Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-29

the Kings chariot goes by, and the arch
angel turns away because he cannot endure
| the splendor.
Reverence for sham, reverence for the old
merely because it is old, reverence for stu
| pld1ty however learned, reverence for in
| capacity however finely inaugurated, 1 have
none. But We want more reverence for God,
more reverence Tor the sacraments more
| reverence for the Bible, more reverence fol-
the pure. more reverence for the good.
Reverence is characteristic of ali natures.
You hear it in the roll OF the master ora.
| torios. You see it in the Raphaels and
| T1tians and Ghirlandjos.
i God Is Not an Obi ct of Derision.
Do not be f1ippant about God Donot joke
about death. Do not make fun Of the Bible.
Do not deride the Eternal. Earthly power
! goes from hand to hand, but from everlast-
ing to everlasting is God. God the first, God
the last, God the only. He has one telescope
with which He sees everything: His omnis-
cience. He has one bridge with which he
crosses everything: His omnipresence. He
mas one hammer with which He builds
everything: His ounipotence.
Another seraphic posture in the text The
seraph must not always stand still. He must
move, and it must be without clumsiness.
There must be celebrity and beauty in the
movement. "With twain did he fly" Cor
rection, exhilaration. Correction at our
when we ought TO fly at the Divine bidding.
Exhilaration in the fact that the soul has
wings as the seraph has wings.
What is a wingf An instrument of loco
motion. They may not be like seraph's
wing, they may not be like birds wing. but
the soul has wings. God says SO. "He shall
mount up on wings as eagles" We are made
IN IN the divine image, and God has wings
The Bible saws so. 'Healing in His wings"
"Under the shadow of His wings" "Under
whose wings thou hast come to trust" We
broken wing, bleeding wing, Gagged wing.
Aye! have it now. Gagged within bars of
bone and under curtains of flesh, but one
day to be tree. hear the rustic of pinions
In Seagrave's poem which we often sing:
Rise my soul, and stretch thy wings.
L hear the rustic of pinions in Alexander
Pope's stanza, which says:
Death. where is thy victoryP
Only in a Chrysalid state Hera.
dying Christian not long ago cried out,
"Wings, wings, wings!" The air is full of
them coming and going, coming and going.
You have seen how the dull, sluggish chrys-
alid becomes the bright butterfly; the dull
and the stupid and the lethargic turned
into the alert and the beautiful. Well, my
friends. in this world we are in the chyrsalid |
state. Death will unfurl the wings Oh, If |
we could only realize what grand thing it |
will be to get rid of this old clod of the body |
and mount the heavens, neither seagull nor |
lark nor albatross nor falcon, nor condor |
pitching from the highest range of Andes so |
buoyant or so ajestic Of stroke.
See that eagle in the mountain nest 1t |
looks so sick, SO ragged-feathered, so worm |
out and so half asleep Is that eagle dying? |
No. The ornithologist will tell you it is |
season with that bird Not dying,
but moultIng You see that Christian sick
and weary and worn out and seeming about |
to die on his death-bed. The world says he
is dying. l say it is the moulting season for
his soul-the body dropping away, the celes-
tial pinions coming on.
o. people of God, let us stop playing the
fool and prepare for rapturous flight. When
your soul stands on the verge of til life, !
and there are vast precipices beneath, and
sapphired domes above, which way will you
hy? Will you swoop or will you soar2
Live so near to Christ that when YOU are |
dead people standing by your lifeless body
will not soliloQuize, saying: "What dis
appointment life was to him; how averse he |
was to departure; what pity it was he had
TO die; what an awful calamity" Rather, |
standing there may they see a sign more
vivid on your still face than the vestiges of
pain, something that will indicate that it
was a happy eXit-the clearance from op-
1ressive quarantine, the cast-off chrysalid,
'he moulting OF the faded and useless, and
he ascent from malarial valleys to bright,
hining mountain tops, and be led to say, as
hey stand there contemplating your humil-
ty and your reverence in life and your hap
)iness in death: "With twain he covered
he feet, with twain he covered the face,
With twain he did fly" Wings! Wingsi
Wings!