The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-10-12

ing forty acres of ripe Michigan wheat At the
present time naturalists tell US there is on the
sun spot 90 900 miles long, but from the bright
ness and warmth conclude it is good deal OF
sun yet
PRECISION OF GODS WORK.
Again, when read in my text that the Lord
shaves with the hired razor Of Assyria the land
of Judea bethink myself of the precision of
Gods providence. razor swung the tenth part
of an inch out of the right line means either
failure or laceration, but Gods dealings never
slip and they do not miss by the thousandth
part Of an inch the right direction. People talk
as though things in this world were at loose
ends. Cholera sweeps across Marseilles and
Madrid and Palermo. and we watch anxiously.
Shall the epidemic sweep Europe and Americaa
People say, 'That will entirely depend on
whether tho incubation is a successful expert
ment; that will depend entirely on quarantine
regulations; that will depend on the early or late
appearance of frost; that epidemic is pitched
into the world and it goes laundering across the
continents, and it is all guesswork and an ap-
palling perhaps" My friends, l think perhaps
that God had something to do with it and
that his mercy may have in some way
protected US; that he may have
done as much for US as the quarantine and the
health officers 1t was right and a necessity that
enough macaroni from Italy, and enough grapes
from the South of France. and enough rags from
tatterdemalions, and hidden in these articles of
transportation enough choleraic germs to have
left by this time all Brooklyn mourning at
Greenwood, and all Philadelphia at Laurel Hill,
and all Boston at Mount Auburn I thank all
the doctors and guarantees, but more than ALL
and first of ALL and last of ALL and all the time.
thank God, In all the six thousand years of
the worlds existence there has not one thing
hap nod Eo1 ic ~ n an
but king father. When little Todd, the
son OF President Lincoln, died. all the land sym
pathized with the sorrow in the White House.
He used to rush into the room where the Cabi-
net was in session, and while the most eminent
men of the land were discussing the questions
of national existence. But the child had no care
about those questions. Now God the Father,
and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost are
in perpetual session in regard to this world and
kindred worlds Shall you. his child, rush in to
criticise or arraign, or condemn the Divine gov
ernment9 No. the Cabinet Of the Eternal Three
can govern and will govern in the wisest and
best way, and there never will be mistake, and
like razor skilifully swung, shall cut that which
ought to be cut and avoid that which ought to
be avoided. Precision to the very hairbreadth
Earthly time-pieces may get out of order and
strike wrong, saying it is o'clock when it is z,
or when it is 3 Gods clock is always right.
and when it strikes it is l, and when it is IL
it strikes H. and the second hand is as accurate
as the minute hand.
Further, my text tells US that God sometimes
shaves nations: I'm the same day shall the
Lord shave with the razor that is hired" With
one sharp sweep he went across Judah, and down
went its pride and its power. In 1861 God
shaved our Nation. We had allowed to grow
Sabbath dissertation, and oppression, and bias
phemy, and fraud, and impurity, and all sorts of
turpitude. The South had its sins, the North
and we did not heed. At length the sword of
war cut from the st. Lawrence to the Gulf, and
from Atlantic seaboard to Pacific seaboard. The
pride of the land-not the towards but the he
roes-on both sides went down. And that which
we took for the sword of war was the Lords
razor. In 1862 again it went across the land.
In 1863 again. In 1864 again. Then the sharp
instrument was encased and put away. Never
In the history of the ages was any land more
thoroughly shaved than during those four years
of civil combat, and. my brethren, if we do not
Quit some of our individual and national sins,
the Lord will again take us in hand. He has
other razors within reach besides war-epdem-
les. droughts, deluges, plaques, grasshopper and
excite the jealousy of other lands that, under
some pretext, the great nations of Europe and
Asia may combine to put us down. This Nation,
so easily approached on north and south, and
from both oceans, might have on hand at once
more hostiities than were ever arrayed against
any power We have recently been told by
skilled engineers that all our fortresses around
New York habor could not keep the shells from
being hurled from the sea into the heart of these
great cities. Insulted China. tho wealtness
of all nations, will be realized when her re-
sources are developed. will have adopted all the
modes of modern warfare, and at the Golden
Gate may be discussing whether Americans
must go. If the combined jeaousies of Europe
and Asia should come upon us we should have
more work on hand than would be pleasant. /
hope no such combination against us will ever be
formed, but want to show that, as Assyria was
the hired razor against Judah and Cyrus, the
hired razor against Babylon and the Huns, the
hired razor against the Goths, there are now
of our national sins, he should undertake to
shave us. In 1870 Germany was the razor with
which the Lord shaved France England is the
razor with which very shortly the Lord will
shave Russia. But nations are to repent in
day. May speedy and worldwide coming to
God hinder, on both sides the sea, all national
calamity. But do not let us as a Nation, either
by unrg hteous law at Washington or bad lives
among ourselves, defy the Almighty. One
would think that our national symbol of the
eagle might sometimes suggest another eagle,
that which ancient Rome carried. In the taons
of that eagle were clutched at one time Britain.
France Spain. Italy, Dalmatia, Rh@tia,
Noricum, Pannonia. Moesia, Dacia, Thrace
Macedonia. Greece Asia Minor, Assyria, Phoe-
nicia, Palestine, Egypt, and all Northern Africa,
and all the islands of the Mediterranean, indeed
all the world that was worth having, an hundred
and twenty millions of people under the
wings of that one eagle Where is she now9
Ask Gibbon, the historian, in his prose poem.
the decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
Ask her gigantic ruins, struggling their sadness
through the ages. the screechowl at windows out
of which worldwide conquerors looked. Ask the
day of Judgment, when her crowned debauchees
Commodus. and Pertnax, and Caligula- and
Diocletian shall answer for their infamy? AS
men and as nations let us repent and have our
trust in a pardoning God rather than depend on