The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-10-02


coniiagraii0n had began and there Is world
] on fire. When God makes these clouds His
| chariot let US all knecl. Another day past,
/ what have we dono with 1t? Another day
| dead and this is its gorgeous cataialque. Now
is the time for what David called the "eyen-
| ing sacraice," or Daniel called the "evening
oblation." Oh obi what n chariot made out
Of evening cloud Have you hung oven the
| taffrail on the ocean and seen this cloudy yehi-
| Gle roll over the payements Of n summer sea,
| the wheels dripping with the magnlcence?
! Have you from the top Of Ben Lomond or the
! Cordilleras or the Berkshire hills seen the day
| pllowed for the night and yet had no aspra-
| ton Of praise and homage? Oh, what
rich God We have that lie can put on
one. evening sky pictures that excel
| Michael Angeles Last judgment" and CHR
landjo's Alteration OF tho Mag," and the
whole galleries Of Madonnas, and for only an
| hour, and then throw them away, and the next
| evening put on the same sky something that
excels all that the Raphels and the Titans and
| the Rembrandts and the Corregios and tho
Leonardo da Vincis ever executed, and then
| draw a curtain Of mist over them never again
| TO be exhibited How rich God must be to
have new chariot OF clouds every EVENING"
But the Bible tells US that our King also has
| black chariot CLOUDS and darkness" we
are told, "are round about him." That chariot
is cloven out Of night and that night is trouble.
| When lie rides forth In that black chariot
| pestience and earthquakes and famine and
| hurricane and woe attend Him, Then let the
earth tremble Then let nations pray.
Again and again He has ridden
forth in the chariot Of black clouds, across
| England and France and Italy and Russia
and America and over all nations. That
| which men took for the sound Of cannonading
at Sebastapol, at Sedan, at Gettysburg at Tel
el-Kebir, at Bunker Hill, were only the rumb-
| lings OF the black chariot of tho Almighty.
Aye, it is the chariot of storm-cloud, armed
with thunderbolts, and neither man nor angel
nor devil nor earth nor hell nor heaven can
resist him. On those boulovards OF blue this
chariot never turns out for anything. Aye,
no one else drives there. Under one wheel of
that chariot Babylon was crushed and Baal-
back fell dead and the Roman empire was
Frustrated and Atlantis, whole continent
that once connected Europe with America,
sank clear out Of sight 80 that the longest an
Choir OF ocean steamer cannot touch the top
OF its highest mountains. The throne Of the
Caesars was less than a pebble under the
right wheel of this chariot, and the Austrian
despotism less than a snowflake under the
left wheel. And over destroyed worlds on
worlds that chariot has rolled without a jar or
jolt.
This black chariot of war cloud rolled up to
the northwest of Europe in 1872 and four hum
dTed thousand men marched to take Moscow,
but that chariot Of clouds rolled back, and
only twenty-five thousand out of the four hun
dred thousand troops lived TO return. No
great snow storm like that had ever before or
has ever since visited Russia. Aye, the char
lot Of the Lord is irresistible. There is only
one thing that can halt or turn any OF His
chariots, and that Is prayer. Again and again
it has stopped it, wheeled it around, and the
chariot of black clouds under that sanctihed
human breath has blossomed into
such brightness and color that
men and angels had to veil their
faces from its brightness. Mark YOU tho an
cient chariot which David uses as a symbol in
my text had only two wheels, and Chat was
that they might turn quickly, two wheels taxi
ing less than half the time to turn that four
wheels would have taken. And our Lords
chariot has only two wheels, and that means
instant reversal and instant help and instant
deliverance. While the combined forces of
the universe In battle array could not stop his
black chariot a second or diverge it an inch,
the driver of that chariot says; "Call upon
me in the day Of trouble and / will deliver
thee" "While they are yet speaking ] will
hear" Two-wheeled chariot one wheel JUS
tioe and the other wheel mercy. Aye, they
are swift wheels. A cloud, whether il belongs
to the cirrhus, the clouds that float the
highest or belongs to the stratus, the central
ranges; or to the cumulns, the lowest
ranges, seems to move slowly along the sky If
ii moves at all. But many of tho clouds go at
a speed that would seem lethargi3 vestibule
limited lightning express train so swift the
chariot OF our God; yea, swifter than the
storm, swifter than the light. Yet q child ten
years old has been known to reach up, and
with the hand OF prayer take the courser of
that chariot by the bit and slow IL up, or stop
it, or turn it aside, or turn it back. Tho boy
Samuel stopped 1t. Elijah stopped II. Heze-
kiah stopped 1t. Daniel stopped 1t. Joshua
stopped it. Esther stopped 1t. Ruth stopped
1t. Hannah stopped it.. Mary stopped it. My
father stopped it. My mother stopped it. My
sister stopped it. We have in our Sabbath
schools ohilden who again and again and
again have stopped 1t.
Notice that these old time ohariots,
which my text uses for symbol, had
what we would call high
dashboard at tho front, but were open behind.
And the king would stand at tho dashboard
and drive with his own hands. And 1 am
glad that He, whose chariot the clouds are,
drives Himself. He does not let natural law
drive, for natural law is deaf. He does not let
fate drive, for fate is meroiless. But our
Father King drives himself and he puts His
loving hand on the reins of the flying coursers,
and He has loving car open to the cry of all
who want TO catch His attention. Oh, / am
SO glad that my Father drives, and never
drives too fast, and never drives too slow, and
never drives off the precipice, and that He
controls by bit that never Breaks the widest
and most raging circumstances. l heard of q
ship captain who put ont with his vessel with
q largo number Of passengers from Buffalo on
Lake Eric, very early in the season and
while there was much Ice. When they were
well out tho captain saw to
his horror that the ice was closing in on him
from all sides, and he saw no way out from do
struction and death. He called into the cabin
the passengers and all the crew that could be
spared from their posts and told them that the
ship must DO lost unless God interposed, and
although he was not a Christian man he said (:
Lot us pray" and they all knelt asking God
TO como for their deliyerance. They went
back TO the deck, and the man at the wheel
shouted CAN right, capn. it's blowing nor
by norwest now" While the prayer was GO
ing on in the cabin the wind changed and
blew the ice out Of the way. Tho mate asked
'Shall put on moro sail, cap'n?" mo" re-
spondod the captain. "Don't touch her. Some
one else Is managing this ship" Oh, men and
women, shut in ON all sides by Icy troubles
and misfortunes, in earnest prayer put all your
affairs In the hands of God. You will
come out all right. Some one else is manag-
ing the shipl II did not merely happen SC
that when Leyden was besieged, and the duke
Of Alva felt sure OF his triumph, suddenly
the wind turned, and tho swollen waters com,
PEELED him 10 stop the siege, and tho city was
saved. God that night drove along the coast
| of the netherlands in black chariot of storm
cloud 1t did not merely happen so that
! Luther rose from tho place whore he was sit
| ting just in time 10 keep from being crushed
/ by a stone that the instant after fell on the
very spot. Had he not escaped, where would
| have been the reformation? 1t did not merck
! happen SO that Columbus was saved from