Dodge City times., 1889-11-28

J.
II be no better than through holy Gu
riosity? As this Paul of my text did NO
suppress his curiosity, We need not sup
press ours. Yes, l have an unlimited
curiosity about all religious things, ani
as this city of Rome was 80 intimatel,
connected with apostolic times, the in.
cidents of which emphasize and explain
and augment the Christian religion
you will not take it as an evidence OF ,
prying spirit, but as the outbursting o,
Christian curiosity when say I must
also see Rome.
Our desire to visit this city is also in
tensified by the fact that We want to bs
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 o lifetime. but
never seen. In our beloved America
We have no antiquities. A church
eighty years old overawes us with its
age. We have in America some cathe-
drals hundreds and thousands of wears
old, but they are in Yellowstone Park,
or Californian canon, and their archi-
lecture and masonary were BY the omni-
potent God. We want to see the build
ings, or ruins of old buildings, that
were erected hundreds and thousands
of years ago by human hands. They
lived forty or seventy years, but the
arches they lifted, the paintings they
penciled, the sculpture they chiseled,
the roads they laid out, understand,
are yet to be seen, and we want you to
show them to us. I can hardly wait
until Monday morning. must also see
Rome. We want to be impressed with
the fact that what men do on a small
scale or large scale lasts o thousand
years, lasts forever, that We build for
eternity end that we do SO in q very short
space of time. God is the only old living
presence. But it is an old age without
any of the infrmities or limitations of
Did age. There is a passage of Scrip
ture which speaks of the birth of the
mountains, for there was time when
the Andes were born, and the Pyrenees
were born, and the Sierra Nevadas were
born, but before the birth of the
mountains the Bible tells. us, God was
born, aye was never born 1t all, because
He always existed. Psalm &c, 2: Be-
fore the mountains were brought forth,
or ever thou hadst formed the earth and
the world, even from everlasting to
everlasting, thou art God" How short
is human life, what antiquity attaches
to its worth! 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 sight seeing, old when Christ
was born. must, I 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
fy,.a ~ ~ s,o i,1Ea g.
tian 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 years of age and small Drained
people, but not for the intelligent and
swarthy minded. We have heard of
pointed his army to the cross, saying:
q By this conquer" If there be anything
here connected with his reign or his
history, show it to us. The
mightiest intellect Of the ages was the
author of my text, and. if for the Chris
tian religion he was willing to labor and
suffer and die; there must be something
exalted and sublime and tremendous In
it; and how 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 l may see where he went
out to die. We expect before We finish
this journey to see Lake Galilee and the
places where Simon, Peter, and Andrew
tished, and perhaps We may drop q net
or hook and line into those waters
ourselves, but when following the track
of those lesser apostles will learn
quite another lesson. l want while in
this city OF Rome to study the religion
of the brainiest of the apostles. Iwant
to follow, as far as We can trace it,
the track of this great intellect of my
text who wanted to see Rome also. He
was a lOgician, he was meta
physician, he was an all conquering
orator, he was a poet of the highest
type. He had a nature that could
swamp the leading men of his own day,
and, hurled against the banhedfim, he
made it trembla. He learned all he
could get in the school of his native
village, then he had gone to a higher
school, and there had mastered the
Greek and the Hebrew and perfected
himself in bellies lettres, until, in after
FEARS, he astounded the Cretans, andthe
Corinthians, and the Athenians, bS
quotations from their own authors.
have never found anything in Carlyle,
Or Goethe, or Herbert Spencer that
could compare in strength or beauty
with Paurs epistles. l do not think
here is anything in the writings of Sir
William Hamilton that shows such mem
.al discipline as you find in Paurs argu-
nent about justification and resurrec-
lion. l have not found anything in Mil
ION finer in the way of imagination than
can find in Paurs illustrations drawn
from the amphitheater. There was
nothing in Robert Emmet pleading for
MS life, or in Edmund Burke arraigning
Warren Hastings in Westminster Hall,
hat compared with the scene in the
court room when. before robed officials,
Paul bowed and began his speech, say
ing: Il think myself happy.
King Agrippa, because shall
answer for myself this day" I re-
peat, that religion that can capture
nan like that must have some power in
t. 1t is time our wiseacres stopped
'alking as though all the brain
,f ;. the world were opposed to
We can afford to follow. lam glad to
Know that Christ Ihas, in the different
sges of the world, had in His disciple:
hip Mozart and Handel in music;
Raphael and Reynolds In painting; an
Angelo and Canova in sculpture; .
Rtsh and Harvey in medicine; a Gro
ius and Washington in statesman
'hip; Blackstone, Marshall, aud q
Kent in the law; and the time will come
when the religion of Christ will con-
luer all the observatories and univer-
titles, and philosophy will, through her
telescope, behold the morning star of
Iesus, and in her laboratory see that all
hings work together for good" and
Eith her geological hammer discern the
Rock of Ages" Oh, instead Of COVER
ng and shivering when the skeptic
tands before us, and talks of religion
IS though it were pusillanimous thing
instead of that, let us take out our
Sew Testament and read the story of
PAUL At Rome, or come and see this city
or ourselves, and learn that it could
rave been no weak Gospel that actuated
uch a man. but that it is an all con-
luerins Gospel Aye! for all ages the
,ower Of God and the wisdom of God
into salvation.
Men, brethren, and fathers! I thank |