Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-02-20

aroused admiration.
Costly purple! Six pounds of the pur-
| pie liquor extracted from the shellfishes
were used to prepare one pound of wool
Purple was also used ON the pages of
books. Bibles and prayer books APP
peared in purple vellum, which may still
be found in some of the national libraries
of Europe. Plutarch speaks of some pur-
pie which kept its beauty for 100 years.
But after awhile the purple became
easier to get, and that which had been a
sign of imperial authority when worn in
robes was adopted by many people, and
so an emperor, jealous of this appropria-
ton of the purple, made law that any
one except royalty wearing purple should
be put to death.
Then, as if to punish the world for
that outrage of eXclusiveness, God OBJ
liberated the color from the earth, as
much as to say, eff all cannot have it,
none shall have it." But though God
has deprived the race of that shellfish
which afforded the purple there are
shells enough left to make us glad and
worshipful. Oh, the enhancement of
hue and shape still left all up and down
the beaches of all the continents! These
creatures of the sea have what roofs of
enameled porcelain! They dwell under
what pavilions blue as the sky and fiery
as sunset and mysterious as an aurora!
And am not right in leading you for a
few moments through this mighty realm
of God SO neglected by human eye and
human footstep?
1t is said that the harp and lutte were
invented from the fact that in Egypt
the Nile overfowed its banks, and when
the waters retreated tortoises were left
by the million on all the lands, and these
tortoises died, and soon nothing was left
but the cartilages and gristle of these
creatures, which frightened under the
heat into musical strings that when
touched by the wind or foot of man vi
brated, making sweet sounds, and so the
world took the hint and fashioned the
harp, and am I not right in trying to
make music out of the shells and lifting
them as harp, from which to thrum
the jubilant praises of the Lord and the
pathetic strains of human coincidence?
THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.
But l find the climax of this conchol-
ogy of the Bible in the pearl, which has
this distinction above all other gems
that it requires no human hand to bring
out its beauties. Job speaks of it, and
its sheen is in Christ's sermon, and the
Bible, which opens with the onycha of
my text, closes with the pearl. OF such
value is this crustaceous product l do
not wonder that for the exclusive right
of fishing for it on the shores of Ceylon
a man paid to the English government
5000, 900 for one season.
So exquisite is the pearl do not won
der that Pliny thought it was made out
of a drop of dew, the creature rising to
the surface to take it and the chemistry
of nature turning the liquid into solid.
You will see why the Bible makes so
much of the pearl in its similitudes if |
you know how much it costs to get it. |
Boats with divers sail out from the island |
of Ceylon, 10 divers to each boat Thir-
teen men guide and manage the boat
Down into the dangerous depths, amid |
sharks that swirl around them, plunge
the divers, while 10000 people anxiously |
gaze on. After three or four minutes
absence from the air the diver ascends,
Strangulated and blood rush
ing from ears and nostrils, and fiinging
his pearly treasure ON the sand falls into
Inconsistencies.
Oh, it is an awful exposure and strain
and peril to fish for pearls, and yet they
do so, and is it not wonder that to get
that which the Bible calls the pearl Of
great price. worth more than all other
pearls put together, there should be so
little anxiety, SO little struggle, so little
Would God that we were
all as wise as the merchantmen Christ
who, when he had found
one pearl of great price, went and sold
all that he had and bought it.
But what thrills me with suggestive
ness is the material out of which all
pearls are made. They are fashioned
from the wound of the shellfsh The
oxidation from that wound is fixed and
hardened and enlarged into Il pearl. The
vessels of the water animal
,ashie led the gem that now adorns finger
II earring or sword hilt or kings crown.
So out of the wounds of earth will
come the pearls of heaven. Out of the
wound of conviction the pearl of pardon.
Out of the wound of bereavement the
)earl of solace. Out of the wound of loss
he pearl of gain. Out of the deep wound
If the grave the pearl of resurrection
oy. Out of the wounds of q Saviour's
life and Saviour's death the rich, the
adiant, the everlasting pearl of heaven
y gladness.
''And the 10 gates were 12 pearls"
fake the consolation, all We who have
'een hurt, whether hurt in body, or hurt
n mind, or hurt in soul. Get your trou-
les sanctifed. If you suffer with Christ
n earth, you will reign with him liz
Tory. The tears of earth are the crys-
ais of heaven. Every several gate was
f one pearl.
Cannot Catch Gladstone.