Milford chronicle., 1888-10-05
MILFORD, DEL, FRIDAY OCTOBER 5, 1885,

IS made out Of the saffron and the gold and
the purple and the orange and the vermilion
and upshot flame Of the sunset That is the
place where the splendors that have marched
through the day, having ended the process
sion, throw down their torches and set the
heavens on fire. That is the only hour of the
day when the atmosphere is clear enough to
let us see the wall of the heavenly city with
its twelve manner Of precious stones, from
foundation Of jasper to middle strata Of
sardiu and on up to the coping Of amethyst.
At that hour, without any Of Elisha's super
natural vision, we see horses OF fire and
cbariots Of fire and banners Of fire and ships
Of fire and cities Of fire, seas Of fire, and It
seems as If the last conhagration had begun
and there is a world on fire. When God
makes these clouds hts chariot let us all
kneeL Another day past, what have we
done with itl Another day dead, and this is
Its gorgeous catafalque. Now is the time for
what David called the ''evening sacrifice or
Daniel called the 'evening Oblation-n Obi
obi what a chariot made out Of evening
cloud Have you hung over the taffrail on
the ocean and seen this cloudy vehicle roll
over the pavements Of a calm summer sea,
the wheels dripping with the magnihcencel
Have you from the top Of Ben Lomond or
day pillowed for the night, and yet had no
aspiration Of praise and homagel Oh what
a rich God we have that he can put
on one evening sky pictures that excel
Michael Angeles Last Judgment" and
Ghirlandjo's Elaboration Of the Magin and
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 Raphaels and the
Titians and the Rembrandts and tho Cor
reggios and the Leonardo da Vincis ever exc
euted, and then draw a curtain Of mist over
them never again to be exhibited How rich
God must be to have a new chariot of clouds
every EVENING"
But the Bible tells us that our King also
has black chariot "Clouds and darkness, y
VIC arc told, "are round about him. That
chariot is cioven out of night. and that night
is trouble When herides forth in that black
chariot, pestilence and earthquake, and fam.
inc, and hurricane, and woe attend him.
Then let the earth tremble. Then let ma
tions pray. Again and again he has ridden
forth that chariot Of black clouds, across
England and France and Italy and Russia
aud America, and over all nations. That
which men took for the sound Of cannonading
at Sebastopol, at Sedan, at Gettysburg, at
Tel-el-Kebir, at Bunker Hill, were only the
rumblings Of the black chariot Of
the 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 boulevards of blue this chariot never
turns out for anything. Aye, no one else
drives there. Under one wheel Of that char
lot Babylon was crushed and BaRlbeck fell
dead and the Roman empire was Frustrated,
and Atlantis, a whole continent that once
connected Europe with America, sank clear
out of sight, so that the longest anchor of
ocean steamer cannot touch the tops of its
highest mountains. The throne of the
| Caesars was less than pebble under the right
wheel Of this chariot, and tho Austrian des-
potisn less than a snowflake under tho 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
hundred thousand men marched to take Mos
COW, but that chariot Of clouds rolled back,
and only twenty-five thousand out Of the four
hundred thousand troops lived to return No
great snow storm like that had ever before
or has ever since visited Russia. Aye, the
chariot 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
sanctified human breath has blossomed into
such brightness and color that men and
angels had to veil their faces from its bright
ness. Mark you, the ancient chariot which
David uses as a symbol in my text had
only two wheels, and that was that they
might turn quickly, two wheels taking 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 de-
| liverance. While the combined forces of
/ tho universe in battle array could not stop
| his black chariot a second or diverge it an
! inch, the driver of that chariot says, "Cail
upon me In the day of trouble and will de
! liver thee, " "While they are yet speaking
/ will hear.n Two wheeled chariot, one wheel
Justice and the other wheel mercy. Aye,
they are swift wheels. A cloud, whether il
belongs to the ciTrhus, the clouds that float
/ the highest; or belongs to the stratus, the cen
tral ranges; or to the cumulus, the lowest
ranges, seems to move slowly along the sky,
/ il it moves at all. But many Of the clouds
| 20 at a speed that would seem lethargic a
| vestibule limited lightning express train, 50
/ swift Is the chariot of our GOd-yea, swifter
than the storm, swifter than the light. Yet
/ a 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 it
up, or stop it, or turn it aside, or turn it
back. The boy Samuel stopped it. Elijah
stopped it. Hezekiah stopped it. Daniel
stopped it. Joshua stopped it. Esther
stopped it, Ruth stopped it. Hannah
stopped it. Mary stopped it. Ny father
1 stopped it. My mother stopped it. My
sister stopped it. We have in our Sabbath
1 schools children who again and again and
! again have stopped it.
Notice that these old time chariots, which
my text uses fer symbol, had what we would
| call high dashboard at the front, but were
open behind. And the king would stand at
/ the dashboard and drive with his own hands.
| And l 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 merci-
less. But our Father King drives himself,
and he puts his loving hand on the reins Of
! the flying coursers, and he has a loving ear
| open to the cry of all who want to catch his
attention. Oh, l am so glad that my Father
drives, and never drives too fast,
and never drives too slow, and never
/ drives of the precipice, and that he
/ controls by bit that never breaks, the wild
est and most raging circumstances. heard
of a ship captain who put out with his vessel
With a large number Of passengers from
/ Buffalo, on Lake Erie, very early IN the sea-
son and while there was much ice When
they were well out the captain saw to his
horror that the ice was closing in on him
from all sides, and he saw no way out from
destruction 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 mnst be lost unless God
interposed, aud although he was not Chris
tiaD man, he said, Let US pray" and they
all knelt asking God to come for their de-
/ liverance. They went back to the deck and
/ the man at the wheel shouted; "An
right, cap'n, it's blowing nor by nor'west
now.b While the prayer was going ON In
/ fha hin tho vrrfrd crad and hlarU the frn