Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1889-07-05
He armies of the Lord

80. IF tba worlds science, and from
10 h;oLast towers have flung out the
hanneT of the cross. and Christianity to-
niuht. from the observatorles OF Albany
md Washington. stretches out It's mana
toward the opposing sclentlhc weapon
crying There is none ilke tha'' give
II me,n ! was reading this afternoon
of Herscbel. whowas looking at n meteor
thronoh telescope, and when it came
over fhe face of the telescope it was so
nowerf,l he had to avert his eyes. And
it has been lust so that many an astron-
omer has gone into an observatory and
looked mn into the midnight Heavens,
and the Lord God has, through some
swinging world. famed upon his vision,
and the learned man cried out: who
am 1? Undone. Unclean! Have mercy,
/ Lord God!'
Again. remark. that the travelling dis
position of the world, which was averse
to morals and religion, is to be brought
on our side. The man that went down
to Jericho and fell amidst thieves was
type of great many travellers. There
! is many a man who is very honest at
home who, when he is abroad, has his
! honor tilched and his good habits stolen.
There are but very few men who can
stand the stress of an expedition. Six
weeks at watering place has damned
I many q man. In the olden times God
forbade the travelling OF men for the
purposes of trade because of the COR
rupting influences attending it. A good
many men now cannot stand the transit
ton from one place to another. Some
men who seem to be very consistent at
| home in the way of keeping the Sab
bath, when they got into Spain, on the
Lords day always go out to see the bull
fights. Plato said that no city ought to
/ be built nearer to the sea than ten miles,
lest it be tempted to commerce But
this travelling disposition of the world,
4 which was adverse to that which is good,
/ is to be brought on our side. These
/ rail trains, why, they are to take our
Bibles; these steamboats,, they are to
transport our missionaries; these sailors
rushing from city to city all around the
world, are to be converted into Chris
tian heralds and go out and preach
Christ among the heather nations. The
Gospels are infinitely multiplied in
beauty and power since Robinson, and
Thompson, and Burckhardt have come
back and talked to us about Sloan. and
Capernaum, and Jerusalem, pointing out
to us the lilies about which Jesus
preached, the beach upon which Paul
was shipwrecked, the fords at which
Jordan was passed, the Red Sea bank on
which were tossed the carcasses Of the
drowned Egyptians. A man said: Il
came back q Christian. 1 could not
help it,"
I an cot shocked ct the idea of build
ing railroad to the Holy Land. wish
that all the world might go and see
Golgotha and Bethlehem. IT we cannot
afford to pay for muleteers now, perhaps
when the rail train goes we can afford to
buy a ticket from Constantinople to
Joppa, and SO we will getto see the Holy
Land. Then let Christians travel! God
speed the rail trains, and guide the
steamships this night painting across the
deep in the phosphorescent wake of the
shining feet of Him who, from wave
cliff to wave cliff trod the stormed
Tiberias. The Japanese come across the
water and see our civilization, and ex-
anime our Christianity, and go back and
tell the story, and keep that empire
rocking until Jesus shall reign
Where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys rum
And the firearms, with which the in
tidel traveller brought down the Arab
horseman and the jackals of the desert,
have been surrendered to the church,
and we reach forth our hands, crying:
There is none like that give it me-"
SO it has also been with the learning
and the eloquence of the world. Peo-
pie say: Religion is very good for wo-
men, it is very good for children, but
not for men," But we have in the roll
of Christs host Mozart and Handel in
music; Canova and Angelo in sculpture
Raphael and Reynolds in painting; Har-
vey and Boerhaave in medicine; Cowpe,
and Scott in poetry; Crotius and Burke in
statesmanship; Boyle and Leibnitz in
philosophy; Thomas Chalmers and J ohm
Mason in theology. The most brilliant
aglow with scriptural illusions.
Through senatorial speech and through
essyaist's discourse Sinai thunders and
Calvary pleads and Sloan sparkles.
Samuel l.. Southland was mighty in the
court room and in the Senate Chamber,
but he reserved his strongest eloquence
for that day when he stood before the
literary societies at Princeton COM
mencement and pleaded forthe grandeur
Of our Bible. Daniel Webster won not
his chief garlands while he was consum-
ing Hayne, nor when he opened the
batteries of his eloquence on Bunker
Hill, that rocking Sinai of the Anne rican
revolution. but on that day when. in the
famous Girard will case, he showed his
affection for the Christian religion an d
eulogiZed the Bible. The eIoauence
and the learning that have been on the
other side came over to our side. Where
is Gibbons historical pen? Where is
Robespierres sword? Captured for God.
) There is none like that; give it me!'
So, also, has it been with the picture
making of the world. We are very
!, anxious on this day to have the printing
press and the platform on the side of
Christianity; but we overlook the en-
graver's knife and the painters pencil.
The antiquarian goes and looks at
pictured ruins, or examines the chiseled
pillars of Thebes, and Nineveh, and
,, Pompeii. and then comes back to tell us
OF the beastliness of ancient art and it
is fact now, that many of the finest
specilnens-merely artistically consid-
ered-of sculpture and painting that are
to be found amidst those ruins are not
tit to he looked at and they are locke d
up. How Paul must have felt, when.
standing amidst those impurities that
) stared on him from the wallis and the
pavements and the bazars of Corintb.
he preached Of the pure and holy esus.
! The art of the world on the side of OBJ
scenity ana crime and death,