The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-11-20

sea, and the voyage became TO me NOR
and more suggestive and solemn.
you are pacing it alone, ships decl
in the darkness and at sea is weir,
place, and an active imagination MAJ
conjure up almost any shape he will
and it shall walk the sea, or confron
him by the smokestack, or meet hin
under the captains bridge But here
was alone on ships deck in the gospe
archipelago and do you wonder tina
the sea was populous with the past anC
that down the ratlines Bible memo
ries descended? Our friends had al
gone to their berths- Captain,
1 said, "when will we arrive al
the Island of Rhodes?" Looking
out from under his glazed cap, he
responded in sepulchral voice, "About
midnight" Though it would be keep.
ing unreasonable hours. concluded to
stay on deck, for 1 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 famous in Heaven when the world
has become charred wreck.
This island has had a wonderful his
tory. With G, 900 Knights of st. John,
| it at one time stood out against 200, 600
warriors under "Solyman the Magnif-
cent" The city had 5000 statues, and
a statue to Apollo called Colossus,
which has always since been consid-
cred one of the seven wonders of the
world. 1t was twelve years in build
ing and seventy cubits high, and had a
winding stairs to the top. 1t stood
fifty-six years and then was Frustrated
by an earthquake. After lying in ruins
for 900 years it was purchased to be
converted to other purposes, and the
metal, weighing 72O,O pounds, was
put on 900 camels and carried away.
We were not permitted to go 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 or days that
Paul stopped there. AS stood there
on the deck of the Minerva, looking out
upon the place were 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.
Foundered human nature must have a
supernatural 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 motherlv interest and af-
lection He is with us in our struggles
and bereavements and vicissitudes.
Rhode needs something higher
than the Colossus, and the day will
come when the Christ whom Paul was
serving when he sailed into this harbor
of Rhodes, shall take possession of that
island.
AS we move on up through this ar
chipelago l am reminded of what an
important part the islands have taken
in the history of the world They are
necessary to the balancing of the
planet The two hempispheres must
have them. As you put down upon a
scale the heavy pound weights, and
then the small ounces, and no one
thinks of despising the small weights,
so the continents are the pounds and
the islands are the ounces. A CONT
nent is only a large island and an island
only a smaller continent Something
of what part the islands have taken in
the worlds history you will see when 1
remind you that the island of Salamis
produced Scion and the island of Samos
produced Pvthagoras and the island of
Coos produced Hippocrates-
But there is one island that / longed
to see more than any other. can af-
ford to miss the princes among the
islands, but | must see the king of the
Archipelago The one ! longed to see
is not so many miles in circumference
as Cyprus or Crete or Paros or Naxos
or Scio or Mitylene, but / had rather.
in this sail through the Grecian Ar
chipelago, 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 pile of
rocks twenty-eight miles in circumfer-
s-fa
olives pump living out of the earth,
and one palm tree spreads it foliage.
But the barrenness and gloom and
loneliness of the island made it a
prison for the banished evangelist.
Domitian could not stand his ministry
and one day, under armed guard, that
minister of the gospel stepped from n
tossing 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 the coming eternity. Is it
not remarkable that nearly all the
great revelations of music and poetry
and religion have been made to men
in observation-disclosures and Milton ban
ished into blindness; Beethoven BAN
ished into deafness; Dante writing
his "Divana Commedia" during his
nineteen years of Punishment from his
native land; Victor Hugo writing his
LES Miserables" exiled from home and
country on the island of Guernsey and
the brightest visions of the future have
been given to those who by sickness or
sorrow were exiled from the outer
world into rooms of suffering Only
those who have been imprisoned by
very hard surroundings have had great
revelations made to them. So Patmos,
wild, chill and bleak and terrible was
the best island in all the archipelago,