Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1889-03-08

rompeii have only been the upcIasp-
ing OF the lids Of a volume Of a nations dust
When Admiral Farragut and his friends, a
rev years ago, visited that resurrected city,
tne house of Balbo, who had been one of its
en- et citizens in its prosperous DAYS, was
opened and table was spread in that house
which eighteen hundred and ten wears has
been buried by volcanic eruption, and Farra-
gut and his guests walked over the
exquisite mosaics and under the beautiful
fresco and it almost seemed like being enter
tanned 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
Epamimondas and Tamerlane and Tro-
Jan and Philip of Macedon and Julius
C8sarl Dust Where are the heroes
who fought on both sides at ChRronea, at
Hastings, at Marathon. at Cressy, of the no.
900 men who fought at Agncourt, or the
$50, 600 men who faced death at jena of the
100000 whose armor glittered in the sun at
Wragram, of the |, 000, 0l0 men under Darius
at Arbella, OF the 2, 641, 0O0men under Xerxes
at ThermopylRl Dustl
Where are the guests who danced the floors
of the Alhambra, or the Persian palaces Of
Ahasuerusl Dustl 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 cent les ex-
cept our ownl Dustl The greatest
library of the world, that which has
the widest shelves and the longest aisles
and the most multitudinous volumes
and the vastest wealth, is the underground
library. 1t is the royal library, the con-
tinental 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 a 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 display it. And the volume
will be rebound, to b. set in the royal Ii
brary of the Kings palace, or in the prison
library of the self destroyed Oh, this
mighty literature of the dustl It is not so
wonderful after all that Christ chose, instead
of an inkstand, the impressionable sand on
the floor of an ancient temple, and, instead
of a hard pen, put forth His forefinger with
the same kind of nerve, and muscle, and
BONE and flesh, as that which makes up our
own forefnger, and wrote the awful doom
of hypocrisy and full and complete Forgive
ness 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 poor waif of the street
entered. The aged woman said to her: "Sit
down by the nre," 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 a
dozen times night, open the door and
look out into the darkness and cry:
'Lizzie Lzzie! 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 seeml oh, my
can it bel Yes, you are Lizzie, my own lost
child. Thank God that you are home again p'
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 household, wrote the
same liberating 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
million abreast on white horses, nostril to
uostril, flank to flank.