Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-11-18


the victims before it? With cold,
metallic eye it looks on and yet
lets them suffer ohl heaven
and earth, what an altar! what sac
ritice of body, mind and soull The
PHYSICAL health of great multitude
is flung on this sAcrificial altar. They
cannot sleep, and they take choral
and morphine and intoxicants.
Some of them struggle in a night
mare of stocks, and at l o'clock
in the morning suddenly rise up
shouting: "a thousand shares of
railroad stock-one hundred and eight
and half take itr' until the whole
family is affrighted, and the specu-
lators fall back on their pillows and
tSleep until they are awakened again
by corner" or sudden rise in
something else. Their nerves gone,
their digestion gone, their brain gone,
they die. The clergyman comes in
and reads the funeral service: Bless
ed are the dead who die in the Lord. +"
Mistake. They did not Idle in the
Lord;" the golden cah kicked them
The golden calf of our day, like the
one of the text, is very apt to be made
out of borrowed gold. These Israelites
of the text borrowed the earrings of
the Egyptians and then melted
them into a god. That is the
is the way the golden calf is made
nowadays A great many housekeepers,
not paying for the articles they get,
borrow from the grocer and the baker
and the butcher and the dry goods
seller. Then the retailer borrows Of
the wholesale dealer. Then the whole
sale dealer borrows of the capitalist,
and we borrow, and borrow, and bor-
row until the community is divided
into two classes, those who borrow
and those who are borrowed of; and
after while the capitalist wants his
money and he rushes upon the whole
sale dealer, and the wholesale dealer
wants his money and he rushes
upon the retailer, and the retailer
wants his money and he rushes upon
the consumer, and we all go down to-
gether. There is many n man in this
day who rides in n carriage and owes
the blacksmith for the tire. the wheel
wright for the wheel, and the trimmer
for the curtain, and the driver for UNI
paid wages. and the harness maker for
the bride, and the furrier for the
robe, while from the tip of the car
riage tongue clear back to the tip of
the shawl huttering out of the back of
the vehicle. everything is paid for by
notes that have been three times re-
newed
1t is this temptation to borrow, and
borrow, and borrow, that keeps the
people overlastingly praying to the
golden calf for help, and just at the
minute they expect the help the golden
calf treads on them. The judgments
of God, like Moses in the text, will
rush in and break up this worship; and l
say,let the work 60 on until every man
shall learn TO speak truth with his
neighbor, and those who make engage
ments shall feel themselves bound to
keep them, and when n man who will
not repent of his business iniquity, but
goes on wishing to satiate his cannibal
appetite by devouring widows houses,
shall, by the law of the land, be COM
PEELED to exchange HIS mansion for
Sing Sing. Let the golden calf perish!
But, my friends, if we have made
this world our god, when we come to
die we will see our idol demolished.
How much of this world are you going
A fn WI "a tV,f h.
you have two pockets-one in each
side of your shroud? Will you cushion
your coffin with bonds and mortgages
and certificates of stock? Ali no.
The ferry-boat that crosses this Jor-
dan takes no baggage-nothing
heavier than a spirit. You may. per-
haps, take five hundred dollars
with you two or three miles, in
the shape of funeral trappings, to
Greenwood, but you will have to leave
them there. 1t would not be safe for
you to lie down there with a gold watch
Or n diamond ring; it would be temp
tation to the pillagers All, my friends!
II we have made this world our god,
when we die we will see our idol
ground to pieces by our pillow, and we
will have to drink it in bitter regrets
Tor the wasted opportunities of life
.fme. Soon we will be gone. OF this
IS fleeting world, it is dying world.
A man who had worshiped it all his
lays, in his dying moment described
limself when he said: FOOL fool!
'oolr"
l want you to change temples, and
% give up the worship of this unsatis-
'ying and cruel god for the service OF
he Lord Jesus Christ Here is the
yold that will never crumble. Here
ire securities that will never fail. Here
ire banks that will never break.
Here is an altar on which there has
'een one sacrifice once for all. Here
S God who will comfort You when
'ou are in trouble, and soothe you
when you are sick, and save you when
vou die. When your parents
iave breathed their last, and
he old, wrinkled, and trembling
lands can no more be put upon your
lead for blessing, he will be to you
ather and mother both, giving You
he defense of the one and the comfort
4 the other: and when your children