Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1870-05-03
The Depths of the Sea.

| Earth knows no hiding place like oceans
depths. The dimpled hand of infancy may
there so conceal the costliest gem that only
(. omniscience can discover and omnipotence
restore it. Art, science, wisdom, and inge-
nuity may tax their utmost energies, and
still the sea retains its treasures, and keeps
its secrets safe. Nothing, sinking by its
own weight into that soft bed of finest sand
which carpets the oceans floor, has power
to ever rise again. Covered by the vast
cushion" ofcondensed water-incompres
sible by human power but compressed in
the hollow of the Almighty's hand, to lie
between the tidal surgings and the oceans
base-gold is strewn uncounted, and treas
ures lie unmatched, where spoilers cannot
enter, nor thieves break through and steal.
| Into these waveless, tideless, stormless,
silent depths, what multitudes have gone
down. But of all those hosts none have
returned to tell the secrets IF that hiding
place. Kings and mobiles, warriors thirst
| ing for blood, and plunderers laden with
spoils, argosies Of precious treasure, and de-
vastating ships of war, all these have plung-
ed downward to those silent realms. One
eye alone can see that wasted wealth one
arm alone can reach those wasted spOils;
one voice alone can wake the silence OF
| those awful depths one mandate alone can
summon forth the slumberers there-His
mandate, His voice, which all that are in
the graves shall hear, and at which the sea
shall give up the dead which are therein.
to stand in judgment at the great white
throne.
But, awful and shadowy as is oceans SOL
emn mystery, there is one scripture of which
it reminds us, that brings US to unspeaka-
ble consolation.
Hear it, oh ye tempted, tost and troubled
souls. Hear it, we against whom he plots
in guile. Hear it, We whose eyes grow dim
with the memories of evil days gone by,
and whose penitential hearts yet quake
with solemn fear in view Of coming wrath
and coming doom. Hear it, We forgiven
ones, who yet lay hold on pardon with a
trembling hand, and remember with tears
of shame the pit where once you lay:
"Who is God like unto thee, that par
doneth iniquity, and passeth by the trans
gression the remnant of his heritage? he
retaineth not his anger forever, because he
delighteth in mercy. He will turn again,
He will have compassion upon us; he will
subdue our'iniquities; and then will cast
all their sins into the depths of the sea -
Micah 7-l9.
They are gone! Thank God, let them
90, down, down, down to unfathomable
depths, whence men nor devils cannot bring
them back. "As far as the east is from the
west" they are removed. Their sins and
their iniquities will remember no more >
and "Who now shall lay anything TO the
charge of Gods elect?" Behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the
world"
The sin of the pardoned are forgotten
but the saved sinners shall be had in ever
lasting remembrance. The sins are cast
into the depths of the sea-no more to be
! recovered from their hiding places; but the
saints who have sunk down beneath many
a stormy wind and surging wave, shall no
be left forever there. Choicest of all tn,
treasures of the sea are those jewels Chris
has purchased with his blood. Thougt
hidden, they are safe; though unseen, the!
; are not lost. And when the trumpet 0
God shall sound, they shall shoot upwar,
= through the level wave in brightness an,
immortality, for The Lord hath said
will bring my people again from the depth
IF the sea-" Psa 6S-22.-Thc Christian.