Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-11-11

of the Alps, when in that ascent there is no
peril? A man doomed to die stepped on the
scaffoId, and said in joy: Now, in ten
minutes will know the great secret" One
minute after the vital functions ceased, the
little child that died last night knew more
than Paul himself before he died. Friends,
the exit from this world, OF 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 catechism of doubt. and the unrolling
of all the scrolls of positive and accurate
information. 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 astron-
omy and theology. Oh, will it not be grand
| to have all questions answered? The per-
petually recurring interrogation point
changed for the mark of exclamation. All
riddles solved. Who will fear to go out on
that discovers, when ali the questions are
to be decided which we have been discuss
ing all our lives? Who shall not clap his
hands in the anticipation of that blessed
country, if 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, have an unlimited curiosity
about all religious things, and as this city
of Rome was so intimately connected with
apostolic times, the incidents of which en-
phasize and explain and augment the Chris
tian religion, you will not take it as an evil
dence of prying spirit, but as the outburst-
ing of Christian curiosity when say
must also see Rome.
MONUMENTS OF THE CENTURIES.
Our desire to visit this city is also intensl-
fed by the fact that we want to be confirmed
in the feeling that human life is brief, but
its work lasts for centuries, indeed forever.
Therefore, show US the antiquities of old
Rome, about which we have been reading
for lifetime, but never seen. In our be-
loved America, we have no antiquities. A
church so years old overawes us with its
age. We have in America some cathedrals
hundreds and thousands of years old, but
they are in Yellowstone Park, or California
canon, and their architecture and masonry
were by the omnipotent 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
40 or 20 years, but the arches they lifted, the
paintings they penciled, the sculpture they
chiseIed, the roads they laid out, 1 understand,
are vet to be seen, and we want you to show
them to us. 1 can hardly wait until Mon
day morning. l must also see Rome. We
want to be impressed with the fact that what
men do on small scale or large scale lasts
thousand years, lasts forever, that we build
for eternity and that we do so in a very
short space of time. God is the only old
living presence. But it is an old age with
out any of the infrmities or limitations of
old age. There is a passage of Scripture
which speaks of the birth of the mountains
for there was a time when the Andes we're
born, and the Pyrenees were born, and the
Sierra Nevadas were born, but before the
birth of those mountains the Bible tells us,
God was born, aye was never born at all,
because he always existed. Psalm xc 2:
"Belore the mountains were brought forth,
or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the
world, even from everlasting to everlasting,
thou art God"
GRAND BY COMPARISON.
How short is human life, what antiquity
attaches to its worthI How everlasting is
God! Show us the antiquities, the things
that were old when America was discovered,
old when Paul went up and down these
streets sightseeing, old when Christ was
born. l must, must also see Rome!
Another reason for our visit to this city is
that we want to see the places where the
mightiest intellects and the greatest natures
wrought for our Christian religion. We
have been told in America by some people
of swollen heads that the Christian religion
is a pusillanimous thing, good for children
under z years of age and small Drained peo-
pie, but not for the intelligent and swarthy
minded. We have heard OF your Constan-
tine the mighty, who pointed his army to
the cross, saying: "By this conquer" If
there be ANYTHING 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 labor
and suffer and die, there must be something
exalted and sublime and tremendous in it;
and show me every place he visited, and
show me if you can where he was tried, and |
which of your roads leads out to Ostia, that |
1 may see where he wentout to die. We ex-
pect before we finish this journey to see Lake |
Galilee and the places where Simon Peter |
and Andrew fished, and perhaps we may
drop net or hook and line into those |
waters ourselves, but when following the |
track of those lesser apostles will learn |
quite another lesson. 1 want while in this |
city of Rome to study the religion of the |
brainest of the apostles. want to follow, |
as far as we can trace it, the track of this |
great intellect of my text who wanted to see |
Rome also.
WHY HE WOULD INITIATE PAUL.
He was logician, he was a metaphysi-
clan, he was an all-conquering orator, he
was poet of the highest type. He had a
nature that could swamp the leading men
of his own day, and. hurled against the
Sanhedrim, he made it tremble. He learned
all he could get IN the school of his native
village, then he had gone to higher school
and there had mastered the Greek and the
Hebrew and perfected himself in bellies
lettres. until, in after years, he astounded
the Cretans and the Corinthians, and the
Athenlans, by quotations from their own
authors. have never found anything in
Carlyle, or Goethe, or Herbert Spencer
that could compare in strength or beauty
with Paul's epistles. 1 do not think there
is ANYTHING in the writings of Sir William
Hamilton that shows such mental discipline
as you find in Paul's argument about justi-
feation and resurrection. 1 have not
found anything in Milton finer in the
way OF imagination than I can find in
Paul's illustrations drawn from the amphi-
theater. There was nothing in Robert
Emmet pleading for his life, or in Edmund
Burke arraigning Warren Hastings in |
scene in the courtroom when, before robed
officials, Paul bowed and began his speech,
saving: 81 think myself happy, King
Agrippa, because shall answer for myself
this day." repeat, that religion that can
capture 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 Christianity. Where Paul
leads, we can afford to follow. 1 am glad to
know that Christ has, in the different ages
of the world, had in his discipleship a
Mozart and a Handel in music; a Raphael
and Reynolds in painting; an Angelo and
a Canova in sculptures Rush and Harvey
in medicine; Grotius and Washington in
craftsmanship; Blackstone, Marshall and
a Kent in the law; and
TILT rrrnrrr I'LL /