Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-11-03
rnK cHoLxnA SCARE

means that the plague will sweep our land
next summer. do not believea NFord OF
1t. There will be no cholera here next
summer. -Four or Eve summers ago there
were those who said It would surely be
hero the following summer because IL was
on the way. But 1t did not come. The
sanitary precautions established here will
make next summer unusually healthful.
Cholera never starts from where il stopped
tho season before, hut always starts In the
filth Of Asia, and II Il starts Eext summer,
II will start there again-it will not start
from New York quarantine. Eut IL isevi-
dent to me that the finger Of God is 10 this
cholera scare, and that he is pointing this
nation to something higher and better. II
has been demonstrated as rsrer before that
we are in the hands OF God. lie allowed
tie plague to como to our very gates aud
then halted It.
The quarantine was right and necessary,
but, oh. how easily the plague could have
leaped the barriers lifted against it!
Thanks TO the president Of the United
States, and thanks to the health officers,
and thanks to the Thirteenth regiment,
and thanks to all who stood between this
evil and our national health, but mere
than all, and higher than all, thanks to
Godl Out Of that solemnity we ought to
pass up to something better then anything
that has ever yet characterized US cs q I'd.
tion. We ought to quit our national sins,
our Sabbath breaking, and our drunken
ness, and our impurities, and our corrup-
tions of,all sorts as people. The tendency
is in self graduation at our prosperity to
forget the mercy of God that has kept us
from being blottcd out for our crimes, and
that still nultiplies our temporal prosper
titles. Forward and upwardl See you NOT
the finger of God in this protecting mercyi
rejoice that there are many encour.
aging signs for our nation, and one is that
this presidential campaign hos less ma
lignity and abuse than any presidential
campaign since we have been nation.
Turn over to the pictorials and the col
umns Of the political sheets of the presi.
Dental excitements all the way back, and
see what contumely Washington and JET.
ferson and Madison and Monroe and Jack.
son went through. Now see the almost
entire absence of all that The political
orators / notice this year arc apt to begin
by eulogizing the honesty and good inten-
tions OF the opposing candidate, and sag
that he is better than his party. Instead
of vitriol, cainomile flowers. That we seem
to have escaped the degradation of the
usual qasdrenniGl billingsgate is an en-
couragiIg fact.
Perhaps this betterment may have some
what resulted from the sadness lowering
over the home of one of the candidates
sadness IN which the whole nation sympa-
thizes. Perhaps we have been SO absorbed
in paying honors to Christopher Columbus
that we have forgotten to anathematize
the prominent meR of the present No
man in this country is fully honored until
he is dead. Whatever be the reason, this
naticn has escaped many of the horrors
that ordinarily accompany the presidential
contest. But let us not pause too long In
hilarity about the present and forget the
fact that there are not only temporal pos
sibilities far greater than those attained,
but higher moral ,ind religious poasibiIi-
ties. The God of OUT fathers is the God Ct
their children, and his finger points us to
q higher national career than many have
yet suspected. For our churches, our
schools, our colleges, our institutions OF
mercy, the best days are yet to come.
But notice that this finger of God almost
always and in almost everything points
forward aud not backward. All the way
through the Bible, the lamb and pigeon on
the altar, the pillar of fire poised above the
wilderness, peace Offering, sin offering,
trespass offering, fingers of Joseph and
Isaac and Joshua and David and Isaiah
and Micah and Ezekiel, all together made
the one finger of God pointing to the
human, the divine, the gracious, the glori-
GUS, the omnipotent, the gentle, the par-
doning and suffering and atoning Christ.
And now the same finger of God is point
ingthe world upward to the same Redeemer
and forward to the time of his universal
domination. My bearers, get out of the
hasbit'of looking back and looking down,
and look up and look forward It is useful
oncein. awhile to lcok back, but you had
better, for the most part Of your time, stop
"Reminiscences and begin anticipation. We
have none of us har,lly begun yet.
five love the Lord and trust him-and
you may all love him and trust him from
this moment on-we no more understand
the;good things ahead of us than the child
at school studying his A B c can under
stand what that has TO do with his reading
John IRuskin's "Sevcn Lamps of Architec-
ture, "or Dante's "Diyina Commedia. The
satisfacticns and joys we have as yet had
are like the music boy makes with his
first iessou On the violin compared with
whHt was evoked frtm his great orchestra
by my dear and illustrious and transcend
enS but now departed friend, Patrick Gil.
more, when he lifted his baton and all the
strings xihrated, snd all the trumpets
pealed forth, and all the flutes caroled, and
all the,drums rolled and all the hoofs OF
the eavalry charge, which he initiated.
were in full beat. Look aheadl The finger
of God points forward.
'Dh, bur-" says some one, II am getting
old, and have touch of rheumatism in
that foot, and believe something is the
matter with my heart, and cannot stand
as much as used to-" Well, congratu-
late 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 mosto of my friends are gone,
and the bereaSements Of life have multi
piled until this world that was once SO
bright to me has lost its charm"
congratulate you, for when you go
there will be fewer here to hold you back
and more there to pull you in. Look aheadl
The finger of God is pointing forward. We
sit here in church, and by hymn and pray.
er and sermon and Christian association
we try TO get into frame Of mind that
will be acceptable to God and pleasant to
ourselves. But what stupid thing it oil
is compared with what it will be when we
have gone beyond psaimbook and sermon
and Bible, and we stand, our last imper
fection gone, in the presence of that charm
of the universe-the blessed Christ-and
have him look Ia our face and say: II have
been watching you and sympathizing with
you and helping you all these years, and
now You are here. Go where you please