The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-03-13

the divine care. Christ never for 8 half
second takes His hand off Of it, or it would
soon be ship-wrecked world, a defunct
world. an obsolete world, an abandoned
world, dead world. Let there be light, "
was said at the beginning. And Christ
stands under the wintry skies and says:
Let there be snowaakes to enrich the earth;
and under the clouds Of spring and says,
Come ye blossoms and make redolent the
orchards; and in September, dips the
branches into the vat of beautiful colors
and swings them in the hazy air. without
Him was not any thing made that was
made" Christ writing on the ground.
II we could see His hand in all the passing
seasons, how it would illumine the world
All verdure and foliage would be allegoric,
and again we would hear Him say as OF old,
Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow;'' and we would not hear the whistle
Of qua;:, or the cawing Of a raven, or the
rouudelay of a brownthresher, without say
ing, 'sBehold the fowls Of the air, they
gather not into barns, yet your Heavenly
Father feedeth them;" and dominic hen
Of the barnyard could not c.nck for her
brood, yet we would hear Christ saying as Of
old, 'sEow often would l have gathered thy
children together, even as hen gathered
her chickens under her wings" and through
the redolent hedges we would hear Christ
saying, 81 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 II the salt
have lost its SAVIOR, it is tit 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 parable. Then il with
gun and pack of hounds we start off before
dawa and see the morning coming down off
the hills to meet US, we would cry out with
the evangelist, ''The day spring from on
high hath visited u.s." or caught in snow
storm, while struggling home eyebrows and
beard and apparel all covered with the
whirling flakes, we would cry out with Da-
vid, Wash me and shall be wkiter than
snow" In picture gallery of Europe there
is on the ceiling an exquisite fresco, but peo-
PIE having to ookstraightup; it wearied and
dizzied them, and bent their necSs almost
beyond endurance, so great looking glass
was put near the floor and now visitors only
need to look easily down iuto this mirror
and they see the fresco at their feet And
so much Of ali the heaven of Gods truth Is
reflected in this world as in mirror, and
the things that are above are copied by
things all around US. What right have we
20 throw away one Of Gods Bibles, aye, the
6rst Bible he ever gave the race! We talk
about the Old Testament and the New Test&-
ment but the oldest Testament contains the
lessons Of the natural world. Some people
like the New Testament so well they dis
card the Old Testament. Shall we like the
New Testament and the Old Testament
so well as to depreciate the oldest;
namely, that which was written be-
fore Moses was put afoat on the
boat OF leaves which was calked with
asphaltum; or reject the Genesis and the
Revelation that were written centuries be-
fore Adam lost rib and gained wife7 No,
no; when Deity stoops down and writes on
the gronnd, let US read it. would have no
less appreciation of the Bible on paper that
comes out of the paper mill, but 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. ssNo," said he, II have so
much to do on earth, have no time to look
at Heaven" And if our faculties were all
awake in the study of God, we would not
have time to 60 much further than the first
grass blade I have no fear that natural
religion will ever contradict what we call
revealed religion. 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
microscope, and against the other lid Of the
Bible the telescope.
But when Christ stopped down and wrote
on the ground, what did he writea The
Pharisees did not stop to examine The
towards, whipped Of their own conscienceS.
fed pell NELL. Nothing will fay man like
an aroused conscience. DR.. Stevens, in his
History of Methodism," says that when
Rev. Benjamin Abbott, OF olden times
was preaching, he exclaimed: For aught
I know there may be murderer IN this
house." and a man rose in the assemblage
and started for the door and bawle6 aloud,
confessing to a murder he had committed
fifteen years before. And no wonder these
Pharisees, reminded 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 L for wanting to
know what He really did write. But am
certain he wrote nothing trivial, or nothing
uuimportant. And will you allow ME to say
that think l know what He wrote on the
grouudf 7 judge from the circumstances.
He might have written other things. but,
kneeling there in the temple, surrounded by
a pack of hypocrites, who were a self.ap-
pointed constabulary, and having In His
presence prosecuted woman, who evil
dently was very penitent for her sins. am
sure He wrote two words. both Of them
graphic and tremendous and reverberating.
Aud 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, I know they were first
class hypocrites. 1t was then as 1t Is now.
The more faults and inconsistencies people
have Of their own, tue more severe and CEN
serious are they about the faults Of others.
Here they are-tWenty stout men arrestlng
and arraigning one weak woman. Magniti-
cent business to be engaged in! They wanted
the fun of seeing her faint away under q
heavy judicial sentence from Christ, and
then after she had been taken outside
the city and fastened at the foot of preci-
pice, the Scribes and PhariSSes wanted the
satisfaction OF each coming and dropping q
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
think as He saw those men drop every thing,
chagrined, mortified. exposed, and 20 out
quicker than when they came in, he must