News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-09-01

compelled the gardener, William Won
Kylsom to draw water out of the well
for them, and it was very pure water.
But the battle ragged, and three hun
bred dead and half dead were flung into
the we'll for quick and easy burial, so
that the well of refreshment became the
well of death, and long after people
looked down into the well, and they saw
the bleached skulls, but no water. so
the human soul was a well of good, but
the armies of sin have fought around 1t,
and fought across it and been slain, ana
it has become well of skeletons. Dead
hopes, dead resolutions, dead opportunl-
ties, dead ambitions. An abandoned
we'll unless Christ shall reopen and pu-
rifv and fill it as the well of Belgium
never was. Unclean, unclean!
Another seraphic posture In the text,
| "With twain he covered the face. lhat
| means reverence Godward. Never SO
much irreyerence abroad in the world
as today, You see it in the detaced
statuary, in the cutting out OF hgures
from fine paintings, in the chipping or
monuments for q memento, in the fact
that a military guard must stand at the
graves of Grant and Garfield, and that
| old shade trees must be cut down for
frewood, though fifty George P. Morrises
beg the woodmen to spare the tree, ana
| that calls q corpse a cadaver, and that
speaks of death as going over to the ma
iority, and substitutes for the reverent
| terms, father and mother, ''the old
man" and 1.-The old woman" and finds
nothing impressive in the ruins of Raal-
bee or the columns of Karnac, and sees
no difference in the Sabbath from any
other days except it allows more dis
sipation, and reads the Bible in what
is called higher criticism, making 1T
not the Word of God, but good book
with some fine things in it. lrreyerence
never so much abroad. How many take
the name of God in vain, how many
trivial things said about the Almighty.
| Not willing to have God in the world,
thew roll up an idea of sentimentality
and humanitarianism and impudence
and imbecility and call 1t God. NO
wings of reverence over the face, no
taking off of shoes on holy ground. You
can tell from the way they talk they
could have made better world than
this. and that the God of the Bible
shocks every sense of propriety. They
talk of the love of God in way that
shows YOU they believe it does not make
| any difference how bad man is here,
he will come in at the shining gate.
| They talk of the love of God in such
way which shows you they think it is a
general Jail delivery for all the aban-
| doned and the scoundrelism of the uni
verse. Nopunishment hereafter for any
wrong done here.
THE LOVE OF GOD.
| The Bible gives US two descriptions of
God, and they are just opposite, and
| they are both true. In one place the
Bible says God is love. In another
place 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 and
soul into Christ's keeping. NO." says
Irreverence, Il want no atonement, /
want no pardon, want no intervention;
| will go up and face God, and | will
challenge him, and l will defy him, and
l Will ask him what he wants to do with
me-" So the finite confronts the inf
mite, so a tack hammer tries to break a
thunderbolt, so the breath of human
nostrils defes the everlasting God, while |
the hierarchs of heaven bow the head |
and bend the knee as the Kings chariot |
goes by, and the archangel turns away |
because he cannot endure the splendor, |
and the chorus of all the empires of |
heaven comes in with full diapason,
'.Holy, holy, holy!"
Reverence for sham, reverence for the |
old merely because it is old, reverence |
for stupidity however learned, rever-
ence for incapacity, however finely in
Augurated, have none. But we want
more reverence for God, more reverence
| for the sacraments, more reverence for
| the Bible, more reverence for the pure,
more reverence for the good Rever-
ence d characteristic of all great natures.
You hear is in the roll of the master
oratorios. You see it in the Raphaels
and Titiar3 and Ghirlandijos. You
study ii II ne architecture of the Aholi-
abs aIl, ( = -ler Wrens. Do not lie
Hippant about God. Do not Joke about
death. Do not make fun of the Bible.
| Do not deI ide the Eternal. The brightest
and mightiest seraph cannot look IN
Rbashed upon him. Involuntarily the
wings come up. with twain he COW
cred his face"
Who is this God before whom the ar
/ rogant and iltractable refuse reverence?
There was an engineer of the name of
Strasicrates, who was in the employ of
| Alexander the Great, and he offered to
hew a mountain i'll the shape of his
master, tie emperor, the enormous fig
ure to hold in lie left hand a city of
10000 Inhabitants, while with the
right hand it was to hold basin large
enough tc collect all the mountain tor
rents. Alexander applauded him for
his ingenuity, but forbade the enter
prise because of its costliness. Yet
have to tell you that our King holds in
one hand all the cities of the earth and
all the oceans, while he has the stars OF
heaven for his tiara
Earthly power goes from hand tc
hand-from Henry to Henry II and
Henry III, from Charles to Charles II
| from Louis | to Louis Ii and Louis Ill
J but from everlasting to everlasting i
God. God the first, God the last, Goo
the only. He has one telescope will
which he sees everything omnis
cience. He has one bridge with which
he crosses everything-his omnipres-
ence. He has one hammer with which
he builds everything-his omnipotence.
| Put two tablespoonfuls of water in the
| palm of your hand and it will overflow;
but Isaiah indicates that God puts the At
lantic, and the Pacific, and the Arctic land
the Antarctic, and the Mediterranean,
and the Black sea, and all the waters of
the earth in the hollow of his hand.
The fingers the beach on one side, the
wrist the beach on the other. 'He
holdeth the water in the hollow of his
| hand.'
REVERENCE THE INFINITE.
AS you take a pinch of salt or powder
between your thumb and two fingers, so
Isaiah indicates God takes up the earth.
He measures the dust of the earth, the
original there indicating that God takes
all the dust of all the continents between
the thumb and two fingers. You wrap
around your hand blue ribbon five
times, ten times. You say it is five hand
breadths or it is ten handbreadths. So,
indicates the prophet, 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 the balances