Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-02-28

cut into monumental granite wi the let
| ters that the storms of q thousand years
can not obliterate. Bishop Darlington had
book of only three leaves The first leaf
was black, the second leaf red, the third
leaf white. Tie black leaf suggested sin;
the red leaf atonement; the white leaf
publication. That is the whole story.
God will abundantly pardon.
must not forget to say that as Christ,
STOPPING down, with His finger wrote on
the ground, it is evident that His SYM
pathies are with this penitent woman,
that He has no sympathy with her hypo-
critical pursuers. just opposite to that is
the worlds habit Why didn't these un-
clean Pharisees bring one of their own
number to Christ for excoriation and
capital punishment? No, no; they over
look that in a man which they damnate in
a woman. And so the world has had for
| offending women scourges and objurga-
tion. and for just one oFense she becomes
an outcast, while for men whose lives have
been sodomic for twenty years the world
swings open its doors of brilliant welcome,
and they may sit in Legislatures and Sem
ates and Parliaments or on thrones. Un-
like the Christ Of my text the world
writes a mans misdemeanor in dust, but
chisels a woman's offense with great
capitals upon ineffaceable marble. For for
eign Lords and Princes. whose names can
not even be mentioned in respectable
circles abroad because they are walking
lazarettos of abomination, our American
princesseS of fortune wait, and at the first
beck sail out with them into the blackness
of darkness forever. And in what are
called higher circles of society there Is
now not only the imitation of foreign ma1-
ners, but an imitation of foreign disso-
luteness. like an Englishman anu l like
an American, but the sickest creature on
earth is an American playing the En-
gIishman. Society needs to be recon-
structed 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 the other in dust. No,
no, says the world; let woman go down
and let man go up. What is that / hear
splashing into the East river at midnj ght,
and then there is gurgle as of strangu-
lation and all is still? Never mind; It is
only a woman too discouraged to live.
Let the mills of the cruel world grind
right on.
But while speak of Christ of the ssxt,
His STOPPING down writing in the dust, do
not think l underrate the literature OF the
dust. 1t is the most solemn and tremend-
Gus OF all literature. 1t is the greatest of
all libraries. When Layard exhumed
Ninevah he was only opening the door OF
its mighty dust The excavations Of Pom
peii have only been the unclasping of the
lids of a volume of Nations dust. When
Admiral Farragut and his friends. = few
years ago, visited that resurrected city
fh,oh Of p1lA
its chief citizens in its prosperous days, |
was opened and a table was spread in that
house which 1, $40 years had beek buried |
by volcanic eruption, and FarraSut and
his guests walked over the equisite mo. |
saics and under the beautiful fresco, and
it almost seemed like being entertained
by those who eighteen centuries ago
had turned to dust. o, this mighty liter |
ature of the dust! Where are tho remains
of Sennacherib and Attila and Epaminon-
das and Tamerlane and Trojan and |
Philip of Macedon and Julius Caesar
Dust! Where the heroes who fought on
both sides at Charonea, at Hastings, at
Marathon, at Cressy, of the 10 900 men
who fought at Agincourt, of the 250,0
men who faced death at Jena, Of the 400
600 men whose armor glittered in the sun
at Wagram. of the 1000, 900 D'en under
Darius at Arbella, of the 2,6AlG00 men
under Xerxes at ThermOpy.se: Dust
Where are the guests who danced the |
floors of the Alhambra, or the Persian |
palaces of Ahasuerus: Dust! Where |
are the musicians who played and /
the orators who spoke. and the |
sculptors who chiseled, and the architects
who built in all the centuries except our
own? Dust! The great library of the
world, that which has the widest shelves
and the longest ases and the most multi
tudinous volumes and the vastast wealth,
is the underground library. 1t is the royal
library, the continental library, the hemis-
phere 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 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 display it.
And the volume will be rebound to be set
in the.royal library of the self destroyed.
o, this mighty literature of the dust! 1t
is not so wonderful, after all. that Christ
chose. instead of an inkstand, the impress
SlOHdDlt Sduu On OHc IOOI VI tAh
temple and instead of hard pen, put
forth his forefnger with the same kind of,
nerve and muscle, and bone, and flesh
and wrote the awful doom of hypocrisy
and full and complete forgiveness for re-
pentant sinners, even the worst.
And now l can believe that which read,
how that mother kept burning a candle
in the window every night for ten years,
and one night very late 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 Window" The aged woman
said: THAT is to light my wayward
daughter when she returns. Since she
went away ten years ago, my hair has
turned white. Folks blame me for worry
ing about her, but you see | am her mother,
and sometimes, half dozen times night
l open the door and look out into
the darkness and cry: ''Lizzie!
Lizziew But 1 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! o. my! can it be? Yes,
you are Lizzie, my own lost child. Thank
God that you are home again" And
W hat time of rejoicing there was in that
house that hight! And Christ 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 lberating words
that He had written more than eighteen
hundred years ago in the dust of the
Jerusalem temple. Forgiveness! A word
broad enough and high enough to let pass
through it all the armies of Heaven, a
Il. L. .f,-sI g. 1