The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-07-20
TALMAGE.
Nothing in This World Comes
by Chance.
There Are No Loose Screws in the Ma
Chinery of the Universe, and Gods
Government Goes On.
SUBJECT: CRYSTALS"

Many Of the precious stones of the
Bible have come to prompt recognition,
but for the present 1 take up the less
valuable crystal. Job, in my text, COM
pares serving wisdom with a specimen
of topaz. An infidel chemist or miner
alngist would pronounce the latter
worth more than the former, but Job
makes an intelligent comparison, looks
at religion and then looks at the crystal
and prOnOunceS the former as of far Su-
periOr value to the latter, eXclaiming in
the words of my text, "The crystal can
not equal it," Now, it is not part of
my sermOnic design to depreciate the
crystal, whether it be found in Cornish
mine or the HartZ Mountain or Mann
moth Cave, or tinkling among the PEN
dants of the chandeliers of a palace.
The CRYSTAL is the. star of the mountain; /;
it is the queen of the cave; it is the ear
drop of the lulls; it finds its heaven in
the diamond. Among all the pages of
natural history there is no page more
interesting to me than the page crystal
lOgTaphic. But want to show you that
Job was right when, taking religion in
one hand, the crystal in the other, he de-
clares that the former is of far more
value and beauty than the latter, recon-
mending it to all the people and to all
the ages, declaring: 1.-The crystal can
not equal it,"
In the first place. I remark that relig-
ion is superior to the crystal in exact
ness. That shapeless mass of crystal
against which you accidentally dashed
your foot is laid out with more exact
ness than any earthly city. There are
six STYLES of capitalization, and all of
them divinely ordained. Every crystal
has mathematical precision. Gods ge-
OmetTy reaches through it, and it is
square, or it is a rectangle, or 1t is
l. - n IN hot q
mathematical figure. Now, religion
beats that in the simple fact that spirit
ual accuracy is more beautiful than ma
terial accuracy. Gods attributes are
exact. Gods law exact. Gods DEGREES
exact. Gods management of the will
exact. Never counting wrong, though
He counts the grass blades and the stars
and the sands and the cycles. His prov
licences never dealing with us perpen-
dicularly when those provldenees ought
to be Oblique, nor lateral when they
ought to be vertical. Every thing in
our life arranged without the possibility
of mistake. Each life a siX-slded
prism. Born at the right times; dying
at the right time. There are no hap
pen so's'' in our theology. If thought
this was slipshOd universe L would go
crazy. God is not an anarchist. Law,
order, symmetry, precision. perfect
y,
rhombOid, a perfect circle. The edge of
Gods robe Of government never trays
out. There are no loose screws in the
worlds machinery. 1t did not just hap
pen that Napoleon was attacked with
Indigestion at BorOdino, so that he be-
came incompetent for the day. 1t did
not just happen that John Thomas, the
missionary, on heathen island waiting
for an outfit and orders for another mis-
sionary tour, received that outfit and
those orders in box that flOated ashore
while the ship and the crew that carried
the box were never heard of. The bark
ing of F. W. RobertsOn's dog, he tells
us, led to line of events which brought
him from the army into the Christian
ministry, where he served God with
World-renOWned usefulness. 1t did not
merely happen so. l believe in partic-
ular providence. l believe Gods geOme-
try may be seen in all our life more
beautifully than in crystallOgraphy.
Job was right. "The crystal can not
equal it."
Again, l remark that religion is supe-
TiOr to the crystal in transparency. We
know not when or by whom glass was
first discovered. Beads of it have been
found in the tomb of Alexander Sever
US. Vases of it are brought up from the
ruins of Herculaneum. There were fe-
male adOrnmentS made out OF 1t three
thousand years agO-those adOrnments
found now attached to the mumm1es OF
Egypt. A great many commentators
believe that my text means glass. What
would we do without the crystal? The
crystal in the window, to keep out the
storm, and to let in the day-the crystal
over the watch, defending its delicate
machinery, yet allowing us to see the
hOur-the crystal of the telescope, by
which the astronomer brings distant
worlds so near he can inspect them.
oh, the triumphs of the crystals in the
celebrated windows of Rouen and Sal
isbury! But there is nothing so trans
parent in a crystal as in our holy rellg-
ion. 1t is transparent religion. You
put it to your eye, and you see man-his
sin, his soul, his destiny. You look at
God, and you see something of the gran
deur of His character. 1t is tTanspa-
rent religion. Infidels tell US it is opa-
que. Do you know why they tell us it
is opaque? 1t is because they are blind.
The natural man receiyeth not the
things of God, BECAUSE they are spirit
ually diseerned. There is no trouble
with the crystal; the trouble is with the
lyes which try to look through it. We
prayed for vision, Lord, that our eyes
might be opened. When the eye-slave
cures our blindness, then we find that
our religion is transparent. 1t is a
transparent Bible; all the mountains of
the Bible come out. Sinai, the noun
tain of the law; Pisgah, the mountain of
prospect; Olivet, the mountain of in
structiOn; Calvary, the mountain of
sacrifice. All the rivers of the Bible out:
Hidekel, OF the river of paradisaical
beauty; Jordan, OF the river of holy
ehrism; Cherith, OF the river of prophe-
tic supply; the Nile, or the river of pal
aces, and the pure river of life from un-
der the Thrones clear as crystal. While
reading this Bible after our eyes have
been touched by grace, we find it all
transparent, and the earth and rocks,
now with crucifxiOn agony, and now
with Judgment terror, and Christ ap-
pears in some of His two hundred and
fifty-siX titles, as far as l can count
them-the bread, the rock, the captain,
the commander, the conquerOr, the star,
and on and beyond any capacity of mine
to rehearse them. Transparent religion
The providence that seemed dark before