New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-06-04
SERMON.
BY Rev. NV. Reed, First Congregational
Church. Preached May rs.

was uOU VIGIL pullt' IL was OuC VI
The ruin honors the law of God, and gives
notice to all builders that they may govern
themselves accordingly.
If a wall should stand that by rule ought
to fall, we should, to be sure, save our
building but we should lose the rule. The
safety of the miserable leaning tower of
SLOAN would be too dearly bought at the
price of the confusion and ruin OF the first
principles of architecture. Law is better
than chance, and that it may be and con-
tinue law, it must justify itselt-reward and
punish every time and everywhere. We
need something that we can reckon from
and measure by, and that must be without
yariableness or shadow of turning. Let
God be true though every man is a LIAR
There is hope as long as there is a standard.
We are told how to build a life, and on
what to found city. Life is TO be upright,
and city is to rest on righteousness. That
is the law of building.
If these conditions are not kept there
will be ruin. Within the week city has
divided against itself and fallen utterly.
And what has not gone down in dust seems
to have gone up in smoke. Foreign forces
had nothing to do with the destruction.
The city fell like bad job of masonry.
And for the same reasons, according to law,
it ought to have fallen as it did. The great
est calamity possible would have been in its
continuing. Something must go. Either the
commandment of God-His word-or the
city. 1t has as great sinners as Nineveh.
1t has had more than forty days warning:
it would not repent, and it had to go. do
not think that this contamination, con-
sidered in its relations, is to be mourned
over. There has been a great library
burned, but the truths of the principal
book ia 1.-THE book of the world-haye
been saved The works of the old masters
have been destroyed. Paintings have been
defaced and statues broken. 1t is great
loss: but the choice was between these and
the justice of God. The work of the oldest
master has not suffered, but is seen clearer
than before.
Folly and the fashion of this world have
lost their centre. Let folly and fashion go
into mourning if they please. 1t will do
them good. 1t is a flaming illustration of
the truth-a sermon to London and New
York, to all cities and to all men-made i'm
pressive by the shining of flame on steel. 1t
tells men vino contemplate building, TO
build better; and it warns the men who are
now living under walls that lean, of their
peril.
At this present time the world is full of
affronts and defiance of Gods law. The
abasement of Paris suggests the fate of
things that are goddess. The many people
who choose as their motto ''let us eat and
drink for tomorrow we die" have found it
true to the last detail. They have eaten,
and were drunk, and are dead.
The telegram announcing this has gone
to the ends of the earth. There are other
cities almost as wicked, there are other
people as vain and as careless of God. To
these it has the warning look of public
execution. As an illustration of the text it
is good.
LET us have peace" is good saying,
provided the peace Is that defined in the
New Testament. There is another peace,
then-that which is its opposite. One kind,
the true peace, is represented in the person
of Christ in the country of the Gadefenes,
and the other by the man possessed of
devil who cried out to be let alone. OF this
false kind Christ says, ''think not that |
am come to send peace; came not to send
peace but sword First pure and then
There are still summer days
when the motionless clouds hang low: not
a leaf quivers; not wave ripples, when
the sultrness can be weighed in the pulse
less air. 1t becomes an effort to live and
breathe; it is calm and peaceful, but every
living thing on the sea and on the land
wishes it would rain. Even those who
shiver at the thunder and hide from the
lightning welcome both to break the death
ly quiet.
This peace before the storm is that into
which Christ sends his sword He is in the
world that same blessed disturbing force
that came to the grave of Lazarus. He
comes to call forth and to undo, 70 wake
from sleep; to raise from the dead. His
force is life, and that more abundantlv;"
harmony of action in the face of inaction.
Flows and harrows on the face of the earth,
and plows and harrOws in the hearts of the
Al 1.
agents of his power. The emigrant makes
his claim, stakes out his section of wider
ness, and says: Let us have peace" and
falls to work with ak and rifle to make one.
The noise of his pinning it may be heard
early and late; but when the peace is won,
contrast it with the peace he found-the I'M
broken quiet Of the savage, untitled acres;
the shrek of the locomotive disturbs the
sleep of the alligator in the swamp; but the
shrek being interpreted Is the voice of the
text.
The shepherds watching their tlocks by
night heard one line of a prophetic song
sung in the air-'Peace Oh earth, good will
TO men" 1t was only the last line Of the
'tanza which they heard. 1t is long
lymn-taken together What the signiti-
,ance is of those stanzas which they did
lot hear may be seen in the fulfillment thus
ar-wars everywhere among the nations,
umult and strife. But more and more lib
.rty-no peace yet, but the way being made
First, pure is the condition insisted upon
righteousness in the individual. righteous
less in the State. The Kingdom of God
irst, and then peace. That this is the wav
With the individual is clearly seem Matthew
lad quiet seat in the customhouse, Luke
vas a physician, and Peter and John were
ea fishing; all still men until their call
anne to trouble them. 1t was a sword
separating them from houses and lands. wife
md child. In WEAKNESS and paintullness
hey must walk the long way from the peace
hat the world gives to the rest that re-
that would endure. Having
Won that themselves. they must become
.lso disturbers of the false peace in others.
hey were justly charged with turning the
world upside down. The smooth self con-
ent of Felix and Festus was rutfled by the |
ober words of Paul.
1t must be so. The first words of the |
gospel do not tend to soothe and lull. To |
ew, and Greek and Barbarian it is the |
anne agreeable-repent, forsake, re- |
ounce; hate what you love, love what you !
ate. 1t sets man at par with himself |
indies the argument between the con-
cience and the heart. A man who has |
nee heard the Gospel can never regain
is old peace nor find the new: with a stIife
o go back or 90 forward something must |
lie.
Feeling the truth of this, Hawthorne
Wished to write out the story of the young
nan who came TO Christ, but, finding the
onditions too hard, went away sorrowtul
'erhaps one can not measure, but one can
imagine IN some sort the future of that
Dung man who saw the better way and
pprOved it and chose the worse. Not easy
Or him to forget the face that had looked
pom him, not easy to come again. Impos- |