Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-02-02

neglectful to quick and immediate prepara-
tion, that they may have it likewise.
Yea, it is to induce many of our young
people to study volume OF God that few
ever open, but without some acquaintance
with which it is impossible to understand
the Bible-I mean the precious stones,
their crystallization, their powers of re-
fraction, their cleavage, their fracture, their
luster, their phosphoresence, their trans
parency, their infinity of color and shape,
and what they had to do with the welfare
and doom of families and the destiny of
nations-aye, the positive revelation they
make of God himself.
MARvEIs OF THE UNIVERSE.
My text stands us in the presence Of the
most stupendous splendor of the universe,
and that is the wall of heaven, and says Of
it's foundations that they are garnished
with all manner of precious stones All the
ancient cities had walls for ,-safety, and
heaven has wall for everlastlA & safety.
You may say that a wall made up OF all
manner of precious stones is figurative, but
you cannot understand the force and sig
nifcance of the figure unless you know
something about the real structure and
color and value of the precious stones men
| toned.
| Now propose this morning, so far as the
| Lord may help me, to attempt to climb not
! the wall of heaven, but the foundations OF
the wall, and 1 ask you to join me in the
attempt to scale some of the heights. We
shall only get part of the way up, but bet
ter that than to stay down on the stupid
level where most of us have all our lives
been standing. We begin clear down at the
| bottom and where the wall begins.
The first layer of the foundation, reach
ing all around the city and for l 800 miles,
! is layer of jasper. Indeed there is more
of Jasper in the wall of heaven than of any
other brilliant, because it not only composes
part of the foundation, but makes up the
chief part of the superstructure. The jas
!. per is a congregation of many colors. 1t is
1 brown; it is yellow; it is green; it is YER
million; it is red; it is purple; it is black,
and is so striped with colors that much OF
it is called ribbon jasper.
It is found in Siberia and Egypt, but it is
rare in most lands and of great value, for
1t is so hard the ordinary processes cannot
break it off from the places where it has
been deposited The workmen bore holes
into the rock of jasper, then drive into
these holes sticks of dry brentwood, and
then saturate the sticks and keep them
saturated until they swell enough to split
the rock, and the fragments are brought
out and polished and transported and cut
into canoes and put behind the glass door!
OF museums.
The portraits of Roman emperors wer'
cut into it. The finest intaglio ever seen Il
in the Vatican museum, the head OF Miner
va in Jasper. BY divine arrangement jas
per adorned the breastplate of the higi
priest in the ancient temple. But its mos
significant position is where it glows ant
: burns and darkens and brightens ant
breaches from the lowest stratum of the wal
/ of heaven. Glad am that the very tirs
i row Of stones in the wall of heaven
1 Jasper in many colors, and if you like pun
q ple it is purple, and If you like brown 1t
brown, and If you like green it is green
and if YOU like ocher yellow it is ocher yel
3 low, and if you like vermilion it is vermi
) ion, and If you like black it is black.
q suggests to me that heaven is q place of a
! colors- -colors of opinion, colors of Greco
colors of skin, colors Of taste
s PRECIOUS STONES INDEED.
But we must pass up in this Inspections
the foundations of the great wall of HEAVIER
4 and after leaving the jasper the next pr
cious stone reached is sapphire, andit SWEEP
) around the city 1,5O0 miles. All lapidarit
i agree in saying that the sapphire OF tt
q Bible is what we now call lapis lazuli. 10
& speaks with emotion of 'the place Of sal
n phires,'' and God thought SO much Of th
q precious stone that he put it in the breas
plate of the high priest, commanding, I'll
4 second row shall be an emerald, a sapphil
Z and diamond"
The sapphire is blue, but varies frol
faintest hue to deepest ultramarine. 1t
Il found pebble in the rivers of Ceylon.
is elsewhere in compact masses. Pers
and Thibet and Burmah and New Sout
D Wales and North Carolina yield exquisit
h specimens. Its blue is seen in the valley
q the Rhine. After burial of thousands
y years it has been brought to sight In Egg
tian monuments and Assyrian cylinder
y At Moscow and St. Petersburg and Co
! stantinople I have seen great massesof th
sapphire, commonly called lapis lazul
ees The closer you study its veins the more q
g, chanting, and do not wonder that tt
v sapphire is called into the foundation
= the wall of heaven. It makes o stror
> stone for the foundation, for it is the har
: est Of all minerals except the diamond.
!, Sapphire based on jasper, q blue sky ov
~ ~ a fiery sunset. ST. John points to it in Re
We elation and says, eThe second, sapphire
t. and this suggests to me that though o,
n =, earth and all its furniture of mountail
m and seas and atmospheres are tocollapse al
n vanish we. will throughout all eterni
9 have in some way kept the most beautif
of earthly appearances, whether you tai
- this sapphire Of the second layer as liter
or figurative. The deep blue Of our ski
; and the deep blue of our seas must not, w
! not be forgotten II a Thousand years aft
IN the world has gone to ashes you orI wa
TO to recall how the earthly skies looked in
+ summer noon or in the midocean in
= calm, we will have only to look at the Sc
= ond row Of the foundation CT the wall
heaven.
Oh, am sc. glad that st. John told
about It'll "The second, sapphirel" VIII
we are living in sight of that wall spiri
se who have come from other worlds and WI
ad never saw our earth will visit us, and '
will visit them, and some time we will
Of In converse about this earth when it W
u, yet afioat and aswing and we shall wa
., to tell them about how it looked at certa
times, and then 1t will be great obje
.. lesson for all eternity, and we will say
our visitor from some other world, as
10 point toward the wall Of heaven, ID look
II like that stratum of foundation next to t
10 lowest John, twenty-frst chapter a.
10 nineteenth verse. "The second, sapphire y
THE DIVINE ARCHITECTURE
III A step higher and you come to chall
Children Cry for Pitchers
. Castoria