Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-02-27

tnen as IL is now. Ihe more faultS ana IL
| constituencies people have of their own, th
i more severe and censorious are they abou
, the faults of others. Here they are
twenty stout men arresting and arraignin
, one weak woman. Magnificent bushes
, to be engaged in. They wanted the fun Q
, seeing her faintaway under heavy judicia
had been taken outside the city and fast
ened at the foot of precipice, the Scribe
, and Pharisees wanted the satisfaction o
each coming and dropping big stone OF
her head, for that was the style Of capita
punishment that they asked for. Som
people have taken the responsibility of say
ing that Christ never laughed. But thinl
as He saw those men drop everything, cha
grined, mortified, exposed, and 90 on
quicker than they came in He must hav,
laughed. At any rate, it makes me laugl
to read of it. All of these libertines, dram
atising indignation against impurity.-
Blind bats lecturing on optics. A flock O
crows on their way up from carcass, de
nouncing carrion. Yes. I think that one
word written on the ground that day BY
the finger of Christ was the awful wore
Hypocrisy. But am sure there was an
other word in that dust. From her entire
manner am sure that arraigned woman
was repentant. She made no apology, and
Christ in no wise belittled her sin. But
heI supplicatory behavior and her tears
moved Him, and when He stopped down tc
write on the ground. He wrote that mighty,
that imperial word Forgiveness. When on
Sinai God wrote the law, He wrote it with
finger of lightning on tables of stone, each
word cut as by chisel into the hard
granite surface. But when He writes the
0ffense of this woman He writes it in dust
so that it can be easily rubbed out, and
when she repents of it, oh, he was merci-
full Christ! was reading of legend that
is told in the far east about Him. He was
walking through the streets of city and
He saw crowd around dead dog. And
one man said: "What loathsome object is
are mauled and bleeding" ''Yes," said
any use to the tanner" eyes," said an
Then Christ, standing there, said; ''But
teeth" Then the people, moved by the
idea that any one could find anything
pleasant concerning dead dog, said:
"Why, this must be Jesus of Nazareth. -
Reproved and convicted, they went away.
Surely this legend of Christ is good
enough to be true. Kindness in ali His
words and ways and habits. Forgiveness.
| Word of eleven letters, and some of them
thrones and some of them palm branches.
| Better have Christ write close to our names
that one word, though He wrote it in dust,
than to have our name cut into monument
al granite with the letters that the storms
of Thousand years cannot obliterate.-
Bishop Darlington had book of only three
leaves. The first leaf was black, the second
leaf red, the third leaf white. The black
leaf suggested sin; the red leaf atonement;
the white leaf publication. That is the
whole story. God will abundantly pardon,
| l must not forget to say that as Christ,
STOPPING down, with his finger wrote on the
ground, it is evident that ais sympathies
are with this penitent woman, and that be
has no sympathy with her hypocritical
pursuers. Just opposite to that is the
worlds habit. Why didn't these unclean
Pharisees bring one of their own number
to Christ for excoriation and capital pun.
ishment? No, no; they overlook that in a
man which they damnate in woman. And
80 the world has had for offending womsn
scourges and objurgation, and for just one
offence she becomes an outeast, while fol
men whose lives have been sodomic fol
twenty years, the world swings open its
doors of brilliant welcome, and they may
sit in legislatures and senates and parlia.
ments or on throne. Unlike the Christ oil
my text, the world writes mans misds
meanor in dust, but chisels woman's of
fence with great capitals upon ineffaceable
marble. For foreign lords and princes,
whose names cannot even be mentioned in
respectable circles abroad because they are
walking lazarettos of abomination, oul
American princesses of fortune wait, and
at the first beck sail out with them into the
blackness of darkness forever. And in
what are called higher circles of society
there is now not only the imitation of for
eign dress and foreign manners, bnt ar
imitation of foreign dissoluteness. / like
an Englishman and like an American,
but the sickest creature on earth is an
American playing the Englishman. Society
needs to be reconstructed on this subject
Treat them alike. masculine crime and
feminine crime. If you cut the one ir
granite, cut them both in granite. If you
write the one in dust, write the other in
dust No, no. says the world, let woman
GO down and let man go up. What is thai
hear plashing into the East river at mid
night, and then there is gurgle as o.
strangulation, and all is still. Never mind
1t is only a wowan too discouraged to live
Let the mills of the cruel world grink righ
on.
But while speak Of Christ of the text
his STOPPING down writing in the DUST dr
not think underrate the literature Of tht
dust. 1t is the most solemn and tremen
dous of all literature. 1t is the greatest o
all libraries When Layard exhumed Min
eveh he was only opening the door of it
mighty dust. The excavations of Pompei
have only been the unclasping of the lid
of volume of a nations dust. When Ad
miral Farragut and his friends, few year
ago. visited that resurrected city, the hous
Of Balbo, who had been one of its chief cit
, izens in it's prosperous days, was opened
, and table was spread in that house whicl
eighteen hundred and ten years has beel
buried by volcanic eruption, aud Farragu
, and his guests walked over the exquisit
, mosaics and under the beautiful fresco
and it almost seemed like being entertaia
ed by those who eighteen centuries ag
, had turned to dust. Oh, this mighty lit
, erature of the dust. Where are the re
, rnaius of Sennsehes.b andAtiRa and Epami
, nondas and Tameriane and Traian ant
!, Philip Of Macedon and Julius Caesar? Dust
!. Where are the heroes who fought on botl
sides at Choronea, at Hastings, at Mara
! thon, at Cressy, of the 10000 men win
} fought at Agincourt, of the 100000 mel
who faced death at Jena, Of the 400 00
whose armor glittered in the sun at Wa
; gram, of the 1, 200, 900 men under Dariu
at Arbella. of the 2,641, 600 men unde
!, Xerxes at Thermopyl@? Dustl
Where are the guests who danced tn
floors Of the Alhambra, or the Persian pal
aces of Ahasuerus3 Dust! Where are tn
!, musicians who played and the orators wht
} lspoke, and the sculptors who chiseled, an(
the architects who built in all the centuries
|, Except our own? Dust! The greatest library
of the world, that which has the wides
shelves and the longest aisles and the mos
multitudinous volumes and the wastes
wealth, is the underground library. 1t il
the royal library, the continental library
the hemisphere library, the planetary Ii
brary, the library of the dust. And al
these library cases will e-opened, and al
. lie foI-