Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1892-09-03

Give me the history of your foot and
/ will give you the history of your life
time. Tell me up what steps it hath
gone, down what declivities, and in
what roads and in what directions, and
l will know more about you than /
want to know. None of US could endure
the scrutiny. Our feetsnct always in
paths Of God. Sometimes in paths of
worldliuess. Our feet. a divine and
glorious machinery for usefulness and
work, so:often making missteps. 50 often
going III tie wrong direction. God
: knowing every step, the patriarch say
ing. Thou scttest ;lprint on the heels OF
my feet" Grimes of the hand, crimes
of the tongue, crimes of the eye, crimes
of the ear not worse than the crimes OF
the foot. Oh, NO want tihel VIM of
!. humility TO cover tie feet. Onghtfwe
not to go into self abegnationsbelore the
all searching, all scrutinizins, all try
ing.eye Of God? Tho scraphs do. Low
much moro we. with twain he COW
cred the feet
TIE BONDAGE OF SIN.
All this talk about the dignity Of hu-
man nature is braggadocio and a sin.
Our nature started ut the hand of God
regal, but it has been pauperized. There
is a well in Belgium which once had
. very pure water, and it was stoutly
masoned with stone and brick; but that
we'll aftorward became the center of the
battle Of Waterloo At the opening of
the battle the soldiers with their sabcrs
compelled the gardener, William Won
Kylsom, to draw water out of the well
for them, and it was very pure water.
But the battle ragged, and three hun
bred dead and half dead were flung into
the we'll for quick and easy burial, so
that the well of refreshment became the
we'll of death, and long after people
looked down into the well, and they saw
the bleached skulls, but no water. So
che human soul was u well of good, but
the armies of sin have fought around it,
and fought across it and been slain, and
it has become we'll of skeletons. Dead
hopes, dead resolutions, dead opportunl-
ties, dead ambitions. An abandoned
well unless Christ shall reopen and pu-
rify and fill it as the well of Belgium
never was. Unclcan, unclean!
Another scraphic posture in the text,
with twain lie covered the face. That
means reverence Godward. Never so
much irreverence abroad in the world
as today. You see it in the defaced
statuary, in the cutting out of figures
from fine paintings, in the chipping of
monuments for n memento, in the fact
that a military guard must stand at the
graves of Grant and Garfield, and that
old shade trees must be cut down for
frewood, though fifty George p. Morrises
beg the woodmen to spare the tree, and
that calls corpse cadaver, and that
speaks of death as going over to the ma
jority, and substitutes for the reyerent
terms, father and mother, "the old
man. and ..the old woman" and-fnds
nothing impressive in.the ruins of Baal-
bee orthe columns Of Karnac, and sees
no difference in the Sabbath from any
other days except it allows more dis
sipation, and reads 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
never so much abroad. How many take
the name of God in vain, how many
trivial things said about the Almighty.
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 a better world than
this, and that the God of the Bible
shocks every sense of propriety. They
talk of the love of God in way that
shows you they believe it does not make
any difference how bad q 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 thinl: it is a
general Jail delivery Cor all the aban-
doled and the scoundrelism Of the uni
verse. punishment hereafter for any
wrong done here.
THE LOVE OF GOD.
The Bible gives us two descriptions of
God, and they are just opposite, and
they are bot, true. In one place the
Bible says God is love. In another
place the Bible says God is consuming
ire. 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. mo-" says
Irreverence, Il want no atonement, l
want no pardon, want no intervention;
will go up and face God. and I will
challenge him, and will defy him, and
will ask him what he wants to dowith
me-" So the finite confronts the inf
mite, so tack hammer tries to break a
thunderbolt, so tie breath of human
nostrils defes 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,
"Hcly, holy, holy!"
Reverence for sham, reverence for the
old merely because it is old, reverence
for stupidity however learned, reyer-
ence for incapacity, however finely in
augurated, have none. But we want
more reverence for God, more reverence
for the sacraments, more reverence for
the Bible, more reverence for the pure,
more reverence for the good. Rever-
ence Characteristic of all greatnatures.
You hear it in the roll of the master
oratorios. You see it in the Raphaels
r;tin1ns and GhirlandiioS You