Jesus Afoot
26. Cana and Mount of the Beatitudes
27. A Funeral in the Holy Land
28. Lake Galilee
29. A Ride on the Lake, and a Storm
30. The Mount of Transfiguration
31. A Blizzard
32. On the Way to Damascus
33. At Beyrout
34. The Isle of Patmos
35. On To Ephesus
36. Tradition, History and Fact
37. Christ, the Out-Door Teacher