The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1889-02-28

them in the hazy air. No within of mine |:
TINS without Him was not any thing
made that was made" Christ writing OF
the ground. II we could see His hand n
all the passing seasons, how il would
illumine the world All verdure and foil.
age would be allegoric, and again we
would hear Him say as of old: "ConsideI
the lilies of the field, how they grow;'
ana we would not hear the whistle
OF quail, or the cawing Of raven
or the roundelay Of brown
thresher without saying: Behold the
fowls OF the air, they gather not
into barns; yet your Heavenly Father
feedeth them," and dominic hen OF the
barnyard could not cluck for her brood,
yet we would hear Christ saying as of old
How often would / have gathered thy
children together, even as q hen gathered
her chickens under her wings" and
through the redolent hedges we would
hear Christ saying: az am the rose OF
Sharon;" we could not dip the seasoning
from the salt-cellar without thinking OF
the divine suggestion, aye are the salt
OF the earth, but if the salt have lost its
SAVIOR, it is fit for nothing but to be cast
out and trodden under foot of men," Let
us wake up from our stupidity and take
the whole world as a parable. Then, II
with gun and pack of hounds we start OF
before dawn and see the morning coming
down off the hills to meet us, we
would cry out with the evangelist: 1.-THE
day spring from on high hath visited u.s."
or caught in snow storm, while strug-
Cling home, eyebrows and beard and APP
parel all covered with the whirling fakes,
we would cry out with David: "Wash me
and | shall be winter than snow" In a
picture gallery of Europe there is on
the ceiling an exquisite fresco, but people
having to look straight up, it wearied and
dizzied them, and bent their necks almost
beyond endurance, so great looking
glass was put near the floor, and now
visitors only need to look easily down
into this mirror and they see the fresco
at their feet. And so much of all the
Heaven of Gods truth is reflected in this
world as in a mirror, and the things that
are above are copied by things all around
us.
What right have we to throw away one
of Gods Bibles, aye, the first Bible He
ever gave the race? We talk about the
Old Testament and the New Testament,
but the oldest Testament contains the
lessons of the natural world. Some peo-
pie like the New Testament so we'll they
discard the Old Testament. Shall we like
the New Testament and the Old Tesla
ment so we'll as to depreciate the oldest,
namely, that which was written before
Moses was put afoat on the boat of leaves
which was calked with asphaltum, or re-
ject the Genesis and the Revelation that
were written centuries before Adam lost
a rib and gained wife? No. no; when
Deity stoops down and writes on the
ground, let us read it. l would have no
less appreciation of the Bible on paper
that comes out of the paper mill,
but l would urge appreciation of the
Bible in the grass, the Bible in the sand
hill, the Bible in the geranium, the Bible
in the asphodel, the Bible in the dust.
Some one asked an ancient King whether
he had seen the eclipse Of the sun. mo"
said he, 81 have SO much to do on earth, l
have no time to look at Heaven" And If
your faculties were all awake in the study
of God, we would not have to go much
further than the first grass blade. l have
no fear that natural religion will ever
contradict what we call revealed religion.
l have no sympathy with the followers of
Aristotle, who, after the telescope was
invented, would not look through it, lest
it contradict some of the theories of their
great master. l shall be glad to put
against one lid of the Bible the micro
scope, and against the other lid of the BIZ
BILE the telescope.
But when Christ stopped down and wrote
on the ground what did he write? The
Pharisees did not stop to examine. The
towards, whipped of their own con-
sciences, fed pell NELL. Nothing will fay
q man like an aroused conscience. DIR.
Stevens, in his "History of Methodism,"
says that when Rev. Benjamin Abbott, of
olden times, was preaching, he exclaimed:
"For aIght l know there may be MUIR
derer in this house," and man rose in
the assemblage and started from the door
and bawled aloud, confessing to murder
he had committed fifteen years before.
And no wonder these Pharisees, remind
ed of their sins, took to their heels.
But what did Christ write on the
ground! The Bible does not state.
Yet, as Christ never wrote any thing
except that once, you can not blame US
for wanting to know what He really did
write, But | am certain He wrote nothing
trivial, or nothing unimportant. And will
you allow me to say that think know
what He wrote on the ground? Judge
from the circumstances. He might have
written other things, but, kneeling there
in the temple, surrounded by pack Of
hypocrites, who were q self appointed
constabulary, and having in His presence
prosecuted woman, who evidently was
very penitent for her sins, l am sure He
wrote two words, both of them graphic
and tremendous and reyerberating. And
the one word was Hypocrisy" and the
other word was forgiveness" From
the way these Pharisees and scribes
vacated the premises and got out into
the fresh air, as Christ, with Just one
ironical sentence, unmaSked them, l know
they were first-clasS hypOcrites. 1t was
then as it is now. The moro faults and
Inconsistencies people have of their own,
the more severe and censOriOus are they
about the faults of others. Here they are
twenty stout men arresting and arraign-
ing one weak woman. Magnificent bust:
ness to be engaged in. They wanted the
fun of seeing her faint away under a heavy
judicial sentence from Christ, and then
after she had been taken outside the city
and fastened at the foot of precipice, the
Scribes and Pharisees wanted the salts
faction of each coming and dropping a
big stone on her head, for that was the
style of capital punishment that they
asked for. Some people have taken the
responsibility of saying that Christ never
laughed. But l think, as He saw these
men drop every thing, chagrined, morti-
fed, exposed, and go out quicker than
they came in, He must have laughed. At
any rate, it makes me laugh TO read it.
All of these hbertines, dramatizing in
dignation against impurity. Blind bats
lecturing on optics. A flock of cows on