Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1889-11-29
BY MOONLIGHT.
Eeroon by Rev. T. De Witt Tai.
mage, D. D.
The Intensity of Church Ahection-A
knowledge of Existing Ruin Necessary
to an Understanding of Redemption
Busy and Triumphant Sadness.

! light The Coliseum is far more fascinat-
1 ing to the traveller after shutdown than be-
| fore. You may stand by daylight amid the
monastic ruins of Melrose Abbey, and
study shafted orieI, and rosetted stone and
mullion, but they throw their strongest
/ witchery by moonlight Some of you re.
member what the enchanter of Scotland
said in the Lay of the Last Minstrel:
'Woudst thou view fair Melrose Alright
| Go visit it by the pale moonlight"
! Washington Irving describes the Anda-
lusian moonlight upon the Alhambra ruins
as amounting to an enchantment My text
presents you Jerusalem in ruins. The
tower down The gates down. The walls
down. Every thing down. Nehemiah on
/ horseback, by moonlight looking upon the
ruins While he rides there are some
friends on foot going with him, for they dc
not want the many horses to disturb the
suspicious of the people. These people do
not know the secret of Nehemiah's heart
but they are going as a sort Of bOdy-guard.
| hear the clicking hoofs of the horse on
which Nehemiah rides, as he guides ii
this way and that, winding through that
gate amid the debris of once great Jerusa-
! lem. Now the horse comes to a dead halt
at the tumbled masonry where he can no.
pass. Now he SHES off at the charre
! timbers. Now he comes along where the
water under the moonlight flashes from the
mouth of the brazen dragon after which the
gate was named. Heavy artedNehemiahl
Riding in and out, now by his old home des-
olated, now by the defaced temple, now amid
| the scars of the city that had gone down I'M
der battering ram and confagration- Tbs
escorting party knows what Nehemiah
means. Is he getting crazy? Have his own
! narGpnal added n the nj
the nation unbalanced his intellect? Stih
the midnight exploration goes on. Nehe-
miah on horseback rides through the fish
gate, by the tower of the furnaces, by the
kings pool by the dragon well, in and ont,
| In and out until the midnight ride is COM
| pleted, and Nehemiah dismounts from his
horse, and to the amazed and COMPOUNDED
| and increduious body guard declares the
dead secret of his heart when he says: Come,
now, let us build Jerusalem" What, Ne
hemiah, have you any money!" No"
Have you any kingly authority" mo. ~
Have you any eloquence?" No" Yet
that midnight moonlight ride of Nehemiah
resulted in the glorious rebuilding of the
city of Jerusalem. The people knew not
how the thing was to be done, but with
great enthusiasm they cried out: Let us
rise up now and build the cityi" Some
DtDJlt eau IL COulu not DC uOn6.
Some people were infuriate and offered
physical violence, saying the thing should
not be done But the workmen went
right on, standing on the wall, troweIin one
hand, sword in the other, until the work
was gloriously completed. At that very
time, in Greece, Xenophon was writing O
history, and Plato was making philosophy,
and DemOsthenes was rafting bis rhetorical
thunder but all of them together did not
do so much for the world as this midnight
( moonlight ride of praying, courageous,
| homesicl<. cose-mouthed Nehemiah
! My subject first impresses me with the
idea what an intense thing is church affec-
! ton Seize the bride OF that horse and
stop Nehemiah. Why are you risking your
| lif.- acre in the night? Your horse will
stumble over these ruins and fall on you.
| Stop this useless exposure of your life No;
Nehemiah will not stop. He at last tells us
the whole story He lets us know he was
m exile in a far distant land, and he was a
servant, a cup bearer in the palace of
Artaxerxes Longimanus and one day
while he was handing the cup of wine
to the King the King said to him;
What is the matter with you? You are not
sick know you have some great trouble.
/ What is the matter with your" Then he
told the King how that beloved Jerusalem
was broken down; how that his fathers
tomb had been deseCrated; how that the
temple had been dishOnOred and defaced;
( how that the walls were scattered and
/ broken "Welln says King Artaxerxes
what do you WANT" Well" said the
cup-bearer, Nehemiah, II want to go home
want to fix up the grave of my father
want to restore the beauty of the temple
want to rebuild the masonry of the city
! wall Besides, l want passports so that
will not be hindered in my Journey. And
! besides that, as yoU will find in the con.
/ text, II want an order ON the man who
I keeps your forest for Just so much timber
/ as l may need for the rebuilding of the
| city" How long shall you be gomez" saiC
! the King. The time of absence Is arranged
/ In hot haste this seeming adventurer comes
/ TO Jerusalem, and in my text we find hin
| on horseback, in the midnight, riding
! around the ruins. 1t is through the spec
tacles of this scene that we discover the ar
/ dent attachment of Nehemiah for sacred
Jerusalem, which in all ages has been tn.
/ type of the church of God, our Jerusalem
| which we love lust as much as Nehemiah
! loved his Jerusalem. The fact is that yol
| love the church of God so much that there
| is no spot on earth so sacred, unless it i
| your own freside The church has been to
| you SO much comfort and illumination tha
! there is nothing that makes you SO irate a
| to have 1t talked against If there have beer
, times when YOU have been carried into cap
tivity by sickness, you longed for TIL
church, our holy Jerusalem, Just as much n
! Nehemiah longed for his Jerusalem, ant
the first day you came out you came to tn
house of the Lord. When the temple
was in ruins as ours was year.
ago, like Nehemiah you wake,
around and looked at it, and in th'
moonlight you stood listening If you coult
not hear the voice of the dead organ, tn
| psalm of the expired Sabbaths. What Jerusa
lem was to Nehemiah the church of God is t
you. Skeptics and intidels may scott at tn
church rs an obsolete affair as a relic of tn
dark ages, as a convention of goody good
people, but all the impression they hav
ever made on your mind against the churc
! of God is absolutely nothing. Yo
would make more sacrifices for
| to day than for any other insti
| tuition, and il il were needful yo
would die In its defense. You can take tn
words of the kingly Cd poet as he said: u
/ forget thee, o Jerusalem, let my RICH
hand forget her cunning" You understan
in your own experience the pathos, tn
Inconsistencies, the courage, the holy en-
thusiasm of Nehemiah in his midnight
moonlight ride around the ruins of his be
loved Jerusalem.
Again my text impresses me with til
fact that before reconstruction there mu,
be am exploration OF ruins Why was ne
Nehemiah asleep under the coversg VIII
was not his horse stabbed in the midnight
Let the police of the city arrest this miC
night rider out on some mischief No. NJ
hemiah is going to rebuild the city, and
is making the preliminary exploration. |
this gate, out that gate-east west nortl
south-all through the ruins The ruin
must be explored before the work of recor
struction can begin. The reason that s
many people in this day. apparently cor
Verted, do not stay converted is becauS
they did not first explore the ruins of the
own heart The reason that there are
many profeSsed Christians who in this ds
lie and forge and steal and commit adulter
and go TO the penitentiary is because the
FIRST do not learn the ruin of their ow
heart They have not found out that ''tt
heart is deceittul above all things and de-
perately wicked" They had an idea tn,
they were almost right and the
built religion as a sort of extension,
an ornamental cupola There was supe,
structure OF religion built on
suhstratum Of unrepentsd sins. The troub
with good deal of modern theology
that instead of building on the right fouI
dation it builds on the debris of an unr,
generated nature They attempt 20 rebuff
NNy~e