Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-02-24

ored fluid from the pores of their own
neck. 1t is a most interesting thing
to see these crustacean animals fashion
their own homes out of carbonate of
lime and membrane And all of this is
n mighty lesson to those who are wait
ing 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, out
out of their own industries. Not
molluslx on all the beaches
of all the seas would have house of
shell, if il had not itself built one. Do
not wait for others to shelter you or
prosper you. All the crustaceous crea-
lures of the earth from every flake of
their covering and from every ridge of
their tiny castles on Atlantic and Pa
cific and Mediterranean coasts say:
''Help yourself while God helps you to
help yourself" Those people who are
waiting for their father or rich old
uncle to die and leave them fortune
are as silly as a mollusk would be to
wait for some other mollusk to drop
on it shell equipment. 1t would kin
the molluslz, as, in most cases, it de-
stroysa man. Not one person out of
hundred ever was strong enough to
stand a large estate by inheritance
dropped on him in chunk. Have
great expectations from only two per-
sons-God and yourself
But the more ! examine the shells,
the more | am impressed that God is a
God of emotion. Many scott at emo
ton, and seem to think that God is q
God of cold geometry and iron laws
and eternal apathy and enthroneG
stoicism. No! No! The shells, with
overpowering emphasis, deny it,
While law and order reign in the uni
verse, you have but to see the lavish
ness of color on the crustacea, all
shades of crimson from faintest 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 a mother premedi-
tates or calculates how many kisses
and hugs she shall give her babe walk
ing up in the morning Sunlight. Yes
My God is an emotional God, and he
says: 1--WE must have colors and let
the sun paint all of them on
the scroll of that shell, and we
must have music, and here is carol
for the robin, and psalm for man, and
a doxology for the seraphim and a res
direction call for the archangel." Aye,
he showed himself God of sublime
emotion when he flung himself on this
world in the personality of Christ to
save 1T, without regard to the tears it
would take, or the blood it would ex'
haust or the agonies it would crush
out When / see the Louvres and the
Luxembourgs and the Vaticans of di-
vine painting strewn along the 5000
miles of coast, and hear, in a forest,
on summer morning, musical acade-
mics and Handers societies of full or
chestras, i say God is God of emo
ton, and if he observes mathematics,
1T is mathematics set to music, and his
figures are written, not in white chalk
on blackboards, but written by a
finger of sunlight on walls of jasmin
and trumpet-creeper.
In my study of the conchology of the
Bible, this onycha of the text also i'm
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 onycha?" Moses took that she'll
of the onycha, put it over the fire, and
as it crumbled into ashes, it exhaled
an odor that hung in every curtain
and filed the ancient Tabernacle, and
its 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 mal-odor. They serve God
In rough and acerb way. They box
their child's ears because he does not
properly keep Sunday, instead of
making Sunday SO attractive the
child could not help but keep
it. They make him learn
by heart a 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
grassW 'What do you mean by pluck
ing that fiower?" "Show your tick
ets!" Oh! how many Christian people
need to obey my text, and take into
their worship and their behavior and
their conscientious and presbyteries
and general assemble and conferences
more onycha- / have sometimes gone
in very gale of spirit into the pres
ence of some disagreeable Christians
and in five 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 L
felt exhilerant. What was the differ
ence? 1t was the difference in what
they burnt on their censers. The one
burnt onycha; the other burnt asa
fotida.
In this genealogical study of the
Bible, also notice that the molluslSs
or shelled animals furnish the purple
that you see richly darkening so many
scripture 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 Mediterranean. 1t was
discovered by shepherds dog having
stained his mouth by breaking one of
the shells, and the purple aroused adj
miration. Costly purple! Six pounds
of the purple liquor extracted from
Il. Ill 81