Smyrna times., 1885-09-16
The Payment of National Wrong
Doing.

was dS ClN do bhS pCOpllhS VI IhC Se1A VII
There has never been time when the
wild passions of men have been al
lowed to play Il game of crime and
blood and desperation without the re-
tributive hand of God, sooner or later,
taking a part in the drama, and put
ting a stop to the work, and even rem
dering the loose play of his disObedient
creatures minister to the recognition of |
his kingdom. His agents are of two
kinds. Those whom he chooses
to do active service, directly prompted |
by him, and in the deep love of his
plans, and at peace with him. His
other servants are hostile to him.
They do but little that pleases him.
They seek paths of their own. They
are ambitious, and would ride to power
over the dead whom their own bands
have slain. They have no questions to
ask as to the justice of their course.
They push on, and think nothing Of
their moral future. By and by they
come to a sudden halt. The avenues
close about them. They become eXiles
in Elba or at st. Helena, and the paste
board house which they have built is
crushed into a shapeless mass by the
Omnipotence which has been watching
and waiting.
Are these not also his servants?
Few public men have ever done more
for the opening up of the Gospel in
Europe and breaking down the iron
bars of the old expressions than the
first Napoleon.
The fixed despotisms were swept
away. The closing Of the gates at
nightfall in Frankfort and other cities
against the passage iii and out of Jews
was put an end to by him AN index,
mere trine, of the long list of demOli-
tiOns of the antique and the spent. He
began the work of German unity when
he told the Augsburg magnates that
henCeforth their city was no longer a
Hanse city, but a part of Bavaria.
What chance had Professionalism in
France, under the priests and their
tools, the Bourbons and Orleanists,
until these families became ciphers?
The new distribution of royalties,
which he carried on upon large
scale, was an innovation which caused
several European peoples at least to
see some daylight through the long
and fixed clouds of medieval dynas-
ties. Did the Middle Ages end with
the sixteenth century? By no means.
They only really closed after Waterloo.
Yet Napoleon was no willing or even
conscious servant of God. He was the
personification of selfish ends. His
ambition was Alexandine and CRarean.
He asked no questions, He would
reign, and to get crowns was his whole
study. He was MOhammedan or
Christian, according to his geography
at the time. But God made use of
the distinctions which he caused to do
away with the old and bring in the
new. The fact that France is now free
to the Gospel, and that Italy has be-
come as open field as the United
States, can be traced directly back to
the work which he did. The Aus
trians, servants of the Pope, began to
leave Italy when MarengO was fought
and won, while the descendants of the
Huguenots in France never had free
breath until he assumed control of the
Church in that country, and intima
ted to the Pope that he could attend tC
his own affairs. This was the entering
wedge for new justice to Protestants
The man of Corsica and destiny and a
"star" never meant any such thing
But it is Gods way to make the evi
and the good alike contribute to tn,
same great ciA1-the building higher 0
his temple.
What we see in the history of maj
applies to nations. They are the ser
wants of God. They have their mis-
sion, and fulfill it. This, too, take
|, place place without the high purpos
that comes from a belief in the divin
ordering, or any wish to serv
a good end. But follow tn
thread oftheir history faithfully; get t
the end of it; study out it's secret an
one can see that in the tangled mass {
human deeds there has been an ever
present Divine Purpose, which ha
gone steadily on through all the cata!
}. trophies.
# Sometimes the nation goes down
That is an old story. The pathway {
all the ages is strewn with the wreck
of great victims. All epics are built II
on the dead and on great failures.
was the death of Troy which 81
/. Homer to singing fOa all centuries.
was the death of liberty in Italy for
G century which made Dante think of h
Inferno. 1t was the failure of the crl
sades which set TassO to touching h
Tyre. 1t was the loss of Paradis
D which gave us our best English epi
while the most of Shakespeare's DIR
h mas are built upon losses and wrOn
!" and blood. The story of failure is
large pert of all human story.
" Now, this is the way in which CT
mt Furnishes wicked peoples. He stO
ct their career. He sometimes gives
~ lease of life, but it is through lol
Is, prostratiOn and deep humiliation,
when Germany waded in blood duril
& thirty years-from 1913 to 1648. IT
es, disiointed states of South America, t
hopelessness of her so-called republic
Gc. was Gods answer to the crimes
PizarrO and other conquerors, and
the still greater crimes of the Jesui
who ruled and wasted and riOted wi
q wantOnness without parallel. The
was no Professionalism there to prote
Hence the whole history of Sou
America is record of wrong-doil
bringing on its natural sequence of s
u, row and DEATH We might come f
ther north and find the same less
The slavery of the AmericOn Uni
xyas tho cause of the disIovaI faeli,