Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1889-11-22


hundreds and thousands of years old but
they are in Yellowstone park or Californian
canon, and their architecture and masonry
were by the omnipotent God. We want 90
see the buildings, or ruins of old buildings
that were erected hundreds and thousands of
years ago by human hands. They lived forty
or seventy years, but the arches they lifted,
the paintings they penciled, the sculpture
they chiselcd the roads they laid cut, l UNI
derStand, arc yet to be seen. and we want You
to show them 70 us. | can hardly wait until
Monday morning. l must also sec Rome.
We want to be impressed with the fact that
what men do on small scale or large scale
lasts a. thousand years, lasts forever, that we
build for eternity and that we do so in very
short space Of time. God is the only old liv
ing presence. But it is an old age without
any OF the infrmities or limitations of
old age. There is a passage of Scrip
ture which speaks Of tho birth of the
mountains, for there was a time when
the Andes were born, and the PyTenees were
born, and the Sierra Nevadas were born, but
before the birth of those mountains the Bible
tells us, God was born, aye, was never born
at all, because He always existed. Psalm
xc., 2: Before the mountains were brought
forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth
and the word, even from everlasting to ever
lasting, Thou art God.n How short is human
life, what antiquity attaches to its worth
How everlasting is God Show US the antiq-
uities the things that were old when Amer
lea was discovered, old when Paul went up
and down these streets sight seeing, old when
Christ was born. l must. / must also sec
Romel
Another reason for our visit to this city is
that we want to see the places where the
mightiest intellects and the greatest natures
wrought for our Oh ',stiau religion. Wehave
been told in America by some people Of
swollen heads that the Christian religion is a
pusillanimous thing, good for children under
years of age and small Drained people, but
not for the intelligent and swarthy minded
We have heard Of your Constantine the
mighty, who pointed his army to the cross,
saying: "By this conquer" If there be
anything here connected with his reign or
his military history, show it TO us. The
mightiest intellect of the ages was the au-
thor of my text and, if for the Christian
religion no was willing to labor and suffer
and die, there must be something exalted
and sublime and tremendous in it; and show
me every place he visited, and show me if
you can where he was tried, and which of
your roads leads out to Ostia, that [ may
SEQ where he went out to die. We expect
before We finish this journey to see Lake
GaliIce and the places whero Simon Peter
and Andrew fished, and perhaps we
may drop net OF hook and line into
those waters ourselves, but when fol-
lowing the track Of those lesser amos
ties [ will learn quite another lesson.
want while i'll this city Of Rome to study tho
religion of the brainiest Of the apostles. |
want to fellow, as far as we eau trace it, the
tract; of this great intellect of my text who
wanted to see Rome also. He was a logi-
clan, he was metaphysician, he was an all
conquerin9 orator. he was q poet Of tho
highest type. He had a nature that could
l,.1 Nnl x,F =
hurled against the Sanhedrim, he made it
tremble. He learned all he could get in the
school Of his native village, then he had gono
TO higher school, and there had mastered
the Greek and the Hebrew and per-
fected himself in bellies lettres, until, in af-
ter years, he astounded the Cretans, and
the Corinthians, and the Athenians, by quo.
tations from their own authors / have
never found anything in Carlyle or Goethe
or Herbert Spencer that could compare in
strength or beauty with Pauls epistles do
not think there is anything in the writings
Of Sir William Hamilton that show such
mental discipline as you find in Paul's argu-
mont about justification and resurrection. I
have not found anything III Milton finer in
the way of imagination than i can find
in Paul's illustrations drawn from the
Robert Emmett pleading for his life,
or in Edmund Burke arraigning Warren
Hastings in Westminster Hail. that com
pared with the scene in the court room when,
before ROBBED officials, Paul bowed and began
his speech, saying: 81 think myself happy,
King Agrippa, because l shall answer for
myself this day. repeat, that a religion
that can capture q man like that must have
some power in it, IL is time our wiseacres
stopped talking as though all the brains Of
the world wero opposed to Christianity.
Where Paul leads, We can afford to follow. /
am glad to know that Christ has in tho diff.
ferent ages of tho world, had in
Ills discipleship Mozart aud Han
del in music; Raphael and
Canoya in sculpture; Rush and q Harvey
in medicine; q GrOtius and Washington in
craftsmanship, Blackstone, a Marshall and
n Kent in the law; and the time will come
when the religion of Christ will conquer all
the ohservatories and universities, and phil
osophy will through her telescope, behold
the morning star of Jesus, and in her labora-
tory see that all things work together for
good" and with her geological hammer
discern tho Crock of Ages" Oh, in
stead Of covering and shivering when the
skeptic stands before us, and talks of re-
| ligion as though it we're a pusillanimous
thing-instead Of that let us take out our
| Now Testament and read the story of Paul
at Rome, or come and see this city for our
| serves. anu learn GndU IL COulu nave DeGn no
weak Gospel that actuated such man, but
that it is an all-conquering Gospel Ayel
for all ages the power of God and the wis
dom of God unto salvation.
Men, brethren and fathersl [ thank you
for this opportunity of preaching the Gospel
to you that are at Rome also. The churches
of America salute you. Upon you who are,
like us, strangers in Rome [ pray the pro-
tecting and journeying care of God. Upon
you who are resident here, 1 pray grace,
mercy and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ After tarrying here
a few days weresume our journey For Palos-
tine, and we shall never meet again, either in
Italy, or America, OF what is called
the Holy Land, but there is a holier
land, and there we may meet, saved by the
grace that in the same way saves italian and
American, and there in that supernal cline,
after embracing Him who, by His sulferings
on the hill back Of Jerusalem, made our
heaven possible, and given salutation to our
own kindred whose departure broke our
hearts on earth, we shall, l think, seek out
the travelling preacher and mighty hero of
the toxt who marked out his journey through
Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem, saying;
"After I have been there, 1 must also see
Rome"
NEWSY GLEANINGS.