The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1889-02-22

anu AZ the 0rSJ DOCK sail out Win tncu
into the blackness of darkness forever.
And in what are called higher circles
of society there is now not only the
imitation Of foreign dress and foreign
manners, but an imitation of foreign
dissoluteness. like an English
man and / like an American,
but the sickest creature on
earth is an American playing the
Englishman. Society needs to be re-
constructed on this subject. Treat
them alike, masculine crime and
feminine crime. If you cut the one
in granite, cut them both in granite.
If you write the one in dust, write tho
other in dust. No, no, says the
world, let woman 90 down and let
man go up. What is that l hear
FLASHING into the East river at mid
night, and then there is a gurgle as of
strangulation, and all is still. Never
mind It is only q woman too dis
couraged to live. Let the mills OF the
cruel world grind right on.
SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIsT's DUST WRIT
But while speak of Christ of the
text, his STOPPING down writing in the
dust, do not think underrate the lit
erature of the dust. It is the most
solemn and tremendous of all litera-
ture. 1t is the greatest of all libraries.
When Layard exhumed Nineveh ne
was only opening the door OF its
mighty dust. The excavations Of
Pompeii have only been the unclasp-
ing Of the lids Of volume OF ma
TONS dust. When Admiral Farragut
and his friends, few years ago, Wis.
tied that resurrected city, the house OF
Balbo, who had been one of its chief
citizens in its prosperous days, was
opened and table was spread in that
house which eighteen hundred and
ten years has been buried by
volcanic eruption, and Farragut
and his guests walked over the
exquisite mosaics and under the
beautiful fresco and it almost
seemed like being entertained by those
who eighteen centuries ago had turned
to dust. Oh, this mighty literature OF
the dust. Where are the remains OF
Sennacherib and Attila and Epami-
nondas and Tamerlane and Trojan
and Philip of Macedon and Julius
Casar9 Dust! Where are the heroes
who fought on both sides at Ch@ro-
nea, at Hastings, at Marathon, at
Cressy, of the 10, 900 men who fought
at Agincourt, of the $50, 900 men who
faced death at Jena, Of the 10000
whose armor glittered in the sun at
Wagram, of the 1000, 900 men under
Darius at Arbella, Of the 2,641 900
men under Xerxes at Thermopylaes
Dust!
Where are the guests who danced
the floors of the Alhambra, or the Per
sian palaces of Ahasuerus9 Dust!
Where are the musicians who played
and the orators who spoke, and the
sculptors who chiseled, and the archi-
tects who built in all the centuries ex-
cept our own2 Dust The greatest
library of the world, that which has
the widest shelves and the longest
aisles and the most multitudinpus vol
umes and the vastest wealth. is the
underground library. It is the royal
library, the continental Library, the
hemisphere library, the planetary
library, the library OF the dust;
And all these library cases will
be opened, and all these scrolls
unrolled and all these volumes
unclasped and as easily as in
your library or mine we take up
book, blow the dust off Of it, and turn
over its pages, so easily will the Lord
of the Resurrection pick up out OF this
library of dust every volume OF human
life and open it and read it and dis
play it. And the volume will be re-
bound, to be set in the royal library
of the Kings palace, or in the prison
library of the self destroyed. On, this
mighty literature Of the dust! It is
not SO wonderful after all that Christ
chose, instead of an inkstand, the i'm
questionable sand on the floor OF an
ancient temple, and, instead of hard
pen, put forth his forefnger with the
same kind of nerve, and muscle, and
bone, and flesh, as that which makes
up our own foreinger, and wrote the
awful doom Of hypocrisy and iull ana 1
complete forgiveness for repentant
sinners, even the worst.
And now l can believe that which l
read, how that mother kept burning
| a candle in the window every night
for ten years, and one night very late
a poor waif of the street entered. The
aged woman said to her, ''Sit down by
| the fire." and the stranger said, why
do you Keep that light in the win
dow?' The aged woman said: THAT
is to light my hayward daughter
when she returns. Since she went
away ten years ago, my hair has
turned white. Folks blame me for
worrying about her, but you see ! am
her mother, and sometimes, half
dozen times night, open the door
and look out into the darkness and
cry, Lizzier 'Lizzie!' But l must
not tell you any more about my
trouble, for guess, from the way you
cry, you have trouble enough OF your
own. Why. how cold and sick you
seem! Oh, my! can it be- Yes,
you are Lizzie, my own lost child !,
Thank God that you are home agalnF
And what time of rejoicing there
was in that house that night! And
Christ again stopped down, and in the
ashes of that hearth, now lighted up
not more by the great blazing logs
than by the joy Of reunited house
hold, wrote the same liberating words
that he had written more than elgh.
teen hundred years ago in the dust OF