Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1892-03-24

Let one winter pass without frost to,
Kill vegetation and ice ,tosbind the
rivers and snow to enrich our fields,
and then you will have to enlarge
your hospitals and your cemeteries.
"a green Christmas makes a fat
graveyard" was the old proverb.
Storms to purify the air. Thermom-
eter at ten degrees above zero to
tone up the system. December and
January just as importanta May and
June. 1 tell you we need the storms
of life as much as wedo the sunshine.
There are more men ruined by pros
perity than by adversely. If we had
our own wayin life, before this we
would have been representations OF
selfshness and worldliness and dis
gushing sin, and pulled up until we
would have been like julius Caesar,
who was made by sycophants to be-
lieve that he was divine, and the
freckels on his face were as the stars
of the armament.
One of the swiftest transatlantic
voyages made last summer by our
swiftest steamer was because she
had a stormy wind abaft, chasing
her from New York to Liverpool.
But to those going in the opposite
direction the storm was a buffeting
and q hindrance. It is bad thing
to have a storm ahead, pushing us
back; but if we be Gods children
and aiming toward heaven, the
storms of life will only chase us the
sooner into the harbor. I am so glad
to believe that the monsoons and W
phoons and mistrals and siroccos of
the land and sea are not unclaimed
maniacs let loose upon the earth, but
are under divine supervision! l am
so glad that the God of the Seven
Stars is also the God of Orion!
twas out of Dante's suffering came
the sublime "Divina Commedia, and
out of John Milton's blindness came
Paradise Lost" and out OF misec-
able infdel attack came the Bridge
water Treatise" in favoro Christian
ity, and out of David's exile came the
songs of consolation, and out Of the
suferings of Christ came the posi-
bility of the worlds redemption, and
out of your bereavement, your perse-
cution, your poverties, your misfor-
tunes, may yet come an eternal
heaven.
THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE.
Oh, what a mercy it is that in the
text and all up and down the Bible
God induces us TO look out toward
other words, Bible astronomy in
! Genesis, IN Joshua, in Job, in the
falms. in the prophets, major and
minor; in St. Johns Apocalypse,
practically saying: Worlds! worlds
worlds. Get ready for them" We
have a nice little world here that we
stick to, as though losing that we
lose all. We are afraid of falling off
this little raft of a world. We are
afraid that some meteoric iconoclast
will some night smash it, and we want
everything to revQlve around it, and
are disappointed when we find that
it r~evolves around the sun instead Of
the SIN revolving around it. What
a fuss we make about this little bit
of a world. i existence only a short
time between two spasms, the par
oxysm by which it was hurled from
chaos into order, and the paroxysm
of its demolition.
And l am glad that so many texts
call us to look off to other worlds,
many Of them larger and grander
and more respondent. Look there
says Job, "at Nazareth and Arcturus
and his sons" Look there" says
st. John, at the moon under Christ's
feet Look there" says Joshua,
..at the sun standing still above
Gibeon..' Look there" says Moses,
at the sparkling armament" Look
there" says Amos, the herdsman,
"atthe Seven Stars and Orion Don't
let US be sad about those who shove
off from this world under Christly
bilotage. Don't let us be SO agitated
about our own going off this little
barge or sloop or canal boat of a
world to get on some Great Eastern
OF the heavens. Don't let us per,
sist in wanting to stayin this barn,
ttlhi;sSked. TINS clubhouse of a world,
when all the kings palaces, already
occupied by May of ourtest friends,
are swinging wide open their gates
to let us in.
TIE HEAVENLY MANSIONS.
When l read, In my Fathers
house are many mansions" I do not
know but that each world is a room,
and as many rooms as there are
; worlds, stellar stairs, stellar CALLER
les, stellar Railways, l~larwindows,
stellar domes. How our departed
friends must pity US shut up in these
cramped apartmN = tired II we
walk fifteen miles, when they some
morning, by II stroke Of wing, can
make circuit Of the whole stellar sys-
tenn and be back in time for mathis!
Perhaps yonder twinkiing constella-
ton is the residence of the martyrs;
that group of twelve luminaries is
the celestial home of the Apostles.
Perhaps that steep of light is tic
dwelling place of angels cherubic,
seraphic, archangelic. A mansion
with as many rooms as worlds, and
all their windows illuminated for fes-
tivity.
Oh, how this widens and lifts and
stimulates our expectation How little
it makes the present. and how stu
pendous it makes the future! How
it consoles us about our pious dead,
who. instead of being boxed up and
under the ground, have the range Of
oc ,oo,oc &c +boro ora ror16c