The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1889-11-16

, 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
sweredP 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, II 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, I have an I'M
limited curiosity about all religious
I bullBob diu az Cbio OlbJ u hOIlc was 81
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 n prying spirit, but as the out
bursting of n Christian curiosity when
say I must also SEQ Rome.
Our desire to visit this city is also in
tensifed by the fact that we want to he
confirmed in Inc 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 W O have been reading for
q lifetime, but never seen. In our be-
loved America we have no antiquities.
A church eighty years old ovorawes us
with its z We have in America
some cathedrals hundreds and thou
sands of years old, but they arc in yell
lowstone Park or California Canyon,
and their architecture and masonry
were by the o~mnipotent 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, I
understand, are yet to be seen, and VIC
ant you to show thom to us. can
hardly wait until Monday morning. /
must also see Rome.
We want to DO impressed with the
fact that what men do on n small scale
or largo scale lasts a thousand years,
laGtS fnraunr that uyn build For otnr,;A-x
and that we do SO in n very short space
of time. God is the only old living
presence. But it is an old age without
any of the infirmitics or limitations OF
old age. There is a passage of Script
ure which speaks of the birth of the
mountains, for there was a time when
the Andes were born, and the Pyrennes
were born, n the Sierra Nevadas were |
born, but before the birth of those
mountains the Bible tells US, God was
born, aye was never born ut all, because
lie always existed. Psalm &c. 3: BE |
fore the mountains were brought forth,
or ever Thou adst formed the earth and
the world, even from everlasting to
everlasting, Thou art God" How short
is human life, what antiquity attaches |
~ y "oA " VN'l ltoUlHS 10 SOu. |
Show us tho antiquities, the things that
were old when America was discovered, |
old when Pau m up and down these
streets sight seoing, 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 intellccts and the
greatest natures wrought for our Chris
tian religion. We have bcen 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 Ind tre-
mendous in it; and show me every place
he visited, and show me IL you can
where he was tried, and which of your
roads leads out to Ostia, that 1 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 a net or q hook and line into
waters ourselves, but when follow
ing the track Of those lesser apostles |
will learn quite another lesson.
] want while in this City of Rome to
study tho religion of the brainiest of the
! want to follow, as far as we
trace it, the track of this great in
of my text who wanted to sec
Rome also. He was a logician, he was
a m~etaphysician, he was an all-cOnquer-
ing orator, he was a poet of the highest
type. He had a nature that could
the leading men of his own day,
and hurled against the ~Sanhedrim, he
made it tremble. He learned all he could
getin the school of his native village
be had gone to higher school, and
there had mastered the Greek and the
&<&<G~.AAd perfected himself in bellies
~ tntll in after years, he astound-
51G X<etans and the Corinthians, and
E6t kthenians, by quotations from the
,Hn authors. I have new found any
hing in Carlyle, or Goethe, or Herbert
that could compare in strength
Or beauty with Paul's epistles. / do
not think there is any thing in the writ
ings of Sir William Hamilton that shows
montal discipline as you find in
Pauls argument about justification and
resurrection. j have not found any
in Milton finer in tho way of
imagination than I can finl in Paul's
Illustrations drawn from tho amphi-
There was nothing in Robert
pleading for his life, or in Ed
mund Burke arraigning Warren Hast
ings in Westminster Hall, tina COM
pared with the scene in the courtroom
when, before rObed officials, Paul bowed
and began his speech, saying: 81 think
myself happy, King Agrippa, because 1
answer for myself this day"
/ repeat, that a religion that can capt
nre a man like that must have some
power in it. 1t Is time our wiseacres
stopped talking as though all the brain
Of the world were opposed to Christian
ity. Where Paul leads, we can afford to
| am glad to know that Christ
has, in the different ages of the world,
had In His discipleship a Mozart and a
in music; n Raphael and q
Reynolds in painting; an Angelo and o
in sculpture; a Rush and q