The Portland daily press., 1892-11-12

duu pigeon on the dlueii oAo P-
fire poised above the wilderness, peace
offering, sin offering, trespass o1Ierlng'
fingers of Joseph and Isaac and Joshua
and David and Isaiah and Micah ana
Ezekiel, all together made the one
finger of God pointing to the hnman'
the divine, the gracious, the glorloes'
the omnipotent, the gentle, the paraon-
ing and suffering and atonlng Chrls1.
And now the same finger OF GOD IS
pointing the world upward to the same
Redeemer and forward to the time OF His
universal domination. MY hearers, get
out of the habit of looking back and
looking down, and look up and look Tor
ward. 1t is useful once in awhile to look
back, but you had better, Tor the most
part of your time, stop "reminiscences
and begin anticipation. We have, none
of us, hardly begun yet. If we love the
Lord and trust Him-and you may all
love Him and trust Him from this mo-
ment on-we no more understand the
good things ahead of us than child at
school studying his A B can under
stand what that has to do with his
reading John Ruskin's "Seven Lamps
of Architecture" or Dante's Dlvlna
Commedia.'' The satisfactlons and joys
we have as yet had are like the music
boy makes with his first lesson on the
violin compared with what was evoked
from his great orchestra by my dear
and illustrious and transcendent, but
now departed friend, Patrick Gilmore,
when he lifted his baton and all the
strings vibrated, and all the trumpets
pealed fo1Ah, and all the flutes caroled,
and all the drums rolled, and all the
hoofs of the cavalry charge, which ne
initiated, were in full beat Look
ahead! The finger of God points for
| ward
30, but" says some one, - am get-
| ting old and have touch OF rheunatisn
| in that foot, and believe something Is
the matter with my heart, and l cannon II
stand as much as used to-. WeA' !
conpratulate YOU, for that shows you
are getting nearer to the time when
YOU are going to enter immortal youth
and be strong enough to hurl off the
battlements Of Heaven any bandit who,
by unheard of burglary, might break
into the Golden City. "But" says some
one, II feel so lonely. The most OF
my friends are gone, and the bereavc-
ments of life have multiplied until
this world that was once SO bright to
me has lost it's charm" congratulate
you, for, when you go, there will be
fewer here to hold you back and more
there to pull you in. Look ahead! The
finger of God is pointing forward we
sit here in church, and by hymn ana
prayer and sermon and Christian asso-
citation we try to get into a frame OF
| x--s to
| and pleasant to ourselves. But what a
stupid thing it all is compared with
what it will be when we have gone
/ beyond psalm book and sermon and
Bible, and we stand, our last imperfec-
ton gone, in the presence of that charm
of the llniverse-the blessed Christ
and have him look in our face and say:
ST have been watching you and SYM
pathizing with you and helping you all
| these years, and now you are here. 90
where you please and never know
sorrow and never shed a tear There is
YOUR mother now-she is coming to
| greet you-and there Is your father,
| and there are your children. Sit down
| under this tree of life, and on the banks
| of this river and talk it all over tell
YOU there will be more joy in one min
ute of that than in fifty years of earth
| lv exultation Look ahead! Look at
! the finest house on earth and know
| that YOU will have a finer one in Heaven
! Look up the healthiest person you can
| find and know you will yet be healthier.
Look up the one who has the best eye
sight of anyone you have eyer heard OF,
and know YOU will have Better vision.
| Listen to the sweetest prima donna that
ever trod the platform, and know that
in Heaven you will lift a more enrapt-
uring song than ever enchanted earthly
auditorium.
NV friends, / do not know how we
are going to stand til mean the tull
thrush of that splendor. Last summer
1 saw Moscow, in some respects the
most splendid city under the>sun The
emperor afterward asked me 1t had
seen it, for Moscow is the pride OF
Russia. l told him yes, and that had
seen Moscow burn. I will tell you
what I mean. After examining nine
hundred brass cannons which were
picked out of the snow after
Napoleon retreated from Moscow,
each cannon deep cut with the
letter 'sN," [ assembled tower OF
some two hundred and fifty feet, just
before sunset, and on each platform
there were bells, large and small, and
climbed up among the bells, and then
| as / reached the top all the Dolls IN
derneath me began to ring, and they
were joined by the bells OF fou teen
hundred towers and domes and turrets.
Some of the bells sent out faint tinkle
of sound, sweet naturalization that
seemed to bubble in the air, and others
Numbered forth boom after boom, boom
after boom, until it seemed to shake the
earth and fill the heavens-sounds SO
weird, SO sweet, SO awful, so grand, SO
charming, so tremendous, SO soft. SCRIP
ping, so reverberating land they seemed
to wreathe, and whirl and rise, and sink,
and burst, and roll, and mount and die.
| When Napoleon saw Moscow burn, it
could not have been more brilliant than
when / saw all the fourteen hundred
turrets afame with the sunset, roofs OF
| gold and walls of malachite, and archl-
| lecture of all colors mingling with the
brown of autumnal forests and the blue
of summer heavens, and the conf1agra-.
ton of morning skies, and the green OF
rich meadows, and the foam of tossing
seas. The mingling of SO many colors
with so many sounds was an entrance
ment almost too much for human nerves
or human eyes or human ears. l expect
to see nothing to equal it until you and
| L.