Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-18

sum uuueF lne ulVlne care. CnrlSt neVe
for half second takes His hand off of it, o
1t would soon be shipwreckdd world, al
abandoned world, a dead world. 'Le
there be light" /" was said at the beginning
And Christ stands under the wintry skie
and says, Let there be snowfiakes to enricl
the earth; and under the clouds OF sprinI
and says, Come, We blossoms and max
redolent the orchards; and in Septembe
dips the branches into the vat of beautiful
colors and swings them in the hazy air. n,
whim of mine is this. "Without Him wa
not anything made that was made" Chris
writing on the ground. If we could Sc,
His hand in all the passing seasons how i
WOULD ILLUMINE THE WORLD.
All verdure and foliage would be ale
goric, and again we would hear Him say a.
of old, Consider the lilies of the field, how
they grow and we would not hear the
whistle of a quail or the cawing of a raven
or the roundelay of a brown thresher, with.
out saying, "Behold the fowls of the air,
thev gather not into barns, yet your Heav-
enly Father feedeth them;" and Dominic
hen of the BARNARD could not cluck for her
brood, vet we would hear Christ saying as
of old. "How often would y have gathered
thy children together, even as hen gath
cred her chickens under her Wings" and
Christ saying, 81 am the rose of Sharon"
we could not dip the seasoning from the salt
cellar without thinking of the divine sug-
| gestion, "Ye are the salt of the earth, but if
the salt have lost its SAVIOR, it is fit for moth
ing 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 if
with gun and pack of bounds we starti off
before dawn 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, eye
brows and beard and apparel all covered
with the whirling fakes, we would cry out
with David, "Wash me and L shall be
whittier than snow" In a picture gallery
of Europe, there is on the ceiling an ex-
quisite fresco, but people having to look
straight up, it wearied and dizzied them,
and bent their neeks almost beyond endur-
ance, 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
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 Tes-
lament, but the Oldest testament contains
the lessons of the natural world. Some peo-
pie like the New Testament so well they
discard 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 before Moses was
put afloat on the boat of leaves which was
calked with asphaltum; or reject the Gene
sis and the Revelation that were written
centuries before Adam lost rib and gained
a wife? No, no; when Diety 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 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.
"No," said he, 81 have so much to do on
earth, 1 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 go
much further than the first grass blade.
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 in
vented, 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 write? The |
Pharisees did not stop to examine. The |
towards, whipped of their own consciences, |
1ed pell NELL. Nothing will fay man
like an aroused conscience. DR.. Stevens, in |
his History of fMethodism, says that when |
Rev. Benjamin Abbott of olden times was |
preaching, he exclaimed: "For aught 1 |
know there may be a murderer in this |
house, and man rose in the assemblage |
and started for the door and bawled aloud,
CoNFESSING TO A MURDER
he had committed 10 years before. And no
wonder these Pharisees reminded of their SINS
took their heels. But what did Christ write on
the ground? The Bible does not state Yet as
Christ never wrote anything except that once
you cannot blame us for wanting to know what
be 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
she circumstances. He might have written
'ther things, but kneeling there in the temple
by pack of hypocrites, who were |
/ self-appointed constabulary, and having in
lis presence a persecuued woman, who evil
iently was very penitent for her sins, / am sure
lie wrote two words, both of them graphic and
and reverberating, And the one
yord was Hypocrisy and the other word was
forgiveness. From the way these Pharlsees
nd scribes vacated the premises and got out
nto the fresh air, as Christ, with Just one IRON
cal sentence, unmasked them, l know they
CT-rla
1t was then as it is now. The more faults and
people have of their own, the
lore severe and censorious are they about the
aults of others. Here they are-20 stout men |
rresting and arraigning one weak woman.
iagnitcent business to be engaged in They
'anted the fun of seeing her faint away under |
heavy Judicial sentence from Christ, and then
fter she had been taken outside the city and |
lstened at the foot of precipice, the Scribes
nd Pharisees wanted the satisfaction of each |
oming and dropping big stone on her head,
nat they asked for. Some people have taken
ne responsibility of saying that Christ never
Iughed. But l think as he saw those men :
rop everything. ehagriped, mortified, exposed.
nd 20 out quicker than they came in, he must
ave laughed. At any rate, it makes me laugh $
read it. All of these libertines, dramatizing
ldignation against impurity. Blind bats
cturing on optics. A flock of crows on their
ay up from carcass, denouncing carriOn ,
es, l think that one word written on the
,ound that day by the finger of Christ was {
THE AWFUL WORD HYPOCRISY. {
But am sure there was another word in that
1st. From her entire manner l am sure that
'raigned woman was repentant. She made no
biology, and Christ in no wise belittled her sin.
ut her supplieatory behavior and her tears !
owed him, and when he stopped down to write
the ground, he wrote that mighty, that i'm
,rial word Forgiveness. When on Sinai God
rote the law, he wrote it with finger of light
ng on tables of stone each word cut as by a :
ica1i M the ha rd org nj surface Inf uhar