The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1893-02-21

and thick coatings for boisterous seas.
They all dash upon me the thought of the
prOvidential care of God. What is the use
of all this architecture of the shell, and
why is it pictured from the outside lip
clear down into its 1abarinths of construc-
ton? Why the infnity of skill and ra-
dance in a shell? What is the use OF the
color and exquisite curve of a thing so in
significant as shell fish? Why, when the
conchologist by dredge or rake, fetches
the crustaceous specimens to the shore,
does he find at his feet whole Alhambras
and Colosseums and Parthenons and Crys-
tai palaces of beauty in miniature, and
these bring to light only an intinitesimal
part of the opulence in the great subaqueouss
world Linaeus counted $500 species OF
Shells but conchology had then only be-
gun its achievements. While exploring the
bed of the Atlantic ocean in preparation
for laying the cable, shelled animals were
brought up from depths of 1000 fathoms.
When lifting the telegraph wire from the
Mediterranean and Red seas, shelled Great
ures were brought 10 from depths OF 2,OoO
fathoms. The English admiralty, eXplor-
ing in behalf of science, found m MOI eas
at a depth of ABS fathomS, or 4,2lO feet
deep What realm awful for vastneSs:
As the shell is only house and the
wardrobe of insignificant animals OF the
deep, why all that wonder and beauty or
construction? Gods care for them IS inc
only reason. And if God provide so mu-
nifcently for them will he not see that
you have wardrobe and shelter? Wardrobe
and shelter for the periwinkle, shall there
not be wardrobe and shelter for a man!
Would God give coat of mail for the de-
fence of a Nautilus and leave you no de-
fence against the storm! Does he build
a stone house for creature that lasts
season and leave without home soul that
takes hold on centuries and aeons; Hugh
Miller found ''i'he Footprints of the Gre
ator in the Old Red Sandstone" and L
hear tho harmonies of God in the tiRke
of the sea shells when the tides come III.
The same Christ who drew lesson OF prov
dential care from the fact that God clothes
the grass of the field instructs me to draw
the same lesson from the shells.
In almost every mans life, however well
born and prosperous for years, and III al
most every womans life there. comes
very dark time ut least once. A conJunc-
ruptcy and homelessness and starvation.
1t may be that these words will meet the
ear will meet the eye Of those who are
in such state of forbodng. Come. then,
4 water animal that you could cover with a
ten-cent piece and clothes in armor against
all attack. Il coral no bigger than a snow
flake | do not think that God will take
better care of Il bivalve than of one of his
own children. l rake to your feet with the
gospel rake the most thorough ev-
idence of Gods care for his crea-
lures. 1 pile around you great
mounds of shells that they may teach
you most comforting theology. Oh, ye
of little faith walk among these arbors OF
coraline and look at the bouquets of shells
fit to be handed Il queen on her coronation
day, and see these fallen rainbOws of color,
and examine these lilies in stone. these
primroses in stone. these heliotropcs in stone,
these cowslips i'll stone, these gcraniums
in stone. these japonicas i'll stone. On,
We, who have your telescopes ready, look
ing out on the clear nights. trying to see
what is transpiring in Mars, Jupiter and
Mercury, know that within few hours
walk or ride of where you now are. there
are whole worlds that you might explore,
but of which you are unconscious and among
the most beautiful and suggestive OF these
worlds is the Genealogical world. Take
this csson of il provdential care. How does
that old hymn 90?
We may. like ships. by tempest be tossed
On perous deeps, but :anItot be lost.
Though Satan enIe:,es the wind and IT,? tide,
The promise assures us, the LORD will pro-
But while you get this pointed lesson of
providental care from the shciled creatures
II the deep, notice in their construction
that Gods helps them to help themselves.
This house of stone i'll which they live
is not dropped on them and is not built
around them. The material for it exudes
from their own bodies and is adorned with
4 colored fluid from the pores of their own
neck. 1t is a most interesting thing to see
these crustacean animals fashion their own
homes out of carbonate Of lime and mem
brane. And of ali this is Il
mighty lesson to those who are
fortunes, when they ought to go to work
and, like the mollusks. build their own for
tunes out of their own brain, out of their
own sweat. out of their own industries.
Not Il molllsll on all the beaches of all the
seas would have Il house of she'll. if it had
not itself built one. Do not wait for others
to shelter you prosper you. All the crus-
taceous creatures of the earth. from every
flake of their covering and from every
ridge of their tiny castles on Atlantic and
Pacific and Mediterranean coasts says:
Help yourself while God helps YOU to help
Yourself" Those people who are waiting
for their father or rich Old uncle to die and
leave them Il fortune are rs silly as Il mol
lusk would be to wait for some other mol
lusk to drop on it Il shell equipment. 1T
would kill the molluSk. as in most cases, 1t
DESTROYS the man. Not one person out of
a hundred ever was strong enough to stand
a large estate by Inheritance dropped on
from only two persons-iod and yourself.
Let the onycha of my text become your pre-
ccptOr.
But the more | examine the shells, the
more | am impressed that God is God Of
emotion. Many scott nj emotion and seem
TO thing that God is God of cold geometry
and iron laws and eternal apathy and en-
throncd stoicism. No. No. The shells
with overpowerng emphasis deny it.
While law and order reign in the universe
you have but to see the avishncss of col
ar on the crustacea. all shades of crimson,
from the fantest blush to the blood of the
battlefield ali shades of blue, all shades
of green. all shades of all colors, from deep
est black TO whitest light. just called out on
tho shells with no more order than IL moth
or nrameditates or calculates how many
kisses and hugs she shall give hor babe wax
ing ND in the morning sunlight. Yes. My God
is an emotional God, and he says: I'VE
must have colorS and let the sun paint all
of them on the scroll Of that shell. and we
must have music, and here is Il carol 1or
,ne robin and a psalm for man and
doxology for the seraphm, and a reSurrec,,
tion call for the archangel' Aye, he showed
himself a God of sublime emotion when he
flung himself on this world in the personality
Of Christ to save it, without regard to the
taors if would take or the blood it would
exhaust or the a2onies it would crush ont.
When / see the Louvres and the LuXeln-
bourgs and the Naticans OF divine painting
strewn along the eight thousand miles of
coast and l hear in forest on q summer
morning musical academies and Handcls
societies of full orchestras, / say God Is
n God of emotion and if he observes mathe-
matics it is mathematics set TO
music and his figures are written
not in white chalk on backboards,
but written by finger of sunlight on walls
of iasmin and trumpet-creeper.
In nv study of the conchology o. the Bible,