Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1892-09-01

! "'-oSi uthiIihSs diFtTyluS eye VI wv
The seraphs do. How much more we
with twain he covered the feet"
All this talk about the dignity OF
human nature is braggadocio and a
sin. Our nature started at the hand OF
God regal, but it has been pauperized
There is well in Belgium which once
had very pure water, and it was stoutly
masoned with stone and brick but tina,
well afterward became the center OF
the battle of Waterloo. At the open.
ing of the battle the soldiers with Their
sabres compelled the gardener, Will
lam Won Kylsom, to draw water
out of the well for them, and
1t was very pure water. But
the battle ragged, and 300 dead and hall
dead were flung into the well for quicl,
and easy burial; so that the well of re-
freshment became the well of death,
and long after people looked down into
the well 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 it and been slain, and il
has become well of skeletons. Dead
hopes, dead resolutions, dead oppor.
tunities, dead ambitions. An aban-
doned well unless Christ shall reopen
and purify and fill it as the well OF
Belgium never was. Unclean, unclean!
Another seraphic posture in the text:
"With twain he covered the face
That means reverence Godward. Never
so much irreverencc abroad in the
world as to-day You see it in the de.
faced statuary, in the cutting out OF
figures from fine paintings, in the chip
ping of monuments for memento, in
the fact that military guard must stand
at the grave of Grant and Garfield, and
that old shade trees must be cut down
for tirewood, though fifty George
L. Morrises beg the woodmen to
spare the tree, and that calls
corpse, a cadaver, and that speaks of
death as going over to the majority,
and substitutes for the revercnt terms,
father and motner, "the old man." and
''the old woman" and finds nothing
impressive in the ruins of Baalbec or
the Columns of Karnac, and see no diff
ference in the Sabbath from other
days except it allows more dissipation,
and read 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
take the name of God in vain, how
many trivial things said about the Al.
mighty.
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 docs
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 abandoned and the scoun-
drelism of the universe. No punish
ment hereafter for any wrong done
here.
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 a consum.
ing 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 lrreverence, II want no
atonement, ! want no pardon,
want no intervention: | will go
up and face God and | will challenge
him, and will defy him, and / will
ask him what he wants to do with me-"
So the finite confronts the infinite. so a
tack hammer tries to break thunder
bolt, so the breath of human nostrils
deties 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
heaven comes in with full diapason,
"holy, holy, holy
Live so near to Christ that when you
are dead, people standing by your life
less body will not soliloquize, saying:
What disappointment life was to
him; how averse he was to departure;
what a pity it was he had to die. what
an awful calamity" Rather stand
inc therc NAV lheN see SION mnre