The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-12-29

cave OF Kentucky. You may walk Ia
miles and see no sunlight. 1t is stu
pendous place. Some places the roof of
the cave hundred feet high. The grot-
toes filed with weird echoes, cascades
falling from invisible height to invisible
depth. Stalagmites rising up from the
floor of the stalactites descending
from the roof of the cave, joining each
other, and making pillars of the AL
mighty sculpturing, There are rosettes
of amethyst in halls of gypsum. AS
the guide carries his lantern ahead of
you, the shadows have an appearance
supernatural and spectral. The dark
ness is fearful. Two people, getting
lost from their guide only for few
hours, years ago, were demented, and
for years sat in their insanity. You
feel like holding your breath as you
walk across the bridges that seem to
span the bottomless abyss. The guide
throws his calcium light down into the
caverns, and the light rolls and tosses
from rock to rock and from depth to
depth, making at every plunge a new
rev ation of the awful power that could
have made such place as that.
A sense of suffocation comes upon
you as you think that you are ESQ feet
in a straight line from the sunlit sur
face of the earth. The guide after
awhile takes you into what is called
the Star Chamber" and then he says
to you, "Sit here" and then he takes
the lantern and goes down under tn;
r. ks, and it. gets darker and darker,
until the night is so thick that the hand
an inch from the eye is undesirable.
And then, by kindling one of the lam
terms and placing it in cleft of the
rock, there is a reflection cast on the
dome of the cave, and there are stars
coming out in constellations-a bril-
liant night heavens-and you involun-
tarily exclaim: Beautiful! BEAUTIFUL
Then he takes the lantern down in. other
depths of the cavern, and wanders on.
and wanders off, until he comes up
from behind the rocks gradually, and it
seems like the dawn of the morning, and
it gets brighter and brighter. The guide
is skilled ventriloquist, and he imi-
tates the voices of the morning, and
soon the gloom is all gone, and you
stand congratulating yourself over the
wonderful spectacle. Well, there are "a
great many people who look down into
the grave as great cavern. They
think it is thousand miles subterran-
eous, and all the echoes seem to be the
voices of despair, and the cascades seem
to be the falling tears that always fall,
and the gloom of earth seems coming
up in stalagmite, and the gloom of the
eternal world seems descending in the
stalacite, making pillars of indescriba-
BILE horror. The grave is no such place
at that to me, thank God.
Our divine Guide takes us down into
the great ca~erns, and we have the lamp
to our feet and the light 20 our path,
and all the echoes in the riffs of the
rock are anthems, and all the falling
waters are fountains of salvation, and
after awhile we look up and, behold!
king S star chamber. And while we are
looking at the pomp or 1t an evorlast-
ing morning begins to rise, and all the
tears Of earth crystalline into stalag-
mite, rising up in pillar on the one
side, and all the gloiies of heaven seem
to be descending in stalactite, making a
pillar on the other side, and you push
against the gate that swings between
the two pillars, and as the gate flashes
open you find it is one of the 12 gates
which are - pearls. Blessed be God
that through this gospel the mammoth
cave of the sepulcher has become the il
lumined star Chamber of the King
would God that if my sermon today
does not lead you to Christ. that before
morning, looking out of the window,
The astronomy of the night heavens
night lead you to the feet of Jesus.
Hank! Hark! To God the chorus breaks
From every host, from every gem:
But one Alone the Saviour speaks
Is the Star of Bethlehem.