The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1890-12-20

foundations of the earth and twist and
clinch themselves on the other side Of
the deepest layer of rock they can
reach. And that is the difference be-
tween Christians who stand and Chris
tians who fall. 1t is the difference
between a superficial character and one
that has clutched it's roots deep down
around and under the Roc k Of Ages.
One Of he Leba non cedars was
examined by a scientist and, from its
%concentric circles, 1t was found to be
8, 500 years old and still standing, and
there Is such a thing as everlasting
strength, and such a ~staunchuess of
Christian character that all time and
all eternity instead OF being its demoli-
ton shall be it's opportunity. Not such
are those Facilitating Christians who are
so pious on Sunday that they have no
religion left for the week day. AS the
anaconda gorges itself with food and
hen seems for a long time to lie
thoroughly insensible. so there are men
who will on Sunday got such a religious
surfeit that the rest Of the week they
seem thoroughly dead to all religious
emotion.
The reason that God planted these
cedars in the Bible was to suggest to US
that we ought, in our religious charac-
ter, be deep like the cedar. high like
the cedar, broad branched as the cedar.
A t~raveler measured the spread Of the
boughs of one Of these trees and found
1t Ill feet from branch tip to branch
tip, and | nave seen cedars of Christian
character that through their prayers
and charities put out n branch to the
uttermost parts of America and another
branch to the uttermost parts of Asia,
and these wide-branched Christians will
keep on multiplying until all the earth
is overshadowed with mercy. But mark
you, these cedars of Lebanon could not
grow if planted in mild climates and
soft air. and IN carefully watered gar
dens They must have the gymnasium
and the midnight hurricane to develop
their arms. They must play the athlete
with a thousand winters before their
feet are rightly planted and their fore
heads rightly lifted and their arms
rightly muscled. And if there be any
other way for developing strong Chris
tian character except by storms Of
trouble I never heard OF it.
Men and who hear this or read
this, instead Of your grumbling because
you have 1t hard, thank God that you
are in just the best school for making
heroes and heroines. 1t is true both
for this world and the next. Rock that
baby in a cradle cushioned and canopied;
graduate him from that into a costly
high chair and give him a gold spoon;
send him to school wrapped in furs
enough for an C tic explorer; send him
through a college where he will not
have to study in order to get a diploma,
because his father Is rich; start him in
n profession where he begins with an
office, the foor covered with Axmin-
lister, and a library of books in Russian
morocco, and an arm chair upholstered
like a throne, and on embroidered otto
man upon which to put his twelve-dol-
lar CATERS, and then lay upon his table
the best ivory cigar holder you can i'm
port from Brussels, and have standing
outside his door a prancing span that won
the prize at the horse fair, and leave
him estate enough to make him indie
pendent of all struggle, and what will
become of him? II he do not die early
of inanition or dissipation, he will live
q useless life, and die an unlamented
death and go into a FOOLS eternity.
Butwnat has been the history of most
of the great cedars in merchandise, in
art, in law. in medicine, in statesman
ship. in Christian usefulness? "John,
get up and milk the cows; it's late; it's
half-past five in the morning. Split an
armful of wood on your way out Sc that
we can build the fires for breakfast"
The boys educational advantages, q
long oak plank without any back to 1t,
in country school house, and stove
throwing out more smoke than heat
Pressing on from n hardship to an
other. But after a good while fairly on
your feet, and your opportunities widen
ing, and then by some sudden turn you
are triumphant. You are master OF the
situation and defiant of all earth and
hell. A Lebanon cedar!
When in Punishment Xenophen wrote
his Anabasis and ~Thucydides his His
tory Of the Peloponnesian War;" and
Victor Hugo must be exiled for many
years to the island Of Guernsey before
be can come to that height in the al
fections of his countrymen, that crowds
Champs Elysees, and the adjoining
boulevards with LOCO, 900 mourners, as
his hearse rolls down to the church Of
the Madeleine. Oh, 1t Is a tough old
world and it will keep you back and
keep you down, and keep you under as
long as it can. Hail, ions and daugh-
ters OF the firel
Stand, as the anvil when the stroke OF stat
wart men falls fierce and fast.
Storms but more deeply root the oak whose
brawny arms embrace the blast.
Stand like an anvil; noise and heat are born
of earth and die with time;
The soul, like God, its source and seat, 10
solemn, still, serene, sublime.
Thirty years from now the foremost
men in all occupations and professions
will be those who are this hour in awful
struggle Of early life, many of them
without five dollars to their name. So
in spiritual life it takes a course Of be.
reavements, prosecutions. sickness and
losses to d~evelope stalwart Christian
character.
The Bible speaks Of the SHOWS of
Lebanon, and at this season of the year
the SHOWS there must be Tremendous
The deepest snow ever seen in America
would be insignificant compared with
the mildest winter of SHOWS on those
Lebanon mountains The cedars catch
that skyfull OF crystals on their brow
and on their long arms. Piled up in
great hefts are those SHOWS, enough to
crush other trees to the ground, split
ting the branches from the trunk and
leaving them rent and torn never to
rise. But they withstand all SHOWS
So / say: Good cheer to all who are
showed under. Put your faith in God
and you will come out g~loriously.
Others may be stunted growths or weak
jumpers on the lower levels of spirit
uality, but you are going to be Lebanon
cedars. At last 1t will be said of such
as you: These are they who came out
of great tribulation and had their robes
washed and made white in the blood Of
the Lamb"
But while crossing over these noun
tains of Lebanon | bethink myself Of
what an exciting seem 1t must be when
one of the cedars does fall 1t does not
go down like other trees, with q slight
crackle that hardly makes the woods
man look up, or a hawk fiutter from a
neighboring bough. When a cedar falls
it Is the great event In the calendar OF
the mountains So when the great
cedars OF worldly or Chr. stan influence
fall 1t is something terrific. Within
the past few years how many mighty
and overlapping men have rome
down. There seems now to be an epi-