The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-10-05


let us see the wall Of the heavenly city with
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
chariots of fire and banners Of fire and ships
Of fire and cities Of fire, seas Of fire, and 1t
seems as Ii the last conhagration had begun
and there is a world on fire. When God
makes these clouds his chariot let US all
kneel Another day past, what have we
done with it7 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." Obi
obi what a chariot made out Of evening
cloudi Have you hung over the taffrail on
the ocean and seen this cloudy vehicle roll
over the pavements Of calm summer sea,
the wheels dripping with the magnifcencei
Have you from the top of Ben Lomond or
the Cordilleras or the Berkshire hills seen the
day pillowed for the night, and yet had no
aspiration Of praise and homagef Oh, what
q rich God we have that he can put
on one evening sky pictures that excel
Michael Angeles Last Judgment and
Ghirlandjo's Alteration 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 the Cor
reggios and the Leonardo da Vincis ever exc
cuted, and then draw a curtain of mist over
them never again to be exhibited How rich
God must be to have q 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 he ides 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
lions pray. Again and again he has ridden
forth In that 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 Sebastopol, at Sedan, at Gettysburg, at
Tel-elKebir. 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 bell, 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 Baalbeck fell
dead and the Roman empire was Frustrated,
and Atlantis, 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
Cesars was less than pebble under the right
wheel Of this chariot, and the Austrian des-
potism less than snowflake under the left
wheel. And over destroyed worlds on worlds
that chariot has rolled without jar or jolt
This black chariot of war cloud rolled UP
to the northwest Of Europe in 1912, 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 1t has stopped II, wheeled it around,
and the chariot of black clouds under that
sanctifed 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 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-
iverance. While the combined forces of
the universe in battle array could not stop
his black chariot q second or diverge it an
inch, the driver Of that chariot says, "Call
upon me in the day Of trouble and I will de-
liver thee" "While they are yet speaking !
will hear" Two wheeled chariot, one wheel
Justice and the other wheel mercy. Ave,
they are swift wheels. A cloud, whether 1t
belongs to the cirrhus, the clouds that float
the highest; or belongs to the stratus, the CEN
trail ranges; or to the cumulus the lowest
ranges, seems to move slowly along the sky,
if 1t moves at all. But many of the clouds
go ut speed that would seem lethargic q
vestibule limited lightning express train, so
swift Is 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 1t
up, or stop 1t, or turn 1t aside, OF turn il
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. My father
stopped it. My mother stopped it My
sister stopped it We have In our Sabbath
schools children who again and again and
again have stopped it
Notice that these old time chariots, which
my text uses for symbol, had what we would
call a high dashboard at the front, but were
open behind. And the king would stand at
the dashboard and drive with his own hands
And 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 q loving ear
open to the cry of all who went 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 wild
est and most raging circumstances. heard
Of q ship captain who put out with his vessel
with 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 bis
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 must be lost unless God
interposed, and although he was not Chris
tian 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" While the prayer was going on In
the cabin the wind changed and blew the ice
out of the way. The mate asked: "Shall
the captain. Don't touch her. Some one
women, shut In on all sides by icy troubles
your affairs In the hands Of God You win
come out all right Some one else is manag-
ing the shipl It did not merely happen so
that when Leyden was besieged, and the
Duke Of Alva felt sure of his triumph, sud-
denly the wind turned, and the swollen
waters compelled him to stop the siege,
and the city was saved God that night
drove along the coast Of the Netherlands
In a black chariot Of storm cloud. Il
did not merely happen so that Luther
rose from the place where he was sitting Just
in time to keep from being crushed by stone
that the instant after fell on the very spot
Had he not escaped, where would have been
the Reformationa It did not merely happen
30 that Columbus was saved from drowning
by an oar that was floating on the waters
Otherwise, who would have unveiled Amer
leaf 1t did not merely happen so that when
George Washington was In Brooklyn great
fog settled down over all the place where this