The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-03-03

As the shell is only the house and the
wardrobe of insignificant animals of the
deep, why all that wonder and beauty
of construction? COTS care for them
is the only reason. And if God provide
so munificcntly for them, will He not
see that you have wardrobe and shell
ter? Wardrobe and shelter for peri
Wrinkle: shall there not be wardrobe
and shelter for n man? Would God
give 4 coat of mail for the defense of
nautilus and leave YOU no defense
against the storm? Does He build a
stone house for a creature that lasts
season and leave without home soul
| that takes hold on centuries and icons?
Hugh Miller found 1.-THE Footprints of
the Creator in the Old Red Sandstone"
and hear the harmonies of God in the
tinllle of the sea shells when the tide
comes in. The same Christ who drew
a lesson of providential care from the
fact that God clothes the grass of the
field instructs me to draw the same les
son from the shells.
In almost every mans life, however
well born and prosperous for years,
ana in almost every wOman's life, there
comes very dark time, at least, once.
A conjunction of circumstances will
threaten bankruptcy and homelessncss
and starvation. 1t may be that these
words will meet the ear or will meet
the eye of those who are in such state
of foreboding. Come, then, and see
how God rives an ivory palace to
water animal that you could cover with
10 cent piece, and clothes in armor
against all attack, 4 coral no bigger
than snowflake. do not think chat
God viii take better care of bivalve
than of one OF his own children.
rake to ycur feet with the gospel
rake the most thorough evidences of
Gods care for his creatures, | pile
around you great mounds OF Shells
that they may teach you most com
forting theology Oh, We oflittle faith,
wall; among these arbors of coraline,
and look at these bouquets of shell fit
to be handed a queen on her coronation
day, and see these fallen rainbows of
color, and examine these lilies in stone,
these primroses in stone, these hello
tropes in stone, these cowslips in stone,
these geraniums in stone, these iapon-
icaS in stone. Oh, We, who have your
telescopes ready, looking out on clear
nights, trying to see what is transpir-
ing in Mars, Jupiter and Mercury, know
that within n few hours walk or ride
of where you now are that there are
whole worlds that you might explore,
but of which you are unconscious, and
Al fl
tive of these worlds is the concholog
zeal world Take this lesson of Il prov
idential care. How does that old
hymn go?
We may, like ships, by tempest be tossed
On pcrilous deeps, but cannot be lost,
Though Satan enrages the wind and the tide,
The promise assures US, the Lord will pro
vide
But while you get this pointed lesson
OF providcntial care from the she!led
creatures of the deep, notice in their
construction that God helps them to
help themselves. This house OF stone
in which they live is not dropped on
them and is not built around them.
The material exUdes from their own
bodies and is adorned with a colOred
fluid from the pores of their own neck
1t is Il most interesting thing to see
these crustaceln ANIMALS fashion their
own homes out of carbonate of lime
and membrane. And all of this is 4
mighty lesson to those who are waiting
for Others to build their fortunes, when
they ought to go to work and, like the
mollusks, build their own fortunes out
of their own brain, out of their own
sweat, ont of their own industries. Not
a mollusll on all the beaches of all the
seas would have a house of shell if it
had not itself built one Do not wait
for others to'shelter you or prosper you.
Those people who are waiting for
their father or rich old uncle to die and
leave them n fortune are as silly as 4
mollusk would be to wait for some 9TH
err mollusk to drop on it shell equip |
ment 1t would kill the mollusll, as in
most cases it destroys a man. Not one
person out of 100 ever was strong
enough to stand a large estate by in
heritance dropped on him in chunk. |
Have great expectations from only two |
persons-God and yourself Let the
onycha of my text become your pre-
ceptor.
But the more l examine the shells. the |
more | am impressed that God is God |
of emotion. Many scott at emotion, |
and seem to think that God is God of |
cold geometry and iron laws and eter-
nal apathy and enthroned stoicism. No! |
No, The shells with Overpowering en- |
phasis deny it While law and order |
reign in the universe, You have but to |
see the lavishness of color on the crus- |
tacea, all shades of crimson from faint !
est blush to blood of battlefield, all |
shades of blue, all shades of green, all |
shades of all colors from deepest black |
to whitest light, just called out on |
the shells with no more order than |
n mother premeditates or calculates |
how many kisses and hugs she shall |
give her babe waking up in the |
morning sunlight. Yes Ny God is |
an emotional God. and 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, here is a carol for |
the robin, and psalm for man, and a
doXology for the seraphim and Il resur-
rection call for the archangeL" Aye, |
He showed Himself n God of sublime |
emotion when He flung himself on this |
world in the personally of Christ to
save it, without regard to the tears it
would take, or the blood it would ex-
haust, or the agonies it would crush |
out
In my study of the conchology OF the
Bible, this onycha of the text also inn
presses me with the fact that religion |
is perfumed. What else could God |
have meant when he said to Moses: !