The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-05-13
Earth's Brighter Side.


the Lord" 1t is not only cheering u
our hearts but it is the part OF exact Jus
tice to turn aside at times from the desc
lations of earth, from its scenes OF pov
erty and vice and ignorance, place:
which grow now the harvest of atheism
and doubt, and mark what broad fields
of sunshine there have been always run
ming in great bands across our world
As the light and shadow are seen il
summer following each other over the
mountains, SO in the history of man the
great shadows that have filled kline
hearts with compassion for the multitude
have been attended by outbursts of sun,
shine which ought to betray the presence
and wish of the Creator. One reason
why we weep over the past more than
we rejoice over it may be found in the
fact that the tomb holds it all, and that
the soul instinctively pities all that has
been so unfortunate as to die. The
grave casts its gloom over all that is
not now living along with us. From the
unknown place where Moses was hid
den from the sight of man to the last
rites of our Christian heroes the very
fact of death has covered all the past
with a drapery of blackness. But we
know so little about the real import of
death that we are not justified in per-
uniting it to clothc earth with gloom
Our tears may be only those of igno-
rance and timidity. They may be the
shrinking back of children in the dark.
If you will omit death from the estimate,
or will suppose it to be the gateway to a
still higher form of divine goodness,
then what mighty world this has been!
Turn away from the tomb of Moses
and from his touchdown dying form,
and what life was his! From an hum
Bile cradle to palace! He drank in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians. With a
loftiness of soul like that of Charles
MI and Washington, he chose rather
to suffer affection with the children of
God than enjoy the pleasures of sin for
season, and with such a spirit he led his
nation toward liberty, when the human
race was young and the giants held all
the middle ground; when the day of
manhood was just dawning upon a
world Of violence. 1t is true his last
hours were bitter and dark, but they
were only a few of the moments Of a long
life. A hundred years of greatness stood
back Of that lonely death-bed, and by
their events, long and varied and grand,
they place the goodness of God above
the reproaches of those final tears. What
co UNITS a lonely death against such life?
There is light in which earth is seen
to have been and to be truly great. The
elements of greatness at least are within
it. 1t may be seen to contain seeds of
happiness and success sown by the AL
mighty. That light of things is this
Turn aside from the petty sorrows of a
Moses and Seneca and mark the long
and unbending greatness of their many
years. Look not only upon the ruins of
Athens and Alexandria, but look upon
the centuries Of mental and spiritual
beauty that enveloped them before they
fell. Turn your faces away from those
who heapGd the fagots around the
Christian martyrs, and, having emptied
your soul of Indignation, look upon the
holy faces of the martyrs themselves,
Cranmer and Rogers, and the early
Christians, Paul and James and Luke, and
read in their spirits how much of divine
grandeur God has poured out upon ouI
star. The last moments of these martyrs
were but an atom of their magnificent
lives, and should not hide from us the
love of God displayed in the long days OF
their pilgrimage. OF the import of death
we know little. AS in the night we all
startle once before we fall truly to sleep,
so death may be only a jar, startle OF
wake in another.
Far be it from me to-day to attempt
to persuade you that this life is all rosy
and that our eyes need never weep.
There is no logic equal to such II task
But upon all questions there is "anotheI
side Of greater or less significance; and
be it powerful or weak it must always
be subjected to an examination and an
estimate. Sinful and sorrowful as the
world is there is also an immense good
ness and greatness and happiness in its
confines. 4 God of love, a Jesus Christ
are always moving across it from north
to south and from east to west. The
sunlit spots in history, the Advent, the
Gospels written for man, the hymns that
have risen from happy hearts for thou
sands of years, the varied forms of great
ness that have come to men and to Ma
tions, the evcrrecurring spectacle Of
noble lives-all tell us that the place on
which we stand is holy ground.
From these reflections may we not in
fer that there is in this world so de-
nounced and so mistrusted, a form of
higher life, life of honor, of education,
of love, of Christianity, which may
answer all who complain and who dis
trust, and may make our earth seem all
full of the goodness of Godg There may
be gems here for us all, only we are seek
ing for them upon the wrong shore. The
past forms of human excellence indicate
the fact that happiness cannot be found
in things external to the soul. None of
the glory Of man to which we have
alluded has come from property, or
from fame, or from transient passions,
but from the furniture of the mind
and from the impulses and powers of
the heart From survey of history,
from an hour spent over the memory of
all the illustrious ones in science and be-
nevelence and religion, from COM
munion even the briefcst with such a
human-divine being as Christ, the infer
ence comes irresistibly that when earth
is made the theatcr of conscientious
and enlightened soul, struggling not
toward riches but toward the useful and
the good, then earth suddenly beams out
q star of the first magnitude. 1t no
longer seems burnt-up world forsaken
and forgotten of its Maker, but seems a
chariot, with Christ standing beside the
traveller, and with the wheels rolling
across the open plain between time and
eternity-E1traS from a Recent Sermon
By Pref, S~ing, Of Chicago.
A Curious Sketch---The Prisoner of