Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-11-09

earthy Because it is the queen city of
churches.
Blindfold me and lead me into any city
Of the earth so that cannot see a street or
a warehouse or n home and then lead ms
into the churches and then remove the
bandage from my eyes, and will tell you
from what | see inside the consecrated
walls, having seen nothing outside, what
is that city's merchandise, its literature,
its schools, its printing presses, its govern
ment, its homes, its arts, it's sciences, it's
prosperity or its depression, and igno-
rance and pauperism and outlawry. The
altar of God in the church is the high
water mark Of the worlds happiness. The
Christian religion triumphant, all other
interests triumphant. The Christian reli-
gion low down, all other interests low
down. So | thought on the evening of
that day we stepped from the filthy streets
of LaruaCa, Cyprus, onto the boat that
took us back to the steamer Minerva,
which had already begun to paw the waves
like a courser impatient to be gone, and
then we moved on and up among the is
lands of this Gospel archipelago
Night came down on land and sea and
the voyage became to me more and more
suggestive and solemn. If you are pacing
1t alone a ships deck in the darkness and
at sea is "A weird place, and an active imagi-
nation may con1ure up almost any shape
he will, and it shall walk the sea or con-
front him by the smokestack or meet him
under the captains bridge. But here |
was alone on ships deck in the Gospel ar
chipelago, and do you wonder that the sea
was populous with the past and that down
the ratlines Bible memories descended?
Our friends had all gone to their berths.
captain" said, "when will we arrive at
the Island of Rhodesp" Looking out from
under his glazed cap, he responded in sepul.
Chral voice, "About midnight" Though
it would be keeping unreasonable hours,
| concluded to stay on deck, for | must see
Rhodes, one of the islands associated with
the name of the greatest missionary the
world ever saw or ever will see Paul
landed there, and that was enough to make
it famous while the world stands, and IA
nous in heaven when the world has be-
come a charred wreck.
A WONDERFUL HISTORY.
This island has had wonderful history
With six thousand Knights of st. john it
at one time stood out against two hundred
thousand warriors under "Solyman the
Magnificent The city had three thou
sand statues, and statue to Apollo called
Colossus, which has always since been con
sidered one of the seven wonders of the
world. 1t was twelve years in building
and was seventy cubits high, and had
winding stairs to the top. 1t stood fifty
six years and then was FRUSTRATED by an
earthquake. After lying in ruins for nine
hundred years, it was purchased to be con
verified to other purposes, and the metal,
weighing seven hundred and twenty thou.
sand pounds was put on nine hundred
camels and carried away We were not
permitted to 90 ashore, but the lights all
up and down the hills show where the city
stands, and nine boats come out to take
freight and to bring three passengers. Yet
all the thousands of years of its history are
eclipsed by the few hours ordays that Paul
stopped there.
As | stood there on the deck of the
Minerva, looking out upon the place
where the Colossus once stood, | bethought
myself of the fact that the world must
have a God of some kind. 1t is to me an
infinite pathos-this Colossus not only of
Rhodes, but the colossi in many parts of
the earth. This is only the worlds blind
reaching up and feeling after God. Eoun-
ural arm to help it ashore. All the statues
and images of heathendom are attempts
to bring celestial forces down into human
affairs, Blessed be our ears that we have
heard of an ever present God, and that
through Jesus Christ he comes into our
hearts and our homes, and with more than
fatherly and mothery interest and atfec
ton he is with us in all our struggles and
via nd,
needs something higher than the Colos
sus, and the day will come when the
Christ whom Paul was serving when he
sailed into the harbor of Rhodes, shall
take possession of that island.
As we move on up through this archi- |
pelago, am reminded of what an impor-
tant part the islands have taken in the |
history of the world. They are necessary
to the balancing of the planet. The two |
must have them. AS you put |
down upon n scale the heavy pound |
and then the small ounces-and |
no one thinks of despising the small |
the continents are the pounds |
aud the islands are the ounces. A CONT |
neut is only a larger island, and an island |
only smaller continent. Something of
what part the islands have taken in the |
worlds history you will see when | remind |
YOU that the Island of Salamis produced |
Scion, and that the Island of Chios pro |
duced Homer, and the Island of Samos |
produced Pythagoras, and the Island of |
Coos produced Hippocrates.
HE LONGED TO SEE PATMos.
But there is one island that | louged to |
see more than any other. can afford to |
miss the princes among the islands, but ! |
must see the king Of the archipelago. The |
one louged to see is not so many m IS in |
as Cyprus or Crete or Raros |
or NaNOs or Scio or Mitylene, but had |
rather, in this sail through the Grecian |
see that than all the others; |
for more Of the glories of heaven landed |
there than on all the islands and continents |
since the world stood, As we come toward |
it | feel my pulses quicken. 81, John, was |
in the island that is called Patmos." 1t is
Il pile of rocks twenty eight miles in cir
\ few expresses and inferior |
olives pump a living out of the earth, and |
one palm tree spreads it's foliage. But the |
barrcuness and gloom and loneliness of the |
island made it prison for the banished |
evangelist.
Domitian could not stand his ministry, |
and one day, under armed guard, that !
minister of the Gospel stepped from toss
ing boat to these dismal rocks and walked |
up to the dismal cavern which was to be
his home and the place where should pass
before him all the conflicts of coming time |
and all the raptures of coming eternity. !
Is it net remarkable that nearly all the |
great revelations of music and poetry ana |
religion have been made TO men in Danish
and Milton banished into |
Beethoven banished into deaf |
ness; Dante writing his "Divina Com |
media during the nineteen years of ban
ishment from his native land; Victor Hugo