The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1892-10-22

earth. He measures the dust of the
earth, the original there indicating that
God takes all the dust of all the conti-
nents between the thumb and two I'm
gers. You wrap around your hand a
blue ribbon five times ten times You
say it is five handbreadths, or it is ten
hand breadths. So, indicates the pro-
phet, God winds the blue ribbon of the
sky around His hand. "He meteth out
the Heavens with a span" You
know that balances are made of
a beam suspended in the middle
with two basins at the extremity
of equal heft. In that way
what vast heft has been weighed. But
what are all earthly manipulation COM
pared with the balances that Isaiah saw
suspended when he saw God putting
into the scales the Alps and Apprentices
and Mount Washington and the Sierra
Nevadas. You see the earth had to be
ballasted. 1t would not do to have
too much weight in Europe, or
too much weight in Asia, or too
much weight in Africa, or in America;
so when God made the mountains
He weighed them. The Bible distinctly
says SO. God knows the weight of the
great ranges that cross the continent,
the tons, the pounds, avoirdupois. the
ounces; the grains, the milligrammes-
just how much they weighed then, and
just how much they weigh now. "He
weighed the mountains in scales and
the hills in a balance" On, whata God
to run against, oh, what G.sd to dis
obey, oh, what God to diskonor, oh,
what God todefy! The brightest, the
brightest angel takes no familiarity
with God" The wings of reverence are
lifted. With twain he covered the
face"
Another seraphic posture in the text
The seraph must not always stand still.
He must move, and it must be without
clumsiness. There must be celebrity
and beauty in the movement. 'With
twain he did fly" Correction, exhila-
ration. Correction at our slow gait,
for we only crawl in the crevice when
we ought to fly at the Divine bidding.
Exhilaration in the fact that the soul
wings as the seraphs have wirgs.
What is a wing? An instrument of
locomotion. They may not be like
seraph's wings, but the soul has wings
God says so. HE shall mount up on
wings as eagles" We are made in the
Divine image. and God has wings.
The Bible says so. Healing in His
wings" ''Under the shadow of His
wings" ''Under whose wings thou
hast come to trust" We have folded
wing now, wounded wing, broken
wing, bleeding wing, Gagged wing. Aye!
I have it now. Gagged within bars of
bone and under curtains of flesh, bnt
one day to be free. / hear the rustic
of pinions in Seagrave's poem which
we often sing:
Rise. my soul. and stretch thy wings,
hear the rustic of pinions in Alexau-
der Pope's stanza, which says:
mount, fly,
death where is thy victory
A dying Christian not long ago cried
out: wings, wings, wings!' The air
is full of them, coming and going. COM
ing and going. You have seen how
the dull, sluggish chrysalis becomes
the bright butterfy--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 will unfurl the
wings. Oh, if we could only realize
what grand thing it will be to get rid
of this old clod of the body and mount
the heavens, neither seagull, nor lark,
nor albatross, nor falcon, nor condor
pitching from highest range of Andes
so buoyant or so majestic of stroke.
See that eagle in the mountain nest.
1t looks so sick, so ragged-feathered, so
WORKOUT and so half asleep. Is that
eagle dying? No. The ornithol-
ogist will tell you it is moulting sea-
SON with that bird. Not dying, but
moulting. You see that Christian, sick
and weary and worn-out and seeming
about to expire on what is called
his death-bed. The world says
he is dying. I say it is the moulting
season for the soul--the body dropping
away, the celestial pinions coming on.
Not dying, but moulting. moulting out
of darkness and sin and struggling 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 and wishing
You could stay here forever, and
speak of departure as though the sub
ject were filled with skeletons and the
varnish Of collins, and as thou you pre-
fered lame foot to swift wing? o, peo-
pie of God, let us stop playing the fool
and prepare for rapturous fight
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? Will you fly downward or will
you fly upward? Every on the
wing this morning bidding 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 stand by your lifeless
body will not soliloquize, saying,
what disappointment life was to
him: how avcrse he was to departure;
what pity it was he had to die; what
an awful calamity Rather standing
there may they see sign more vivid