Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-11-12

| ! will tell you from what l see inside the
consecrated walls, having seen nothing out
| side, what is that city's merchandise. its
| literature, its schools, its printing presses,
| its government, its homes, its arts, its sci
| ences, its prosperity or its depression and
| ignorance, 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 as on the evening of
that day we stepped from the filthy streets
of Larnaca, Cyprus, on to the boat that
took US back to the steamer Minerva, which
| had already begun to paw the waves like
| courser impatient to be gone. and then we
moved on and up among the islands 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
| it alone, ships deck in the darkness and
! at sea is weird place, and an active ina
| gination may conjure up almost any shape
| he will and it shall walk the sea or confront
! him by the smoke-stack, or meet him under
| the captains bridge. But here | was alone
| on ships deck in
THE GOSPEL ARCHIPELAGO
and do you wonder that the sea was popu-
lous with the past and that down the rat
line Bible memories descended? Our friends
had all gone to their berths. Captain" l
said. when will we arrive at the island of
Rhodes2'' Looking out from under his
glazed cap, he responded in sepulchral
voice: about midnight Though it
would be keeping unreasonable hours, l
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
f..,,, tbn t-n,.l1 c-o 70
NOUS in heaven when the world has become
charred wreck.
This island has had a wonderful history.
With 5000 Knights of St John it at one
time stood ont against 100000 warriors
under "Solynan the Magnificent" The
city had 5000 statues and a statue to Apollo
called Colossus, which has always since
been considered one of the seven wonders
of the world. 1t was twelve years in build
ing and was seventy cubitS high and had a
winding stairs to the top 1t stood tifty-siX
years and then was Frustrated by an earth
quake. After lying in ruins for 900 years
ii was purchased 10 be converted to other
purposes, and the metal weighing 100000
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
or days that Paul stopped there
AS | stood there on the deck of the Min
erva, looking out upon the place where the
Colossus once stood. bethoueht 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 ana feel
ing after God Foundered human nature
must have a supernatural arm to help 1t
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 motherly
interest and affection he is with US in all
our struggles and bereavements and vicis-
STUDIES. Rhodes 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
archipelago l am reminded of what
az important part the Islands
have taken in the history of the
world. They are necessary to the balanc-
ing of the planet. The two hemispheres
must have them. As you put down upon
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
continent is only larger island and an island
is 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
CuIos PRODUCED HOMER
and the island of Samos produced Pythago- |
ras, and the island CT Coos produced Hip
pOcrates.
But there is one island that l longed to |
see more than any other. ! can afford to |
miss the princes among the Islands, but | |
must see the king of thearchipelago. The one |
| longed TO see is not so many miles in cir 1
conference as Cyprus or Crete or Paros or
NaXOS or SciO or Mitylene. but had rather |
in this sail through the Grecian Archipel- |
ago, 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 ISL /
and that is called Patmos." 1t is a pile of |
rocks twentyeight miles in circumference |
A few expresses and inferior olives pump !
living out of the earth, and one palm tree
spreads its foliage. But the barrenness and |
gloom and loneliness of the island made it 4
prison for the baniShcd evangelist Domi-
tian could not stand his ministry and one
day, under armed guard, that minister OF |
the gospel stepped from tossing boat to
these dismal rocks. and walked mp TO the
dismal cavern which was to be his home,
and the place where should pass before
him all the conflicts and coming time and
all the raptures of a coming eternity.
Is it not remarkable that nearly all the
great revelations of music and poetry and
religion have been made TO men in Danish
ment!-Homer and Milton baniShed into
blindness; Beethoven banished into deaf
ness; Dante writing his Divina Comedia
during the nineteen years of Punishment
from his native land; Victor Hugo writing
his Les Miserables exiled from home and
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
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,
the best place in all the earth for divine
BEFORE PANORAMA
can be successfully seen. the room in which
you sit must be{darkened; and in the pres
ence of John was to pass such panorama
as no man ever before saw or ever will see |
in this world and hapce no -lonr, Of |