Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1892-08-29

fiippant about God. DO not joke about
death. DO not make fun OF lie Bible.
DO not deride the Eternal. Tie brightest
and mightiest seraph canlot look un-
abashed upon him. Involuptarily the
wings come rp. with twain be cov-
cred his face"
Who Is this God before whom the ar
rogant and intractable refuse reverencef
There was an engineer Of the name of
5trasicrates, who was in the employ OF
Alexander the Great, and he offered to
hew a mountain in the shape of his
master, the emperor, the enormous fig
ure TO hold in the left hand a 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 l
have to tell you that our King folds in
one hand all the cities of tie ear b and
all the oceans, while he has the stars OF
heaven for his tiara.
Earthly power goes from hand to
hand--from Henry TO Eenry ii and
Henry Ill, from Charles | to Charles III,
from Louis to Louis II ana Louis Ill
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
he crosses every thing-Lis oInnipses-
Il. l.a. =. L. t<.l.
he builds everything omnipotence.
Put two tablespoonfuls Of water in the
palm of your hand and it viii overflow;
but Isaiah indicates that Col r'its the At
lantic, and the Pacific, and the Arctic, and
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 pinch of sslt or powder
between your thumb and two fingers, SO
Isaiah indicates God takes up tie earth.
He measures the dust of The earth, the
original there indicating tl:at God takes
all the dust of all the continents between
the thumb and two fingers. Yol wrap
around your hand a 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 SPAN"
You know that balances are made of
beam suspended in the middle, with two
basins at the extremity Of equal heft.
In that way what vast lleft has been
weighed But what are all the balances
of earthly manipulation compared with
the balances that Isaiah saw suspended
when he saw God putting into the scales
the Alps, and the Apennines, and Mount
Washington, aud the Sierra Nevadas?
You see the earth had TO be ballasted.
It would not do to have too much
weight in Europe, or too much weight
in Asia, or too much weight in Africa,
or in America; 80 when God made the
mountains he weighed them. The Bible
distinctly says 80. God knows the
weight Of the great ranges that cross
the continents--the tons, the pounds
avoirdupois, the ounces, the grains,
the milligrams-just how much they
weighed then, and just how much they
weigh now. "He weighed the noun
tains in scales and the hills in bal
ance." Oh, what God to run against
oh, what God to disobey; oh, what q
God to dishonor; oh, what God to
defyi The brightest, the mightiest an
gel takes no familiarity with God. The
wings of reverence are lifted. "With
twain he covered the face"
Another seraphic posture in the text
The seraph must not always stand still.
He must move and it must be without
clumsiness. There must be celerity and
beauty in the movement. with twain
he did fly" Correction, exhilaration.
Correction at our slow gate, for we only
crawl in the service when we ought to
fly at the divine bidding. Exhilaration
in the fact that the soul has wings as the
seraphs have wings. What is a wing?
An instrument of locomotion. They may
not be like seraph's wing, they may not
be like birds wing, but the soul has
wings. God says so. "He shall mount
up ON wings as eagles" We are made
in the divine image, and God has wings.
The Bible says so. Healing in his
wings" "Under the shadow of his
wings" Under whose wings thou hast
come to trust" We have folded wing
now, wounded wing, broken wing,
bleeding wing, Gagged wing. Aye! !
have it now. Gagged within bars of bone
and under curtains of flesh, but one day
TO be free. hear the rustic of pinions
in Seagrave's poem, which we often
sing:
Rise, my soul. and stretch thy wings.
l hear the rustic of pinions in Alexan-
der Pope's stanza, which says:
mount, l fly;
o Death. where Is thy victory
A dying Christian not long ago cried
out, wings, wings, wingsw The air is
full of them, coming and going, coming
and going You have seen how the dun,
sluggish chrysalid becomes the bright
butterfly; the dull, and the stupid, and
the lethargic turned into the alert and
the beautiful. Well, my friends, in this
world we are in the chrysalid state.
Death will unfurl the wings. Oh, if we
could only realize what n grand thing
Il will be to get rid of this old clod of a
body and mount the heavens, neither
seagull nor lark nor albatross nor falcon
nor condor pitching from highest range
of Andes, SO buoyant or SO majestic Of
stroke.