Western Reserve chronicle and weekly transcript of the times. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1854-1855, 1855-02-07
FEBRUARY 7, 1855.

yet building-to one who has no knowl'
edge of the ocean, or of what that help,
less hulk will become the moment she
slides into her element, and rises anc
falls upon the flood with joyous greeting
The value of an acorn is not what il
is, but what it shall be when nature has
brooded it, and brought it up, and hun,
dred years have sung through its branches
and left their strength there
He, then, that judges man by whaI
he can do, judges him in the seed. We
must see him through some lenses-we
must prefgure his Immortality. While
then, his industrial value in life mus
depend on what he can do, we have here
the beginning of moral value which
bears no relation to the power, but 10 his
future destiny.
This view assumes distinetness and in.
tensity, when we add to it the relation.
ship which subsists between man and his
Maker.
This relationship begins in the fac
that we are created in the divine image
that we are connected with GoD, there
fore not by Government alone, but by ma.
ture.
This initial truth is made radiant with
meaning, by the teaching of Christianity
that every human being is dear to GoD
a teaching which stands upon that plat
form, built high above all human deeds
and histories, the advent incarnation, pas.
sion, and death Of Christ as Savior Of
Men.
The race is a brotherhood GoD is the
Father, Love is the law of this great hu-
man common wealth, and love knows no
servitode. 1t is that which gilds with
Liberty whatever it touches.
One more element to human liberty is
contributed by Christianity, in the solemn
development of mans accountability to
COP, by which condition hereafter springs
from pure character here.
However heavy that saying is, every
one of US shall give an account of him.
self before GoD-in it is the life of the
race.
You cannot present man as a subject
of Divine government held responsible
for results, compared with which the
most momentous earthly deeds are insig-
nifcanf, piled with influences accumu-
lating from eternity, and by powers which,
though they begin on earth in a cradle,
gentle as a mothers voice singing lullaby,
go on upward, taking everything as they
60, till they reach the whole power OF
GoD; and working out results that out
last time and the sun, and revolve forever
in flaming circuits of disaster, or in sa-
cred circles of celestial bliss you can
not present man as the center and subject
of such an august and eternal drama,
without giving him something of the gran
deur which resides in COP himself, and
in the spheres of Immortality
Who shall trife with such a creature,
full bound upon such an errand through
life, and swelling forth to such destiny?
Clear the place where he stands give
him room and help, but no hinderance as
he equiPs for eternity loosen the bonds
of man, for COP girds him = take off
all impediments, for it is his life and
death struggle for Immortality!
That this effect of accountability to
COP was felt by the inspired writers,
cannot be doubtful 10 any who weigh such
language as this:
$50 then every one of us shall give
account of himself to Cop. Let US not
therefore Judge one another any more,
but Judge this rather, that no man put a
stumbling block, or occasion to fall in
his brother way"
By making man important in the sight
of COP, he becomes sacred to his fellow.
The more grand and far-reaching are the
divine claims, the greater is our concep-
ton of the scope and worth of being
Human rights become respected in the
ratio in which human responsibility is
felt. Whatever objections men may
hold to Puritanism-iheir theory since
the days of St. Augustine has constantly
produced tendencies to liberty and prev
alent belief in the natural rights of man
and on account of that very feature
which to many, has been so offensive-its
rigorous doctrine of human accountability.
Here, then, is the idea of man which
Christianity gives in contrast with the
inferior and degrading heather notions OF
man. He is a being but begun on earth
"a seed only planted here for its first
growth. He is connected with Cop, not
as all matter is, by proceeding from crea-
tive power, but by partaking of the d.
vine nature, by the declared personal
affection of COP, witnessed and sealed
by the presence and suferings of the
worlds Redeemer. He is being upon
whom is rolled the responsibility of char
acter and eternal destiny! OF such a
creature it were as foolish TO take an esti-
mate, by what he is and what he can DO I
in this life, as it would be to estimate by |
an eagles egg, what the old eaglees is
worth, with wings outspread far above t