The Opelousas courier., 1892-10-22

lIOll Ule way UuSy lin bhCt S~N
made a better world than this, and that the
God of the Bible shocks every sense of pro-
prjety. They talk of the love of God IN a
way that shows YOU they believe it does not
make any difference how bad a man is here,
Ne will come in at tee shining gate. Ihey
talk of the love of God in such a way Wnicn
shows you they think it is a general JAN de-
liva~v for oil tho ohondnnna and tho snn'T"-
GreI1sm OF the universe. NO punishment
hereafter for any wrong done here.
The Bible gives two descriptions OF Go1,
and they are just opposite, and they are
both true. In ons place the Bible says GOD
is love. In another piac, the Bible says God
is a consuming fire. The explanation Is
plain as plain can be. God through Christ
is love. God out of Christ is fire. To win
the one and to escape the other we have only
to throw ourselves, BODY, mind AMI soul III
to Christs keeping. NO" says lrreVer-
ance, II want no atonement, l want no par
don. | want no intervention; [ will go up and
face God, and will challenge Him, and L
will DEFY Him, and [ will ask Him what He
wants TO do with me-" So the finite con-
fronts the infinite, so a tack hammer tries to
break a thunderbolt, so the breath OF human
nostrils defies the everlasting God, while the
hierarchs of heaven bow the head and bend
the knee as the Kings chariot goes by, and
tn archangei turns away because he canuot
endure the splendor, and the chorus of ali
the empires of heaven comes in with full
diapason, "Holy, holy. holy"
Reverence for snam. reverence for the old
merely because it is old, reverence for stu
pidity however learned, reverence foc in
capacity. however finely inaugurated, have
none. But we want more reVerenc5. Tor
God, more reverence for the ~sacramentS,
more reverence for the Bible, more rever~
ence for the pure, more reverence for the
good. Reverence a characteristic OF all
great natures. You hear it in the roll OF
A. -. o.oAor- W., ca0 II in fha
Raphaels and Titians AMI G~hiriandijos. You
study it in the architecture of the Aholiabs
and Christopher Wrens. Do not be fippant
about God. Do not joke about death Do
not make fun of the Bible. Do not deride
the Eternal. The brightest and mightiest
seraph cannot look unabashsi upon Him.
I~nvoluntarily the wings come UP. with
twain he covered his face"
Another seraphic posture in the text. The
seraph must not always stani still. He
must move and it must be witho ut clumsl-
ness. There must be celebrity and beauty in
the movement. ''With twain h did fly ;"
Correction. exhilaration. Correction at our
sow gait, for we only crawl in the service
when we ought to fly at the divine biddi ng.
E~xhilaration in the fact that the soul has
wings as the seraphs have wings. What is q
wing? An instrument Of locomotion. They
may not be like seraph's wing, they may not
be like birds wing, but the soul has wings.
God saws so. HE shall mount up on wings
as eagles" We are made in tae divine I'M
age, and God has wings. The Bible says So
sHealing in His Wings "Under the shadow
Of H, eo wing e tr0st INV W. T bsSs fg %ipSs T shou
now, wounded wing, broken wing, bleeding
wing, Gagged wing. Aye! [ have it now,
Gagged within bars Of bone and under cur
tains of flesh, but one day to be free. lhear
the rustic of pinions in Seagraye's poem,
which we often sing:
Fise, my soul, and stretch thy wings.
liar the rustic of pinions in Alexander
Popss ~stauza, which says.
oDeath, where is thy victory,
A dying Christian not long ago cried out,
"Wrigs, wings, wingsm The air is full Of
You nave seen how the dull, sluggish chrysa-
lid becomes the bright butterfly; the dull,
and the stupid, and the lethargic turned into
the alert and the beautiful. Well, my friends,
in this world we are in the chrysalid state:
Death wi ! unfurl the wings. Oh, il we could
only realize what a gran! thing it will be to
get rid of the old clod of a body and mount
the heavens, neither seagull nor LARK nos
albatross nor falcon nor conior pitching
from highest range OF Andes, so buoYant or
so majestic of stroke.
See that eagle in the mountain nest. lt
looks 50 SICK, so ragged feathered, so worn
out and so half aslee,n. Is that eagle dying.
No, The ornithologist viii tell You it is
Noting season with that bird. Not dying,
but noting. You see that Christian SICK
and weary and worn out aud scanning about
to expire on what is called his deathbed.
The world says he is dying. | say it is the
melting season for his soul-She body
dropping away, the celestial pinions com,
ing on. Not dying, but Noting. Molting
~ - lo-t-,orc or1 els, md ctpIrUOIn into
glory and into God Why do you not shout?
Why do you sit shivering at the thought of
death and trying to hold back n wishing
YOU could stay here forever, and speak OF
departure as though the subject were filled
with skeletons N the varnish OF cotfins,
and as though you preferred lame foot to
swift wing2
O people of God, let us stop playing the
fool and prepare for rapturous flight. When
your soul stands on the verge of this life and
there are vast precipices beneath and sap
phired domes above, which way will You fly?
Will you swoop or will you soar! VIII you
fly downward or will you fly upwards
ding us aspire. Holy Spirit on the wing.
Angel of the new covenant on the wing.
Time on the wing, flying away from us.
Eternity on the wing, flying toward US.
Wings, wings, wings!
Live so near to Christ that when you are
dead people standing by your lifeless body
will not ~soliloquize, saying: what a dis
appointment life was to him; how averse he
was to departure; what a pity it was he had
TO die: what an awful calamity Rather
standing there may they see a sign more
vivid on vour still face than the v~estiges Of
pain. something that will indicate that it
was a happy exit-the clearance from OPP
pressive quarantine, the cast off chrysalid,
the melting of the faded and useless and the
ascent from malarial valleys to bright.
shining mountain tops, and be led to say as
they stand there contemplating your humil-
ity and your reverence in life and your hap
piness in death, with twain he covered
the feet, with twain he covered the face,
with twain he did fly" Wingsl Wingsl
Wings!