Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-05-27

of the books Of the bible, he leaves to
our coinmon-sense to decide how often
we should pause in reading the other
sixty-four books of the bible.
We must pause, and ask for more
light. We must pause. and weep over
our sins. We must pause and absorb
the strength of one promise. 1 some
times hear people boasting about how
many times they have read the Bible
through, when they seem to know no
more about it than a passenger would
know about the state of Pennsylvania
who should go through it in st. Louis
lightning express train and in Pull
man sleeper" the two characteristics
OF the journey, velocity and somno-
lence. 1t is not the number of times
you go through the bible, but the num-
Der of times the bible goes through
you. Pause, reflect. Selah
So also OH the scroll of your life and
mind. We go rushing on, in the song
of our prosperity, from note of Joy to
note of joy, and it is n long drawn-out
legato, and we become Indifferent and
unappreciative, when suddenly we
4
is nothing between those bars. A
pause God will fill it up with sick
bed or commercial disaster, or IL
grave. But, thank God, it is not a
breaking down; it is only n pause. 1t
helps us to appreciate the blessings
that are gone; 1T gives us higher appre-
Citations of the blessings that are to
come.
The Selan of HabakkulS and David is
dividing line between two anthems.
David begins his book with the words,
blessed ID the man, " and after seven
ty-four Selahs, he closes his book with
the words, praise ye the Lord" So
there are mercies behind us, and there
are going to be mercies before us. 1t
is good for us that God halts us in
our fortunes, and halts us with
physical distress, and halts us at
the graves of our dead. More
than once you and have been halted
by such Selah. You wrung your
hands and said, Il can't see any sense
in this Providence; / can't see why God
gave me that child, if he is so soon GO
ing to take it away o my desolate
home! o my broken heart" You could
not understand it. But it was not a
Selah of overthrow. 1t gaveyou greater
appreciation of the blessings that have
gone; it will yet give you greater ap-
come.
When the Huguenots were being
very much prosecuted in France, a
| father and mother were obliged to fly
from the country, leaving their child
| in the possession of comparative
stranger. They did not know whether
they would ever return, or returning.
| if they would be able to recognize their
child, for by that time she might be
grown. The mother was almost
frenzied at the thought of leaving
the child, and then, even If coming
back again, not being able to know
her. Before they left, the father
drew his sword, and he marked the
wrist of that child with a deep cut.
1t must have been great exigency
| to make father do that.
I Years of absence passed on, and after
while the parents returned, and their
4
child. They looked up and down the
land, examining the wrists of the young
people, when 10! after while the
father found Il maiden with a scar upon
her wrist. She knew him not, but he
knew her. And O, the Joy Of the re-
union So it is now. "Whom the Lord
loveth he cbasteneth." He cutteth, he
| ,.ly ~ Vx,ha ha 70 n1n i'm
| his own the Lord will know them that
are his; know them by the scar of their
trouble, know them by the stroke of
their desolation.
A sceptic desiring to show his con-
tempt for the passing years, and to
show that he could build enduringly,
had his own sepulchre made of the
finest and the hardest marble, and then
he had put on the door the words, ''For
time and for eternity;" but it so hap
pened that the seed of a tree somehow
got into an unseen crevice of the mar
BILE. That seed grew and enlarged
until 1T became Il tree, and split the
marble to pieces. There can be no
eternalization of anything earthly.
But forever Will you and l
L
live as long as that? We are apt to
think of the grave as the terminus.
, We are apt to think of the hearse as
our last vehicle. We are apt to think
of seventy or eighty or Dinety years,
| and then cessation. Iuatead of that
we find marble slab of the tomb is
only milestone, marking the first
mile, and that the great Journey is be-
yond. We have only time enough In
this world to put on the sandals and to
clasp our girdlc and to pick up our
F., staff. We take our first step from
cradle to grave, and then we open the
door and start-grcat God, whittier?
The clock strikes the passing away of
time, but not the passing away Of
| eternity. Measureless! Measureless!
This Selah of perpetuity makes earthly
inequalities so insignificant, the differ.
ence between sceptcr and needle, be.
tween Alhapbra and hut, between
chariot and cart, between throne md
{ curhstOne betweon Administer and