The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-09-02

ing eye OF God? The seraphs do. How
much more we. with twain he COW
cred the feet"
THE BONDAGE OF SIN.
All this talk about the dignity of hui
man nature is braggadocio and sin.
Our nature started at the hand Of God
regal, but it has been pauperized. There
is we'll in Belgium which once had
very pure water, and it was stoutly
masoned with stone and brick; but that
well aftorward became the center Of the
battle of Waterloo. At the opening Of
the battle the soldiers with their sabers
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 hum
dred dead and half dead were flung into
the we'll for quick and easy burial, 30
that the we'll of refreshment became the
well of death, and long after people
looked down into the we'll, and they saw
the bleached skulls, but no water. So
the human soul was well of good, but
the armies of sin have fought around it,
and fought across 1t and been slain, and
it has become we'll Of skeletons. Dead
hopes, dead resolutions, dead opportuni-
ties, dead ambitions. An abandoned
we'll unless Christ shall reopen and pu-
rify and fill it as the well of Belgium
never was. Unclean, uncleani
Another seraphic posture in the text,
"With twain he covered the face" That
means reverence Godward. Never SO
much irreverence abroad in the world
statuary, in the cutting out of figures
from fine paintings, in the chipping Of
monuments for memento, in the fact
that military guard must stand at the
! graves of Grant and Garfield, and that
| old shade trees must be cut down for
firewood, though fifty George P. Morrises
beg the woodmen to spare the tree, and
that calls a corpse cadaver, and that
speaks of death as going over to the ma
jority, and substitutes for the reverent
terms, father and mother, ''the old
man" and "the old woman" and finds
nothing impressive in the ruins of Baal-
bee or the columns of Karnac, and secs
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 it
not the Word of God, but good book
with some fine things in it. Irreverence
never so much abroad. How many take
trivial things said about the Almighty.
Not willing to have God in the world,
they roll up an idea of sentimentality
and humanitarianism and impudence
and imbecility and call it 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 a way that
shows you they believe it does not make
any difference how bad a man is here,
he will come in at the shining gate.
They talk of the love of God in such a
way which shows you they think it is a
general Jail delivery for all the aban.
doned and the scoundrelism of the uni
verse. punishment 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 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, l
want no pardon, want no intervention;
l will go up and face God, and l will
challenge him, and l will defy him, and
will ask him what he wants to do with
me-" So the finite confronts the inf
mite, so 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 the archangel turns away
because he cannot endure the splendor,
and the chorus of all the empires of
"Holy, holy, hoiyF'
Reverence for sham, reverence for the
old merely because it is old, reverence
for stupidity however learned, rever-
ence for in capacity, however finely in
augurated, l 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 characteristic of all great natures.
You hear l. in the roll of the master
oratorios. You see it in the Raphaels
and Titians and Ghirlandijos. You
study it in the architecture of the Aholi-
abs 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 might'est seraph cannot look un-
abashed upon him. Involuntarily the
wings come up. "With twain he COW
cred his face
Who is this God before whom the ar
rogant and int;actable refuse reverence?
There was an engineer of the name of
| Subsidiaries, who was in the employ of
| Alexander the Great, and he offered to
hew mountain in the shape of his
master, the emperor, the enormous fig
ure to hold in the left hand city of
10000 inhabitants, while with the
right hand it was to hold basin large
enough to 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 to
hand-from Henry to Henry II and
Henry Ill, from Charles to Charles II
from Louis | to Louis II and Louis III
but from everlasting to everlasting is
God. God the first, God the last, God
the only. He has one telescope with
which he sees everything omnis
cience. He has one bridge with which