St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-10-12


startle and arouse and propel men and ma
tions. \ tame and limping similitude
would fail to accomplish the object. While
there are times when He
EMPLOYS IN THE BIBLE
the gentle dew and the morning cloud
and the dove and the daybreak in the
presentation of truth, we often find the iron
chariot, the lightning, the earthquake, the
spray, the sword, and, in my text the ra-
Z0r. This keen bladed instrument has ad-
vanced in usefulness with the ages. In
Bible times and lands the beard remained
uncut. save III the seasons of mourn
ing and humiliation, but the razor was al
ways a suggestive symbol David says of
Doeg, his antagonist: Thy tongue is
sharp razor working deceitfully;;" that is, it
pretendS to clear the face but is really used
for deadly incision In this mornings text
this weapon of the toilet appears under the
following circumstances: Judea needed to
have some of its properties cut off, and
God sends against it three Assyrian kings
first Sennacherib, then Esrahaddon, and
afterward NebuchadnezZar. These three
sharp invasions that cut down the glory OF
Judea are compared to so many sweeps OF
the razor across the face of the land. And
these circumstances were called hired
ldLOI, DGCduSc CTOu lOOh llC hillSo VI ~ASSt
ria, with whom He
HAD NO SYMPATHY,
to do the work, and paid them in palaces
and spoilS and anneXationS. These kings
were hired to execute the divine beheStS.
And now the text, which on its first read
ing may have seemed trivial or inapt, is
charged with momentous import: SIN the
same day shall the Lord shave with razor
that is hired, namely by them beyond the
river, by the king of Assyria." Well, if
Gods judgments are razors, we had
better be careful how we use
them on other people. In careful
sheath these domestic weapons are put
away, where no one by accident may touch
them, and where the hands of children may
not reach them. Such instruments must be
carefully handled or not handled at all.
But how recklessly some people handle the
Judgment of God! If man meet with
business misfortune how many there are
ready to cry out: That is a judgment of
God upon him because he was unscrupu-
lous, or arrogant, or overreaching, or
miserly. | thought he would get cut down?
What clean sweep Of everything! Ills
city house and country house gone. His
stables emptied of all the fine bays and
SOrrelS and grays that used to prance by his
door. All his resources Overthrown and
that he prided himself on tumbled into
demolition. Good for himr' Stop, my
brother Don't sling around too freely the
judgments of God, for they are razors.
Some of the most
WICKED BUSINESS MEN SUCCEED,
and they live and die in prosperity,
and some of the most honest and conscien-
tious are driven into bankruptcy. Perhaps
u nofa ha .
not really as proud as he looked to be.
Some of those who carry their head erect
and look imperial are as humble as a child,
while many man in seedy coat and slouch
hat and unblacked shoes is as proud as
Lucifer You cannot tell by mans look.
Perhaps he was not INSCRIPTIONS in
| business, for there aZe two sides to every
story and everybody that accompliShes
anything for himself or others gets indus
triOusly lied about. Perhaps his business
misfortune was not punishment, but the
fatherly discipline to prepare him for
heaven, and God may love him far more
than he loves you who can pay dollar for
dollar and are put down i'll the commercial
catalogues as A 1. Whom the Lord loveth
he gives S4G0, 900 and lets die on an en-
broidered pillow? No; whom the Lord
loveth he chasteneth. Better keep your
hand off the Lords raZors, lest they cut and
wound people that do not deserve il. If
you want to shave off some OF
THE BRIsTLING PRIDE
of your own heart. do SO; but be very care
full how you put the sharp edge on others.
How L do dislike the behavior of those per-
SONS who, when people are unfortunate,
say: II told you so-getting punished
served him right" IF those I-told-you-sos
| ~, Il
| been pitched over the battlementS. The
mote in their neighbor's eyes, so small that
| it takes a microscope to find it,
gives them more trouble than the
beam which obscures their own optics.
| With air sometimes supercilious and some
times Pharisaical, and always blasphem0us,
they take the razor of divine Judgment and
sharpen it on the hone of their own hard
| hearts, and then go to work on men
sprawled out at full length under disaster,
cutting mercilessly. They begin by soft eX-
pressions of sympathy and pity and half
praise and lather the victim all over before
they put on the sharp edge. Let us be
careful how we shoot at others lest we take
down the wrong one, remembering the
servant of King William Rufus, who shot 6
deer, but the arrow glanced against a tree
and
KILLED THE KING,
Instead of going out with shafts tx
pierce and raZOrS to cut, we haC
better initiate the friend of Richard
Ceur de Lion, who in the war of the Cru
sades was captured and imprisoned. bu
none of his friends knew where. So his
disciple went around the land from peni
tertiary to penitentiary and sang at eacf
window a snatch of song that Richard Ceul
de Lion had taught him in other days. And
one day, coming before a jail where he sus
pected his king might be incarcerated, ht
sang two lines of the song and Immediately
King Richard responded from his cell will
the other two lines, and so his whereabout!
were discovered, and Immediately
successful movement was made for his lib
Grafton. So let us go up and down tht
world with the music of kind words anC
sympathetic hearts, serenading the unfor
tunate and trying to get out of trouble mel
who had noble natures, but by unforeseen
circumstances have been incarcerated, thu
liberating kings. More hymn book and les
razor. Further, my text tells us that Coz
sometimes shaves nations. "In the same da,
shall the Lord shave with the razor that i
hired" With one sharp sweep He wen
across Judah and down went its pride aut
its power. In 1861 God shaved our nation
We had allowed to grow Sabbath desecra
ton and oppression and blasphemy ant
FRAUD AND INPURITY,
and all sorts of turpitude The South hat
its sins, and the North its sins, and tn
East its sins, and the West its sins. W
had been warned again and again, and w
did not heed. AT length the sword of wa
cut from the st. Lawrence to the Gulf, an
from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific sea
board. The pride of the land. not the COW
ards but the heroes, on both sides wen
, down. And that which we took fC