Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-05-02

4 You can put a piece Of sculpture into the
niche of that public academy You can
endow a college You can stocking q
Thousand bare feet from the winter FROST
You can build church. You can put q
missionary of Christ on that foreign shore.
You can help ransom world. A rich man
with his heart right-can you tell me how
much good James Lennox or George
Peabody or Peter Cooper or William
E. Dodge did while living OF is doing now
that he is deadp There is not city, town
or neighborhood that has not glorious speci-
mems of consecrated wealth.
But suppose you grind the face of the
poor. Suppose when a mans wages are
due, you make him wait for them because
he cannot help himself. Suppose that be-
cause his family is sick and he has had ex-
ira expenses he should politely ask you to
raise his wages for this year and you rough
ly tell him if he wants better place to 60
and get it. Suppose by your manner you
act as though he were nothing and you
were everything. Suppose you are selfish
and overbearing and arrogant. Your first
name ought to be Attila and your last name
Attila, because you are the star Warmwood
and you have embittered one-third, if not
three thirds, of the waters that roll past
your employees and operatives and depen-
dents and associates, and the long line of
carriages which the undertaken orders for
your fuueral in order to make the occasion
respectable, will be filled with twice as
many dry, fearless eyes as there are persons
occupying them. The clumsy pall-bearers
may make the gates of your sepulchre
quake by striking your silver handled cof-
fin against them, but the world will feel no
jar as you 60 out Of it.
There is an erroneous idea abroad that
there are only a few geniuses. There are
millions of them-that u.s. men and women
who have especial adaptation and quick
ness for some one thing. 1t may be great,
it may be small. The circle may be like
than a thimble. There are thousands of
geniuses here this morning. and in some
one thing you are star. What kind of a
star are you? You will be in this world
but few minutes. As compared with
eternity the stay of the longest life on earth
is not more than minute. What are we
doing with that minute? Are we embit-
tering the domestic, or social or political
fountains, or are we like Moses, who, when
the Israeites in the wilderness complained
that the waters of Lake Marah were bitter,
and they could not drink them, their leader
cut off the branch of certain tree and
threw that branch into the water, and it
became sweet and slaked the thirst of the
suffering host? Are we with branch of
the Tree of Life sweetening all the brack-
ish fountains that we can touch ? Dear
Lord, send US all out on Thy mission. All
around us embittered lives, embittered by
persecution, embittered by hypercriticism,
embittered by poverty, embttered by pain,
eHbittered by injustice, embittered by sin.
Why not 90 forth and sweeten them by
smile, by inspiring words, by benefactions,
by hearty counsel, by prayer, by gospeized
behavior. Let us remember that if we are
wormwood to others we are worm wood to
ourselves, and our life will be bitter and
our eternity bitter. The Gospel of Jesus
Christ is the only sweetening power that is
sufficient. 1t sweetens the disposition. 1t
sweetens the manners. 1t sweetens life.-
| 1t sweetens mysterious Providences. 1t
sweetens affections. 1t sweetens death
1t sweetens everything. have heard peo-
pie asked in social company, eff you could
have three wishes gratified what would
your three wishes be e?'' If could have
three wishes met this morning I tell you
what they would be. First, more of the
grace of God. Second, more of the grace
of God. Third, more OF the grace Of God.
In the door-yard of my brother John, mis-
sionary in Annoy, China, there is tree
called the Emperor tree, the two character
istics of which are that it always grows
higher than its surroundings and its leaves
take the form of crown. If this emperor
tree be planted by rose bush it grows
little higher than the bush, and spreads out
above in a crown. If it be planted by the
side of another tree, it grows a little higher
than that tree and spreads above it crown.
Would God that this religion of Christ,
more wonderful emperor tree, might over
shadow all your lives are you lowly in
ambition or circumstance, putting over you
its crown; are you high in talent and po-
sition, putting over you its crown. Oh,
for more of the saccharine in our lives and
less of the wormwood
What is true of individuals is true of ma
tions. God sets them up to revolve as stars
but they may fall wormwood.
Tyre-the atmosphere of the desert fra
grant with spices coming in caravans to her
fairs all seas cleft into foam by the keels
of her laden merchantmen her markets
rich with horses and camels from Togar-
nah, her bszaars filled with upholstery
from Dedan, with emeralds and coral ana
agate from Syria, with wines from Helbon,
with embroidered work from Ashur and
Chilmad. Where now the gleam of her
where the masts of her ships? Let the
fishermen who dry their nets where once
she stood, let the sea that rushes upon the
barrenness where once she challenged the
admiration of all nations, let the barbarians
who set their rude tents where once her
palaces glittered, answer the question:
She was star, but by her own sin turned
to wormwood and has fallen
Hundred gated Thebes-for all time to
be the study of antiquarian and hieroglyph-
ist, her stupendous ruins spread over
twenty-seven miles; her sculptures present
ing in figures of warrior and chariot the
victories with which the now forgotten kings
of Egypt shook the nations; her obellsks
and columns; Carnac and Luxor, the STU
pendous temples of her pride. Who can i'm
agine the greatness of Thebes in those days
when the hippodrome rang with her sports
and foreign royalty bowed at her shrines
and her avenues roared with the wheels of
professions in the wake of returning con-
querors? What dashed down the vision of
charots and temples aud thrones? What
hands pulled upon the columns other glory?
What rntblessness defaced her sculptured
wall and broke obelisks and left her indes-
cribable temples great skeletons of granite?
What spirit of destruction spread the lair
of wild beasts In her novel sepulchres. aud
taught the miserable cottagers of ta-day to
build huts in the courts of her temples, and
sent desolation and ruin skulking behind
the obelsks and lodging among the SAT- ,ph-
agi and leaning against the columns and
stopping under the arches and weeping in
the waters which 60 mournfully by as
though they were carrying the tears Of all
ages! Let the mummies break their long
silence aud come up to shiver in the desola-
tion, and point to fallen gates and shattered
statues ard defaced sculpture, responding:
"Thebes built not one temple to God.
Thebes hated righteousness and loved sin.
Thebes was a star, but she turned to worm
wood and has fallen"
Babylon, with her two hundred and fifty
towers and her brazen gates and her embat-
tied walls, the splendOr of the earth gather
ed within her palaces, her hanging gardens
built by Nebuchadnezzar to please his bride
Amyittis, who had been brought up in a
mountainous country and could not endure
the fiat country round Babylon, these hang
ing gardens built, terrace above terrace,
till at the height of four hundred feet there
were woods waving and fountains playing,
the verdure, the foliage, the glory of look
ing as if mountain were on the wing. On