Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-11-02
and those who do come will wish they

stabbed his cavalry horses in st. Paul,
Cathedral. and many now use the church
as place i'll which to stable their van
tiles and worldliness. worldly churcl
is Il candlestick without the candle, anc
it had its prototype i'll st. Sophia, il
Constantinople, built to the glory. OF
God by Constantine. but transformed tc
base uses by Mohammed the Second
Built out of colored marble; cupola
with twenty four windows soaringto the
height of 1870 feet; the ceiling one
great bewilderment of mosaic; galleries
supported by eight columns of porphyry
| and sixty-seveD columns of green jas
per: nine bronze doors with alto relieve
| work fascinating to the eye of an artist;
vases and vestments incrusted with all
manner of precious stones. Four walls
on fire with indescribable splendor.
Though labor was cheap, the building
cost 81 100000. Ecclesiastical structure
almost supernatural in pomp and maj
esty. But Mohammedanism tore down
from the walls of that building all the
sanity and Christly images, and high
up in tho dome the figure of the cross
was rubbed out that the crescent of the
barbarous Turk might be substituted. A
great church. but no Christ! A gorgeous
candlestick. but no candle! Ten thou
sand such churches would not give the
world as much light as one home made
tallow candle by which last night some
grandmother in the eighties put on her
glasses and read the psalms of David in
large type. Up with the churches by all
means! Hundreds of them, thousands
of them, and the more the better. But
let each one be blaze of heavenly light
making the world brighter and brighter
till the last shadow has disappeared,
and the last of the suffering children of
God shall have reached the land where
they have no need of candlestick or "of
candle, neither light of the sun, for the
Lord God giveth them light and they
shall reign forever and ever" Seven
candlesticks, the complete number of
lights. Let your light so shine before
may glorify your Father which is in
Heaven"
THE SEVEN STARS.
stars. We are distinctly told that they
are the ministers of religion. Some of
them are large stars, some of them small
stars, some Of them sweep wide cir
cult, and some of them Il small circuit.
but SO far as they are genuine they get
their light from the great central sun
around whom they make revolution.
Let each one keep i'll his own sphere.
The solar system would be soon wrecked
if the stars instead of keeping their own
orbit should go to hunting down other
stars. Ministers of religion should
never clash. But in all the centuries of
the Christian church some of these
stars have been hunting an Edward
Irving or Horace Bushnell or an AL
bert Barnes: and the stars that We're in
pursuit of the other stars lost their own
orbit and some of them could never
again find it. Alas for the hercst hunt
ers! The best way to destroy error is to
preach the truth. The best way to scat
ter darkness is to strike light. There
stars, and in the church room enough
for all the ministers. The ministers
who give up righteousness and the truth
will get punishment enough anyhow,
for they are the wondering stars for
whom is reserved the blackness of dark
ness forever" But 1 should like as a
minister when / am dying to be able
truthfully to say what captain of the
English army, fallen at the head of his
column and dying on the Egyptian
battlefeld, said to Gen. Wellesley who
came to condole with him: Il have led
them straight; didn't I lead them straight,
General?" God has put us ministers as
captains i'll this battlefield of truth
against error. Great at last will be our
chagrin if we fall leading the people
the wrong way; but great will be our
gladness il, when the battle is over, we
can hand our sword back to our great
Commander, saying, Lord Jesus! We
led the people straight; didn't we lead
them straight?" Those ministers who
go Oft at a tangent and preach some
other gospel are not stars but comets,
and they flash across the Heavens little
while and make people stare, and throw
down a few meteoric stones, and then
go out of sight if not out of existence.
Oh, brethren in the ministry, let us re-
member that God calls us stars, and our
business is to shine andto keep our own
sphere. and then when we get done try
ing to light up the darkness of this
world, wewill wheel into higher spheres,
and in us shall be fulfilled the promise
they that turn many to righteousness
shall shine forever and ever" All! the
ministers are not all Pecksnitfs and
canting hypocrites, as some would have
your presence at other times glorified
the medical profession, and the legal
profession, and the literary profession
Il glorify my own. I have seen them
in their homes and heard them in their
pulpits, and a grander array of men
never breathed, and the Bible figure is
not strained when it calls them stars;
and whole consultations of glorious
ministers have already taken their places
on high, where they shine even brighter
than they shone on earth; Edward N.
Kirk, of the Congregational Church;
Stephen n. Tying, Of the Episcopal
Church; Matthew Simpson, of the
Methodist Church; ohm Bowling, of the
Baptist Church; Samuel X. Talmage, of
the Presbyterian Church; DR.. De Witt,
of the Reformed Church: John Cham
bers, of the Independent Church, and
there l stop, for it SO happens that 1
have mentioned the seven stars of the
seven churches.
I pass on to another mighty Bible
seven. and they are the seven seals. St.
John in vision saw scroll with seven
seals, and he heard an angel cry: Who
is worthy to loose the seals thereof"
Take eight or ten sheets of foolscap
paper, paste them together and roll them
into scroll, and have the scroll at seven
different places senled with sealing wax.
You unroll till you come to one of these
seals, and then you can go no further
until You break that seal; then unroll
again until Won come tn another coo on1