The Opelousas courier., 1891-02-14

rakes, steam tareshers, and the work is ac-
complished. The forests of the earth fail to
afford sufficient fuel, and 30 the coal mines
surrender a sufficiency. The cotton crops
were luxuriant, but Of comparatively little
value, for they could not be managed; and
SO, at just the right time, Hargreaves came
with his invention of the spinning Jenny,
then Arkwright with hisroller, and Whitney
with his cotton gin. The world, after pot
tering along with tallow candles and whale
oil, was crying for better light and more of
it, and the hill of Pennsylvania poured out
rivers of oil, and kerosene ulumined the ma
tions. But the oil wells began to fall and
then the electric light forth 30 turn
night into day.
So all events are woven together, and the
world is magniicently governed, because it
is divinely governed. We c~riticise things
and think the divine machinery is going
wrong, and put our fingers amid the wheels
only to get them crushed. But ] say, hands
off Things are coming out gloriously. Cor
nelius may be In Csesarea, and Peter IL
Joppa, but their dreams meet. 1t is one
hand that is managing the world, and that is
Gods hand: and one mind that la nianninn
all things Tor good, and Gnat is God's mind;
and one heart that is filed with love and
pardon and sympathy, and that is Gods
heart. lave faith in Him. Fret about moth
ing. Things are not at loose n There
l arc no aCC1u6QUSs ALI VIII COII6 Oub EipHb1 Ill
your history and in the world. As you are
waking from one dream up stairs an ex-
planatory dream will be knocking at the gate
down stairs.
Standing here In Joppa I remember that
where we this morning d~isembarked the
prophet Jonah embarked. For the first time
In my life I fully understood that story.
God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, but the
prophet declined that call and came here to
Joppa. was for weeks, while in the Holy
Land, consulting with tourist companies as
to how I could take Nineveh In my journey.
They did not encourage the undertaking. 1t
ig a most tedious ride to Nineveh amid a
desert. Now / see an additional reason why
Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh. He
not only revolted because it was a long way
and tough, and bandit infested, SO he came
here to Joppa and took ship. But, alas, for
the disastrous voyagel He paid his full fare
for the whole voyage, but the ship company
did not fill their part of the contract. 70
this day they nave not paid back that pas
sage money. Why people should doubt the
story of Jonah and the whale is more of a
mystery thar the Bible event itself. | do
not need the fact that Pliny, the historian,
records that the skeleton of a whale forty
feet long, and with a hide a foot and a half
thick, was brought from Joppat to Rome.
The event recorded in the book of Jonah
UHS OCCuTTGu d UuOuS5uu l1uKS6s Au6 OId
always has a whale outside the habor for a
man who starts In the wrong direction. Rec
reant Jonahl I do not wonder that even the
whale was sick of him. This prophet was
put in the Bible not as an example, but as a
warning, because the world not only needs
lighthouses, but buoys, to show where the
rocks are. The Bible story of him ends by
| showing the prophet ina ft of the sulks. He
was mad because Nineveh was not destroyed,
and then he went out to pout, n sat under
a big leaf, using it for shade from the tropi-
cal sun, and when q worm disturbed that
leaf, and it withered, and the sun snote
Jonah, he flew into q great rage, and said:
sit is better for me to die than to live.n A
prophet in a rage because he had lost his
umbrellai Beware of petulancei
But standing here on the housetop at Jop-
pa, / look off upon the sands near the beach,
and | almost expected to find them GRIM
soned and ~incarnadinsd. But no; the rains
long ago washed away the last sign of the
Napoleonic massacre. Napoleon was march<
ing on through the coasts. He had here at
.Joppa four thousand Albanians, who had
been surrendered as prisoners of war, and
under a promise of protection. What shall
he do with them? 1t will be impossible for
him to take them along, and he cannot afford
to leave soldiers enough to guard them from
escape. 1t will not be difficult for the man
who broke the heart of lovely Josephine, and
who, when asked if the great losses OF life in
his battles were not too dear q price to pay
for his victories sbr-1g0ad HIS ehnu 'fiars
mirthruiIy and said, "You must break the
eggs il You want to make an omelet''I say
it will not be difficult for him to decide.
The prisoners of war by his order are taken
out on the sands and put to death-one thou
sand of them, two thousand Of them, three
thousand of them, four thousand of them,
massacred. And the blood pours down into
the sea, the red of the one mingling with the
blue OF the other, and making an awful
maroon which neither God nor nation can
ever forget. Ye who are fond Of vivid con-
trasts put the two scenes of Joppa side by
side, DorcaS with her needle, and the i'm
mortal butcher with his knife.
But standing on this Joppa house top I
look off oil the Mediterranean, and what is
that strange sight | see? The waters are
black, seemingly for miles. There seems to
be q great multitude of logs fastened to-
gether. Oh. yes, it is a great raft of timbers.
They are cedars of Lebanon, which King
Hiram is furnishing King Solomon in ex-
change for 90, 600 measures of wheat, 10000
baths of oil and 10000 baths of wine. These
cedars have been cut doWn and trimmed in
the mountains of Lebanon by the 10000 ak
men engaged there, and with great withes
and iron bolts are fastened together, and they
are floating down to Joppat to be taken across
the land for Solomon's temple, now building
at Jerusalem, for we lave lost our hold of
the Nineteenth century are clear back In
the ages.
The RATS of cedar are guided into what is
called the Moon Pool, an old harbor south
of Joppa, now filed with sand and useless.
With long pixies the timber is pushed this
way and that in the water, then with divers
and many a loud, long 10, HEAVIER as the
carriers get their shoulder under the great
weight, the timber is fastened TO the wag-
onS and the lowing oxen are yoked to the
load, and the procession of teams moves on
with crack of whip and drawled out words
which, translated, / suppose would corre-
spond with the HWhoa, haw, geeP' OF mod
ern teamsters, toward Jerusalem, which is
thirty miles away over mountainous dis
tances which for hundreds Of years defied
all engineering. And those rough cedars
affairs, and rounded bannisters, and trac-
cried panels, and sublime ceiling, and ex-
uuisite harps and kingly chariots.
As the wagon train moves out from Joppa
over the plain of Sharon toward Jerusalem
say to myself, what vast numbers Of people
helped build that temple of Solomon, and
what vast numbers of people are now en-
gagged in building the wider, higher, grander
temple of Righteousness rising In the earth:
Our Christian ancestry toiled at it, amid
sweat and tears, and hundreds of the genera
ions OF the good, and the long train OF
Christian workers still moves on; and as in
the construction of Solomon's temple some
hewed with the AK in the far away Lebanon,
and some drove q wedge, and some twisted
q withe, and some trod the wet and slippery
RATS on the sea, and some yoked
the u, and some pulled at the load,
and some showed the plane, and some
fitted the joints, and some heaved
up the ~rafters, but all helped build the tenn
pie, though some of these never saw 1t, SO
now let us all put our hands, and OF shoul-