The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1893-04-15


meant when He said to Moses: Take
unto thee sweet spices, stacte and
onycha?" Moses took that shell of the
onycha, put it over the FIRE, and as II
icrumbled into ashes it exhaled an odor
that hung in every curtain and filled
| the ancient tabernacle, and it,
sweet smoke escaped from the sacred
precincts and saturated the outside
air. Perfume! That is what religion
is But, instead of that. some make it a
mal-odor. They serve God in rough
and acerb way. They box the child'a
ears because he does not properly keep
Sunday, instead of making Sunday SO
attractive the child. could not help to
keep it. They make him learn by
heart difficult chapter in the Book OF
Exodus, with all the hard names. be-
cause he has been naughty. How many
disagreeable good people there are.
No one doubts their piety, and they
will reach Heaven, but they will have
to get fixed up before they go there, or
they will make trouble by calling out
to us: keep off that grass!' "What
do you mean by plucking that hower?''
"Show your tickets!' Oh, how many
Christian people need to obey my
text and take into their wor-
ship and their behavior and their
conscientious and presbyteries and
general assemblies and conferences
more onycha- / have sometimes gone
in a very gale of spirit into the pres
ence of some disagreeable Christians,
and in fivc minutes felt wretched; and
at some other time l have gone de.
pressed into the company of suave and
genial souls, and in few moments /
felt exhilarant. What was the differ
ence? 1t was the difference in what
they burnt on their censors. The one
burnt onycha; the other burnt asa
| fetida.
Plutarch speaks of some purple which
kept its beauty for one hundred and
ninety years. But, after awhile, the
purple became easier to get, and that
which had been sign of imperial au-
thority, when worn in robes, was
adopted by many people. and so an en-
peror, jealous of this appropriation of
the purple, made law that anyone
except royalty wearing purple should
be put to death. Then, as If to punish
the world tor that outrage of ex-
clusivcness, God obliterated the color
from the earth, as much as to say:
IF all can not have it. none shall have
It," But, though God has deprived
the race of that shell-fish which afford
ed 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
porcelainl They dwell under what
pavilions, blue as the sky and fiery as
a 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 in
vented from the fact that in Egypt the
Nile overdowed its banks, and when
the waters retreated tortoises were left
by the million on ali the lands, and
these tortoises died, and soon nothing
was left but the cartilages and gristle
of these creatures, which frightened un-
der the heat into musical strings that.
when touched by the wind or the foot
of man vibrated, making sweet sounds,
and SO the world took the hint and
fashioned the harp; and am not right
in trying to make music out of the
shells, and lifting them as a harp, from
which to thrum the jubilant praises of
The Lord and the pathetic strains Of hui
man coincidence.
But / find the climax of this con-
chology of the Bible in the pearl,
which has this distinction above a.;
other gems that it requires no human
hand to bring ont its beauties. Job
speaks of it and its sheen is in Christs
sermon, and the Bible, which opens
with the onycha of my text, closes with
taceous product, do not wonder that,
for the exclusive right of fishing for it
on the shores of Ceylon, q man
paid to the English government
six hundred Thousand dollars for
one season So exquisite is the pearl
do not wonder that Pliny thought it.
made out of 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 simil-
itudes if you know how much its costs
to get it. Boats with divers sail out
from the island of Ceylon, ten divers
to each boat. Thirteen men guide and
manage the boat Down into the dam
gerous depths. amid sharks that swirl
around them, plunge the divers, while
sixty thousand people anxiously gaze
on. After three or four minutes alb
sencc from the air, the diver ascends,
nine-tenths strangulated and blood
rushing from ears and nostrils,
and fiinging his pearly treasure on the
sand, falls into Inconsistencies. Oh,
it is an awful an strain exposure 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 the
other pearls put together, there should
be SO little anxiety, so little struggle, SO
little enthusiasm. Would God that we
were all as wise as the merchantmen
Christ commended, s'who, when He had
found one pearl of great price, wentand
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 shell-fish. The
DO lak