Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1888-11-03

i%uisite. They were Il dream of beauty
,arved out of loneliness. Tney were
made OF hammered gold, stood in a foot
II gold N had six branches of gold
blooming all along in six lilies of gold
Zach, and lips of gold from which the
andes lifted their
HOLY FIRE.
And the best houses III any city ought to
be the Churches-the best bullt, the best
ventilated, the best swept, the best win
lowed and the best chandeliered. Log
7ablns may do in neighborhoods where
luost of the people live in log cabins, but
let there be palatial churches for regions
where many of the people live in palaces.
DO not have a better place for yourself
IMAM for your Lord and King. DO not
live in a parlor and put your Christ in a
kitchen. These seven candlesticks OF
which ! speak were not made out OF pew
ter or iron; they were golden candle.
sticks, and gold is not only a valuable
but a bright metal. Have everything
about your church bright-your ushers
with smiling faces, your music lubllant,
your handshaking cordial, your entire
service attractive. Many people feel that
in church they must look dull in order TO
be revtrcntial, and many whose faces in
other kinds of asscmblage show all he
different phases Of emotion, have in
church no more expression than the back
wheel Of a hcarse. Brighten up and be
responsive. If you feel like weeping,
weep. If you feel like smiling, smile. If
| you feel indignant at some wrong assailed
IRON the pulpit, frown. Do not leave
your naturalness and rcsilicncy home be
cause it is Sunday morning. IL as officers
Of a church you meet people al the
church door with a black look, and have
the music black, and the minister in
| black preach a black sermon, and from
invocation to benedlction have the i'm
pres ION black, few will come, and those
who Go come will wish they had not
come a. all.
Golden candlesticks, Scour up the six
lilies on each branch and know that the
more lovely and bright they are, the more
tit they are TO held the light But a
Christian church is a damage tothe world
rather than a good. Cromwell stabbed
his cavalry norses in st. Pauls CATHEDRAL,
and many now use the church as a place
in which TO stable their v~anities and
worldliness. A worldly church is a
candlestick without the candle, and it had
its prototyp pc in st. Sophia, in Constan-
tinople, bulk TO the glory O. God by Con-
stantine, bgt transformed 10 base uses by
MOhammed the Second. Built out of
colored marble; a cupOta with twenty
four windows soaring to the height of $50
feet; the ceiling one great bewilderment
of mosaic galleries supported by eight
columns eff ~pOrphyry aud sixty-seven col
umns Of green jasper; nine bronze doors
with alto. relieve work fascinating TO the
eve of an artist; vases and vestmenls en-
crusted with all manner OF precious
stones. -Four walls of fire with indescrib
able splendor. Though labor was cheap
the building cost one million five hundred
thousand dollars. Ecclesiastical structure
almost supernatural in pomp and majesty.
But Northumberland tore down from the
walls of that building all the sanity and
Christly images, and high up in the dome
the figure of the cross was rubbed out
that the crescent of the baIbarious Turk
might b. substituted. A great church
but no Christ A gorgeous CandlesiiCk
but no candlc, Ten thousand such
churches wouidnot givethc world as much
light as one home made tailow candle by
which last night some grandmother in
the eighties put on her spcctaclcs and
read the Psalms of David in large tyDe.
Up with the churches, by all means,
Hundreds Of them, thousands Of them,
and the more the better. But let each one
be 81 blaze Of heavenly light making the
world brighter and brighter until the last
shadow has disappeared, and the last OF
the~SutIcring children of God shall have
reached the land where they have no
need of Candlesticksor "of candle, neither
light Of the san, for the Lord God giyeth
them light and they shall reign forever
and ever.
THE STARS.
Turn now in your Bibles to the seven
stars. We are distinctively told that they
are the ministers of religion. Some OF
tn II are large stars, some of them small
STARS, some Of them sweep "A wide circuit,
but so FAR as they are genuine they get
theic light from the great central sun,
around whom they make revolution. Let
each one keep in his w sphere. The
solar system would soon be wrecked if
the stars instead of keeping their own
~orbitGhouid go to hunting down other
stars. Ministers of religion should neye
clash. Bot in al the centuries OF the
Christian church some of these stars have
been hunting an Edward Irving or y
Horace Bushnell or an Albert Barnes,
and the stars that were in pursuit Of the
other stars los. their own orbit and some
of them could never again find it. Alas
for The beresy hunters. The best way
to destroy error is TO preach the truth.
The best way to scatter darkness is Ia
strike a light. There is in immensely
room enough for all the stars and IN the
church room enough for all the ministers.
The ministers who give up righteousness
and the truth will get enough punish
ment anyhow, for they are ''the wander
ing stars for whom is reserved the black
ness forever" But | should like as a
minister when | am dying to be able to
truthfuliy say what q captain of the En-
glish army fallen at the head Of his col.
umn aud dying on the Egyptian battle
field said to Gen. Wo.sely, who came to
condole with him: Il led them straight
didn't lead them straight, general
God has put Us ministers as captains il
this battlefield of truth against error
Great at last will be cur chagIin if We
fall leading the people the wrong way
but great will be our gladncss if wher
the battle is over we can hand our sworc
back to our great Commander, saying
Lord Jesus! We led the people straight
didn't we lead them straight? Those
ministers who 20 off at a tangent and
preach some other gospel are not stars
but comets, and they flash across the