Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1891-11-09

cclipsed by the few hours or days th
Paul stopped there. As stood the
on the deck Of the Minerva, lookil
out upon the place where the Coloss
once stood, | bethought myself of Il
fact that the world must have a &c
of some kind. IL is to me an infini
pathos this Colossus not only
Rhodes. but the colossi in many par
Of the earth. This is only the world
blind reaching up and feeling aft,
God. Foundered human nature mui
have n supernatural arm to help
ashore. All the statues and images {
] heathendorn are attempts TO bring celei
( tial forces down into human affairs.
Blessed be our ears that we hav
heard of an ever present God, an
that through Jesus Christ he come
into our hearts and our homes. an,
with more than fatherly and motherl
interest and affection he is with us il
all our struggles and bereavements ant
yicissitudes Rhodes needs somethini
higher than the Colossus. and the day
will come when the Christ, whom Pau
was serving when he sailed into thi.
harbor of Rhodes, shall take possession
Of that island
IMPORTANCE OF ISLANDS.
As we move on up through this
archipelago | 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 hemispheres must have them.
As you put down upon a scale the
heavy pound weights, and then the
small ounces, and no one thinks Of de-
spising the small weights. so the conti-
nents are the pounds and the islands
are the ounces. A continent is only a
larger island, and an island only a
smaller continent. Something of what
part the islands have taken in the
worlds history you will see when re-
mind you that the island of Salamis
produced Solon. and that the island of
Chios produced Homer and the island
of Samos produced Pythagoras, and
the island of Coos produced Hippoc
rates.
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
The one longed to see
is not so many miles in circumference
as Cyprus or Crete or Paros or Naxos
or Scio or Nlitylene, but had rather
in this sail through the Grecian archi-
pelago see that than all the others, for
more of the glories of heaven landed
there than on all the islands and CONT
nents since the world stood. As we
come toward it feel my pulses quicken.
81, John, was in the island that is
called Patnos."
1t is a piles of rocks twenty-eight
miles in circumference A few expresses
and inferior olives pump a living out
of the earth, and one palm tree spreads
It's foliage. But the barrenness and
gloom and loneliness of the island made
i prison for the banished evangelist.
DomitiaI could not stand his ministry,
and one day, under armed guard, that
minister of the Gospel stepped from a
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 coming time and all the .
raptures of n coming eternity.
Is it not remarkable that nearly all
he great revelations of music and po-
,try and religion have been made to
nen in observation-disclosures and Mil
on banished into blindness; Beethoven
'anished into deafness; Dante writing
lis "Divina Commedia" during the
lineteen years of banishment from his
lative land; Victor Hugo writing his
Les Miserables" eXiled from home and
ountry on the island of Guernsey, and
ne brightest visions of the future have
cen given to those who by sickness or
prov were exiled from the outer
'orld into rooms of suffering. Only
hose who have been imprisoned by
cry hard surroundings have had great
violations made to them.
So Patmos, wild, chill and bleak
nd terrible, was the best island in all I
ne archipelago, the best place in all
he earth for divine revelations. Be
ore panorama can be successfully
cen, the room in which you sit must be
arkened, and in the presence of John
vas to pass such a panorama as no
nan ever before saw or ever will see in
his world, and hence the gloom of his
was help rather than
Iindrance.
All the surroundings of the place af-
ected st. Johns imagery when he
peaks of heaven. st. John, hungry
rom enforced abstinence, or having no
God except that mt which his appetite
evolted, thinks of heaven; and as the
man is apt TO dream of boun-
iful tables covered with luxuries, so st.
John says of the inhabitants of heaven,
They shall hunger no more" Scarcity
If fresh water on Patmos and the hot
tongue of st. Johns thirst leads him to
admire heaven as he says, They shall
thirst no more" ST. John hears the
waves of the sea wildly dashing against
the rocks, and each wave has a voice,
and all the waves together make a
chorus, and they remind him of the !
anthems of heaven, and |
he says "They are like the voice of |
many waters"
One day, as he looked off upon the |
sea, the waters were very smooth, as it |
Il N.Naa.. .-ttla Az, .al tl,,,. l.. ~. nTs.