The Brookhaven leader., 1889-11-21

and more brilliant country? John
Franklin riskea his life to find passage
TO eternal summer? Men in Switzer-
land travel up the heights of the Mat
terhorn, with alpenstock and guides,
and rockets and ropes, and getting half
way up, stumble and fall down in hor-
rihle massacre. They just wanted to
say they had been on the tops of those
high peaks. And shall we fear 10 go
out for the ascent Of the eternel hills
which start one thousand miles beyond
where stop the highest peaks of the
Alps, and when in that ascent there is
no peril? A man doomed to die stepped
on the scaffold, and said in joy: "Now,
in ten minutes / will know the great
secret" One minute after the vital
functions ceased, .the little child that
died last night knew more than Paul
himself before he died.
Friends, the exit from this world, or
death, if you please to call it, to the
Christian is glorious explanation. 1t is
demonstration. 1t is illumination. 1t
is sunburst. 1t is the opening Of all the
windows. 1t is shutting up the cate
chism of doubt, and the unrolling of all
the scrolls of positive and accurate in
formation. Instead of standing at the
foot of the ladder and looking up, it is
standing at the top of the ladder and
looking down. 1t is the last mystery
taken out of botany, and geology, and
astronomy, and theology. Oh, will it
not be grand to have all questions an
swered? The perpetually recurring in
terrogation point changed for the mark
of exclamation? All riddles solved.
Who will fear to go out on that dis
covery, when all the questions are to be
decided which we have been discussing
all our lives? Who shall not clap his
hands in the anticipation of that blessed
country, if it be no better than through
holy curiosity? AS this Paul Of my text
did not suppress his curiosity, we need
not suppress ours. Yes, / have an un.
limited curiosity about all religious
things, and as this city of Rome was so
intimately connected with apostolic
times, the incidents of which emphasize
and explain and augment the Christian
religion, you will not take it as an evil
dence of prying spirit, but as the out
bursting of Christian curiosity when l
say must also see Rome.
Our desire to visit this city is also in
tensified by the fact that we want to be
confirmed in the feeling that human
life is brief, but its work lasts for cent
uries, indeed, forever. Therefore
show us the antiquities of old Rome,
about which we have been reading for
lifetime, but never seen. In our be-
loved America we have no antiquities.
A church eighty years old overawes us
with its age. We have in America
some cathedrals hundreds and thou
sands of years old, but they are in yell
| lowstone Park or California Canyon,
| and their architecture and masonry
| were by the omnipotent God. We want
to 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 chiseled, the roads they laid out, l
understand, are yet to be seen, and we
hardly wait until Monday morning. l
| must also see Rome.
We want to be impressed with the
| fact that what men do on a small scale
or large scale lasts a thousand years,
lasts forever, that we build for eternity
and that we do so in a very short space
| of time. God is the only old living
! presence. But it is an old age without
any of the infrmities or limitations of
| old FTbopo 10 IF Sppir int
ure which speaks of the birth of the
| mountains, for there was time when
| the Andes were born, and the Pyrennes
| 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. ?: BE
| fore the mountains were brought forth,
or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and
the world, even from everlasting to
everlasting, Thou art God" How short
is human life, what antiquity attaches
to its worth! How everlasting is God!
Show us the antiquities, the things that
were old when America was discovered,
| old when Paul went up and down these
| streets sight seeing, old when Christ
| was born. l muSt-I must also see
Rome!
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 Chris
tian religion. We have been told in
America by some people of swollen
heads that the Christian religion is a
pusillanimous thing, good for children
under seven years of age and small
Drained people, but not for the intelli-
gent and swarthy minded. We have
heard of your Constantine, the mighty,
who pointed his army to the cross, say
ing: "By this conquer" If there be
any thing here connected with his reign
or his military history, show it to US.
The mightiest intellect of the ages was
the author of my text, and, if for the
Christian religion he was willing to la
Dor and suffer and die, there must be
something exalted and sublime and ire
mendous 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 see
where he went out to die. We expect
before we finish this journey to see Lake
Galilee and the places where Simon,
Peter and Andrew fished, and perhaps we
may drop net or hook and line into
those waters ourselves, but when follow
ing the track of those lesser apostles |