The Kanzas news., 1858-08-21
What the old clock is.


IN its dark chamber, keeping time to ITSELF
timentality of religion-high above life, in
the region of airy thought; perched up in
the top of Sunday, but without dial pointer
to let the week know what o'clock it is ol
Time, or of Eternityl
AsI grow older, and come nearer to death,
I look upon it more and more with com
placent jov, and out of every longing heal
God say, so thirsting, hungering one,
come to me-" What the other life will
bring know not, only that shall awake
In Gods likeness, and see him as he is
If child had been born and spent all his
life In the Mammoth Cave, how impossible
it would be for him to comprehend the up
per world His parents might tell him OF
its life, and light, and beauty; and Its
sounds of JOY; they might heap up the
sand into mounds. and try to show him by
pointing to stalactites how grass, and flow
ers. and trees grow out of the ground, till
at length, with laborious thinking, the
child would fancy he had gained a true idea
of the unknown land. And yet, though
he had longed to behold it, when the day
came that he was to go forth, it would be
with regret for the familiar crystals, and
the rock-hewn rooms, and the quiet that
reigned therein. But when he came up,
some May morning, with ten thousand
birds singing in the trees, and the heavens
bright, and blue, and full of sunlight, and
the wind blowing softly through the young
leaves, all a-glitter with dew, and the land
scape stretching away green and beautiful
to the horizon, with what rapture would he
gaze about him, and how poor were all the
fancyings and interpretations which were
made within the cave, of the things which
grew and lived without; and how would he
wonder that he could have regretted to
leave the silence and dreary darkness of his
old abode So, when we emerge from this
cave of earth into that land where spring
growths are, and where is summer, and not
that miserable travestie which we call sum-
mer here, how shall we wonder that we
have elung 50 fondly to this dark and bar
rem life
Beat on, then, o heart, and yearn for
dying. I have drunk at many fountain,
but thirst again; have fed at many a
bounteous table, but hunger returned;
have seen many bright and lovely things,
but while gazed their lustre faded. There
is nothing here that can give me rest, but
when behold thee, o God, shall be sat-
isfedl
There is a new word much used; it is
ism. Every new or more perfect applica-
ton of Christian principle to the life of
society Is called an ism, SO long as men
fight it, but glorious evidence of the di-
vinity of Christianity as soon as they are
defeated by it. Selfish men abhor all isms
of benevolence; proud men all isms of con-
descension; the gripping hand hates the
open palm; greediness abhors moderation;
and self-love thinks the love of others to
be spendthrift And thus it comes to
pass that isms are found and dreaded al
most among the great humanities of the
day. If it be an ism to uplift the poor, to
defend the slave, to maintain everywhere
the right though it overthrow time -honored
institutions-the God Almighty is the Fa-
ther of isms, and has been propagating
them since the world begun; and He will
lead the Church from one ism to an other
till it stands in Zion and before God.
I am suspicious of that church whose
members are one in their beliefs and opin
ions. When a tree is dead, it will lie any
way; alive, it will have its own growth
When mems deadness is in the church, and
their life elsewhere, all will be alike. They
can he cut and polished any way. When
they are alive, they are like tropical for
est-some shooting up like the mahogany
tree, some spreading like the vine, some
darkling like the shrub, some dying herb
like on the ground; but all obeying their
own laws of growth common law of
growth variously expressed in each-and
CO ~
of the wood.