Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-10-24

always ana IN almost everything points
forward and not backward. All the way
through the Bible, the lamb and pigeon Oh
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
ing the world upward to the same Redeemer
and forward to the time of his universal
domination. My bearers, get out of the
habit of looking back and looking down,
and look up and look forward. 1t is useful
once in awhile to look back, but you had
better, for the most part of your time, stop
| "Reminiscences and begin anticipation. We
! have mono Of us hardly begun yet.
If we love the Lord and trust him--and
you may all love him and trust him from
! this moment on-we no moro understand
, the good things ahead of us than the child
| at school studying his A B can under
I stand what that has to do with his reading
! John Ruskin's "Sevrn Lamps of Architec-
| ture,n OF Dante's "Diyina Commedia." The
satisfacticns and joys we have as yet had
/ are like the music a boy makes with his
! first Jesse" on the violin compared with
| what was evoked frcm his great orchestra
! by my dear and illuStrious and transcend
: ent but now departed friend, Patrick Gil.
| more, when he lifted his baton and all the
| strings vibrated, and all the trlimDets
pualcd forth, and all the flutes caroled, and
! all the drums rolled, and all the hoofs of
| the cavalry charge, which he initiated,
| W ere in full beat Look aheadi The finger
| Of God potts forward.
l 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
err 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 a stupid thing it all
is compared with what it will be when we
| have gone beyond psslmbook and sermon
and Bible, and we stand, our last imper
lection gone, in the presence of that charm
| of the universe-the blessed Chrst-and
| have him look in our face and say: 81 have
! been watching you and sympathizing with
| you and helping you ell these years, and
now you are here. Go where you please
! and never know sorrow and never shed a
tear. There is your mother now-she is
coming to greet yOu--and there is your
| father, and there are your children. Sit
down under this tree OF life, and on the
banks of this river talk it all over"
tell you there will be more joy In one
minute of that than in fifty years of earth
! ly exultation. Look aheadl Look at the
finest house on earth, and know that you
will have a finer one in heaven. Look up
the healthiest person you can find, and
know you will yet be healthier Look up
the one who has the best eyesight of any
one you have ever heard of, and know you
will have better vision. Listen to the
sweetest prima donna that ever trod the
platform, and know that in heaven you
will lift more enrapturing song than
ever enchanted earthly auditorium.
THE SPLENDoR OF HEAVEN.
Ny friends do not know how we are
going 80 stand tt mean the full thrush
of that splendor. Last summer saw Mos
COW, in some respects the most splendid
city under the sun. The emperor after
ward asked me if / had seen it, for Mos
COW is the pride of Russia. told him yes,
md that had seen Moscow burn. will
| tell you what l meant. After examining
nine hundred brass cannons which were
! picked out of the snow after Napoleon re-
| treated from Moscow, each cannon deep
cut with the letter an" l assembled a
/ tower of some two hundred and fifty feet
! just before sunset, and on each platform
| there were bells, large and small, and /
climbed up among the BELLS and then as
reached the top all the bells underneath
/ me began to ring, and they were joined by
the bells of fourteen hundred towers and
! domes and turrets.
Some of the bells sent out faint tinkle
| of sound, sweet Standardization that
seemed to bubble in the air, and others
| Numbered forth boom after boom, boom
after boom, until it seemed to shake the
earth and ell the heavens-sounds so
weird, so sweet, so awful, so grand, 80
charming so tremendous, so soft, 80 rip
| ping, so reverberating-and they seemed
to wreathe and whrl and rise and sink
and burst and roll and mount and die.
When Napoleon saw Moscow burn, it
could not have been more brilliant than
/ when saw all the fourteen hundred tur-
rets aname with the sunset, roofs of gold
and walls of malachite, and architecture
of all colors mingling the brown of au-
tumnal forests, and the blue of summer
heavens, and the condagration of morning
| skies, and the green of rich meadows, and
, the foam of tossing seas.
/ The mingling of so many colors with so
many sounds was an enhancement
almost too much for human nerves,
, or human eyes, or human ears.
expect to see nothing to equal 1t until
you and see heaven. But that will sur
pass it and make the memory of what
saw that July evening in Moscow al
most tame and insipid. All heaven aglow
and all heaven airing, not in the sunset,
but in the sunrise. Voices of our own kin
bred minglng with the doxologies Of en-
| pires. Organs of eternal worship respond
ing to the trumpets that have Weakened the
dead. Nations in white. Centuries in cor
onation. Anthems like the voice of many
waters. Circle of martyrs. Circle Of apos-
ties Circle of prophets Thrones of cheru-
BIN Thrones of seraphim. Throne OF
archangel Throne of Christ Throne of
| God Thronesl Thronesl Thronesi The
finger of God points that way. Stop not
until you reach that place. Through the
atoning Christ all l speak of and more
may be yours and mine. Do you not now
hear the chime of the bells of that metrop-
oils of the universeP Do you not see the
shimmering Of the towersi Good morn
ing.
Wilson's Mills n. H, lays claim to a
tr oil hot atrr1,ss