Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1892-03-26

mended because it had been broken by an
infuriated populace in some hour Of political
excitement and he left it In ruins that men
might learn what a tickle thing Is human
favor. but the mercy Of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting to them that fear
Him, and His Righteousness unto the chill
dren's children of such as keep His covenant,
and to those who remember His command
ments to do them.n This moment stSeek
Him that maketh the Seven Stars and
Orion
Again, Amos saw, as we must see, that
the God who made these two beacons of the
oriental night sky must be God of love and
kindly warning. The Pleiades rising in
midsky said to all the herdsmen and shep-
herds and husbandmen, ''Come out and en-
JOY the mild weather and cultivate your
gardens and fields" Orion, coming in win
ter, warned them to prepare for tempest.
All navigation was regulated by these two
consultations. The one said to shipmaster
and crew, "Hoist sail for the sea and gather
merchandise from other lands" But Orion
was the storm signal and said, "Reef sail.
make things snug or put into harbor, for the
hurricanes are getting their wings out" As
the Pleiades were the sweet evangels Of the
spring, Orion was the warning prophet of
the winter.
oh, now get the best view Of God ever
houd AhcAc dI0 bWO AlIluS OF sermons /
never want to preach-the one that presents
God so kind, so indulgent, SO lenient SO i'm.
beetle that men may do what they will
against Him and fracture His every law and
put the pry of their impertinencs and re-
beliion under His throne, and while thew are
splitting in His face and stabbing at His
heart He takes them up in His arms and
kisses their Infatuated brow and cheek. say
ing, '1Of such is the kingdom of heaven"
The other kind of sermon l never want to
preach is the one that represents God as all
fire and torture and thundercloud, and with
red hot pitchfork tossing the human race
into paroxysms of infinite agony. The SER
mon that | am now preaching believes in a
God of loving, kindly warning, the God of
spring and winter, the God of Pleiades and
Orion.
You must remember that the winter is Just
as important as the spring. Let one winter
pass without frost to kill vegetation and ice
to bind the rivers and snow to enrich our
fields, and then you will have to enlarge
your hospitals and your cemeteries. "a
green Christmas makes a fat graveyard
was the old proverb. Storms to purify the
air. thermometer at ten degrees above zero
to tone up the system. December and Jan
uary just as important as May and June l
tell you we need the storms of life Just as
much as we do the sunshine. There are more
men ruined by prosperity than by adversely.
Ii we had our own way in life before this we
would have been impersonations of selfish
ness and worldliness and disgusting sin, and
pulled up until we would have been like
julius Cesar, who was made by sycophants
to believe that he was divine, and that the
freckles on his face were as stars of the firm
ament.
One of the swiftest transatlantic VOYAGES
SIR hxYO cfryfft Oh
was because she had a stormy wind abaft.
chasing her from New York to Liverpool.
But to those going in the opposite direction
the storm was buffeting and hindrancs.
1t Is bad thing to have a storm ahead
pushing us back; but il we be Gods children
and aiming toward heaven the storms of
life will only chase us the sooner into the
harbor. l am SO glad to believe that the
monsoons and typhoons and mistrals and
siroccos of the land and sea are not uu-
chained maniacs let loose upon the earth,
but are under divine supervisionl I am so
glad that the God of the Seven Stars is also
the God Of Orionl 1t was out of Dante's
suffering came the sublime 'Diviua Com
media" and out of John Miltons blindness
came paradise Lost" and out of miserable
infdel attack came the "Bridgewater
Treatise" in favor of Christianity, and out
of Davids exile came the songs of consola-
ton, and out of the sufferlngs of Christ
come the possibility of the worlds redemp-
ton, and out of your bereavement, your
persecution, your poverties, your mistor'
tunes may yet come an eternal heaven.
Oh, what mercy it is that in the text and
all up and down the Bible God induces us to
look out toward other worldsi Bible astron-
omy in Genesis, in Joshua, in Job, in the
Psalms, in the prophets, major and minor,
in st. Johns Apocalypse, practically saying:
'Worldsl worldsl worldsi Get ready for
themw We have a nice little world here
that we stick to, as though losing that we
lose all. We are afraid of falling off this
little raft of world. We are afraid that
some meteoric iconoclast will some night
smash it, and we want everything to revolve
around 1t, and are disappointed when we
find that it revolves around the sun instead
of the sun revolving around it. What a
fuss we make about this little bit of world
its existence only short time between two
spasms, the paroxysm by whichit was hurled
from chaos into order, and the paroxysm OF
its demolition.
And am glad that so many texts call us
to look off to other worlds, many of them
larger and grander aud more Respondent
Look there" says Job, sat Nazareth anG
Arcturus and his sons /" "Look there" say,
st. John, TAT the moon under Christ's feet
Look there" says Joshua, "at the SUI
standing still above Gibeonw Look there,
says Moses, 'at the sparkling firma
mentr' look there" says Amos
the herdsman, ''at the Seven Star
and Orionp Don't let US be SO sac
about those who shove off from this worlc
under Christly pilotage. Don't let us be sc
agitated about our going off this little barge
or sloop OF canal boat of world to get or
some Great Eastern of the heavens. Don't
let US persist in wanting to stay In this barn
this shed, this clubhouse of world when al
the King palaces already occupied by many
of our best friends are swinging wide open
their gates to let US in.
When | read, IN NV Fathers house are
many mansions" I do not know but that
each world IS room, and as many rooms as
there are worlds, stellar stairs, stellar gal
leries stellar Railways, stellar windows,
stellar domes. How our departed friends
must pity us, shut up in these cramped
apartments. tired if we walk fifteen miles,
when they some morning, by one stroke OF
wing, can make circuit of the whole stellar
system and be back in time for mathis
Perhaps yonder twinkling constellation is
the residence of the martyrs; that group Of
twelve luminaries is the celestial home Of
the apostles. Perhaps that steep of light is
the dwelling place of angels cherubic. sera-
phlc, archangelic. A mansion with as many
rooms as worlds. and all their windows illu.
minated for fesVivity.
Oh, how this widens AMI lifts and stimu-
lates our expectations How little it makes
the present and how stupendous it makes
the futurel How it consoles us. about our
pious dead, who, instead of being boxed up
and under the ground, have the range of as
many rooms as there are worlds, and we,-
come everywhere, for it is the Fathers
house. in which there are many mansions
Oh, Lord God of the Seven Stars and Orion,
how can | endure the transport, the ecstasy
Of such vision | must obey my text and
seek Him. will seek Him. l seek Him now,
for | cail to mind that it is not the material
universe that is most valuable, but the spir.
itual, and that each of us has soul worth
more than all the worlds which the inspired
herdsman saw from his booth on the hill:
of Tekoa
l had studied it before. but the Cathedral
of Cologne, Germany, never. impressed me
as it did the last time | saw it. 1t is adj
mitted the grandest gothic structure in toe
world, its foundation laid in 124S, only eight
or nine years ago completed. More than six
hundred years in building. All Europe
taxed for It's construction. Its chapel of the
Magl with precious stones enough to pur-
chase kingdom. Its chapel of st. Agnes
with master pieces of painting. Its spire
springing five hundred and eleven feet into
the heavens. Its stained glass the chorus OF
all rich colors. Statues encircling the pillars
and encircling all. Statues above statues, ur
til sculpture can do no more, but faints anc
falls back against carved stalls and down on
pavements over which the kings and queen:
Of the earth have walked to confession. Nave
and aisles and transept and portals comoin-
ing the splendors of sunrise. Interlaced,
iuterfoliated, intercolumned grandeur. AS
l stood outside looking at the double range
of flying buttresses and the forest of pima
Giles, higher and higher and higher, until
almost reeled from dizziness, | exclaimed
''Great doxology in stonel Frozen prayer OF
many nationsp
But while standing there saw a poor mar