News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-02-23

serves mathematics it is mathematics
set to music, and his figures are written
not in white chalk on blackboards, but
written by Il finger of sunlight on walls
of jasmine and trumpet creeper.
WE HAVE A CLEAN RELIGION.
In my study of the conchology of the
Bible this onycha of the text also im-
presses me with the fact that religion is
perfumed. What else could God have
meant when he said to Moses, Take
unto thee sweet spices, stacte and ony-
char Moses took that shell of the ony-
cha, put it over the fire, and as it crum-
bled into ashes it exhaled an odor that
hung in every curtain and filled the an
Gent tabernacle, and its sweet smoke es-
capped from the sacred precincts and sat
urated the outside air.
Perfume! That is what religion is
But instead of that some make it a NAL
odor. They serve God in rough and
acerb way. They box their child's ears
because he does not properly keep Sun
day instead of making Sunday so attract
i've the child could not help but keep it.
They make him learn by heart difficult
chapter in the book of Exodus, with all
the hard names, because 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
J grassr' "What do you mean by pluck
/ a
Oh, how many Christian people need
to obey my text and take into their wor-
ship and their behavior and their conso-
Citations and presbyteries and general as
, semblies and conferences more onycha.
l have sometimes gone in very gala OF
spirit into the presence of some disagree
| able Christians and in five minutes felt
wretched, and at some other time | have
! gone depressed into the company of
suave and genial souls, and in "a few mo-
| ments | felt exhilarant. What was the
difference? 1t was the difference in what
they burned on their censers. The one
burned onycha; the other burned asa
fetida.
THE ROYAL PURPLE.
In this genealogical study of tie BIZ
BILE | also notice that the mollusks or
shelled animals furnish the purple that
you see richly darkening so many Scrip
ture chapters. The purple stuff in the
ancient tabernacle, the purple girdle of
the priests. the purple mantle of Roman
emperors, the apparel of Dives in purple
and fine linen-aye, the purple robe
which in mockery was thrown upon
Christ-were colored by the purple of the
shells on the shores of the Mediterra-
mean. 1t was discovered by 3 shepherds
dog having stained his mouth by break
ing one of the shells, and the purple
aroused admiration.
Costly purple! Six pounds of the pur-
pie liquor extracted from the shellfshes
were used to prepare one pound of wool.
Purple was also used on the pages Of
books. Bibles and prayer books ap-
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
tign of imperial authority when worn in
robes was adopted by many people, and
30 an emperor, jealous of this appropria-
ton of the purple, made law that ally
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, IF all cannot have it,
none shall have it," But though God
has deprived the race of that shellfsh
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 a sunset and mysterious as an aurora!
And am not right i'll leading you for
few moments through this mighty realm
of God so neglected by human eye and
human footstep?
1t is said that the harp and lutte We're
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
but the cartridges 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 l 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 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 |
it's 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 | dc |
not wonder that for the exclusive right |
of fishing for it on the shores of Ceylon !
a man paid to the English government |
5000, 600 for one season.
So exquisite is the pearl do not Won
der that Pliny thought it was made out |
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, |
nine-tenths strangulated and blood rush |
ing from ears and nostrils, and finging
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
enthusiasm? Would God that we were
all as wise as the merchantmen Christ |
commended, "who, when he had found
one pearl of great price, went and sold
all that he had and bought it."