Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1883-06-11

makee as pant 70 cnmu 49,
thing better than this desert, or life Is q
failure. And 80 God leads us to the
heights. whence visions of q better land
break upon our view, where for q moment
hills tipped in golden light, and valleys
bathedi in quiet beauty, and rocks hung
with grapes surprising Eschol, invite our
weary feet.
WHAT THESE VISIONS ARE.
They are indications of q capacity for
enjoyment that no earthly happiness can
| fiji. The one feature that marks them
is that they belong to no peculiar
mere effecyescence of youth. They are
rather the souls ideal of good. And it
pertains to the soul to aspire whether it
l/be elevated or degraded. beclouded by ig-
| uorance or enlightened by culture. debssed
by superstition or ennobled by the revela-
tions of God; walking the wales of life, or
| climbing its Pisgahs, the soul builds its
Cansans of rest and happiness, and presses
forward 10 their attainment. Like Moses,
on the ruins OF one, We build another and
a better. Like the Phoenix OF fable, from
| the ashes Of our hopes they rise m ore re-
splerdent and glorious than before. They
| rise and expand in ever increasing circles,
and in ever brigbtning glory from the gross
to the refined, from the sensuous to the
spiritual, from the earthly to tAe heavenly.
And still, stretching out beyond its high.
est and broadcast ideals, is the soul itself,
untitled and unsatisfed. 1t is, my friends,
the
OLD, OLD STORY.
The souls capacity cannot be filled by
earthly Canaan. TIL soul itself is an archi-
tect, all too unskilled, and the magma
ton, an artist, with colors all too tame to
$3.50 -, nnnaan uhnFn MA nNnV
ind content. 1t is not the Pisgah of Moses
but of Paul, where the words were unspeak-
able and the visions incommunicable, that
can fill and satisfy. And this will explain
another fact,-our visions are never
realized. Moses could see the land be was
not permitted to enter. And those Wis
ions he did test, how different from his
painting. That vision OF military glory,
how it burst like a bubble, and was shot
through and through with anguish as he
saw it binding the CALLING yoke the more
firmly upon the necks of his kinsmen.
And that vision of q deliverer, the bright
est that ever dawns upon the future OF he:
70 or philantbropist, how it was married
and blurred by the reality. The idolatrles
OF Israel, the bitter waters OF Marah, the
iealousies of Aaron and Of Miriam, the
rebellion of Korah and the murmurings OF
the people dashed in his cup with worm
wood and stripped his vision Of all the
roseate hues wherewith Imagination has
adorned it. Go ask the
YonLEsr AND MOST SUCCESSFUL
| of earth, those who have climbed the high
est, and painted the brightest, and wan
dered the fartheSt in quest OF good, wheth-
er any single vision OF earth has ever been
| realized, and though, like the royal preach.
er of old, they have gi"en their hearts TO
seek wisdom and to search out concerning
all things that are done under
heaven; though they have made
great works and builded houses,
and planted vineyards, and made gardens,
and gathered gold and silver, and the pecu-
liar treasure of kings; and though they
kept not from themselves whatsoever their
eyes desired; yet, like him, they have
come back home every search wise but sad,
ard with his exclamation, Vanity OF
v~auities, it is all vanity" Oh, | have
thought that Solomon and all he great
and mighty men of earth, prophets, apes:
Ties, martyrs, heroes, poets, artists and
saints must have walked this earth with
aching hearts.
GREAT VISIONS
broke ever and anon upon their path, and
the vain attempt to realize them, TO put
beneath men the lever of A~rchimedes, and
to lift humanity into oneness with God,
haunted them evermore. And thus all re-
formers have been burdened. Have you
ever thought of those words of Jesus,
Verify | say unto you, many prophets and
righteous men have desired to see the
things that We see and have not seen them
They, and We all, die with the goal I'm
reached. And the reason of this IS two.
fold. lst. There is, and ever must be, a
sad discrepancy between the vision and the
reality. Canaan, as Moses saw it, smiling
in plenty, with the light of heaven upon
its hills and quiet wales, before 1t had been
stained with blood, or convulsed with the
shock OF contending armies, was far differ.
ent from the Canaan of ISrael's reallZations
as they fled before their enemies at Al,
went at BoChiOra, and were defeated and
spoiled by the people over whose armies
they had hoped to triumph. And so with
all our visions. We paint without the
shadows; our roses have no thorns; our
path no steep defle, our mountain no
yawning p~recipiCe, no inaccessible heights.
No storm cloud sweeps ever across the
summit that is purple with the light OF
morning or rosy with the glamour OF a
nightIesS day. We
DETECT no FOE,
| anticipate no sorrow, imagine no burdens,
| suspect no defeat. An me, what a
merciless i]nConoclaSt is time. Fifty
Years from to-day, and may you all live to
see it like Moses, with yOur eyes un-
dimmed and your natural force undated
fifty years from to-day, how you will look
back to the visions 50 dear to you now aud
smile, q sad smile, as you remember how
lie has smi,ten your highest ideals and
laid your fondest hopes forever in the
dust.
Nor could we wish il otherwise, for were
il so that our visions were ever realized,
that
THE IDEAL OF TO.DAY
became the actual OF to. morrow; that the
Canaan pressed by u feet was precisely
the Canaan seen from the far OF Pisgih
fven then We were a thousand fold less
than we are il this could satisfy. 1t is be-
Csuse the soul stretches out beyond is
frightened visions; that il is in itself
greater than its creations; that we are
doomed to look back upon life as splendid
n its promises, but disappointing in its
realizations. The gilded prize once graspsd
becomes an empty bauble; the. yictor's
wreath once upon our brow, and behold
tits the fading myrtle across which on
fingers shall soon write the mournful
"Ichabod." But every pang of ~disappoint.
mcnt, every tear OF regret, every shade OF
sadness is at once the pledge and
demonstration Of thy royal nature.
# is said that when the
mother oil the GrdcCnl was asked 10 ul5'
play her jewels. she summoned her boys,
and presenting these to her visitor eX.
claimed, these are my jewels And so
the human soul, when asked for the evil
icuCe of its unearthliness, may point to it's
sorrows as well as to its aspirations, to its
dissppointmentS as well as TO its hopes, aud
proclaim these as the evidence of its i'm.
mortal nature.
III. And this is one reason, and were
there no other it were sufficient, for the
giving of these visions. But this is not
all. Life at its brightest and best is not a
mockery. These visions are given to teach
Us that there must be realities somewhere.
II lie is not an u%nmeaning sham; If the
All Father delights not in the torture OF
his children, then somewhere within and
beneath the shadows, there must be the
eternal reality.
A shadow is caused by something real
coming between the earth and sun, and 50
these visions are the divine realities pro-
jeCting themselves between you and the
Son OF Righteousness, and
IT is THESE REALITIES
90 which Tho soDI ca.Cbos q ol;mpsa in