Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-02-23

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the -Israelites on their way to the land flow.
ing with milk and honey. or. as we are bet
ter acquainted with the mollusks. when
flung 70 the beach OF lake or sen. There are
three great families OF them. II | should
ask you TO name three OF the great royal
families Of the earth. perhaps you would
respond, the house Of Stuart, the house Of
Hapsburg, the house OF Bourbon, but the
three royal families of mollusks are the
univalve, or shell IN one part; the hivalye.
or shell CT two parts, and the multivalve,
or shell in many parts. and see God in
their every hinge, in their every tooth, in
their every cartilage, in their every liga-
ment, in their ev,Vy spiral ridge and in
their every color, prism on prism, and their
adaptation of thin shell for still ponds and
thick coatings for boisterous seas They
all dash upon me the thought of the proyi-
Dental care of God.
What is the use of all this architecture OF
the shell, and why is u pictured from the
outside lip clear down into t. abyrinths Of
construction Why the infinity of skill
and radiance in shell9 What is the use
of the color and exquisite curve of a thing
30 insignificant as shellfishi Why, when
the conchologist, by dredge or rake, fetches
the crustaceous specimens to the shore, does
he find at his feet whole alhambras and
coliseums and parthenons and crystal pal
aces of beauty in miniature, and these bring
TO light only an infinitesimal part of the
opulence in the great subaqueous world.
Linnaus counted $500 species Of shells, but
conchology had then only begun its achieve
| ments.
| While exploring the bed of the Atlantic
ocean in preparation for laying the cable,
shelled animals were brought up from
depths on eco fathoms. When lifting the
telegraph wire from the Mediterranean and
Red seas, shelled creatures were brought
up from depths of z, 900 fathoms. The Eng
| glish admiralty, exploring in behalf Of
science, found mollusks at depth of 2.495
fathoms, 1920 feet deep What realm
awful for vestness
| AS the shell is only the house and the
wardrobe of insignificant animals of the
deep, why all that wonder and beauty OF
construction Gods care of them is the
only reason. And if God provide so munifi
Gently for them, will he not see that you
have wardrobe and shelter? Wardrobe and
shelter for periwinklel Shall there not be
wardrobe and shelter for man? Would
God give coat of mail for the defense of
nautilus and leave you no defense against
the storm? Does he build stone house for
a creature that lasts season and leave
without home a soul that takes hold on cen
turies and eonsS
Hugh Miller found ''the footprints of the
Creator in the old red sandstone" and
hear the harmonies of God in the tinkle Of
the seashells when the tides come in. The
same Christ who drew lesson of providen-
tial care from the fact that God clothes with
grass the field instructs me to draw the
same lesson from the shells.
TRIBULATIoN SHOULD WORK PATIENCE.
| In almost every mans life, however well
born and prosperous for years, and in al
most every woman's life, there comes a
very dark time-at least once A conjunc-
tion of circumstances will threaten bank
ruptcy and homelessness and starvation.
1t may be that these words will meet the
ear or will meet the eye of those who are
in such a state of foreboding Come, then,
and see how God gives an ivory palace to &
water animal that you could cover with a
| 10-cent piece and clothes in armor against
all attack coral no bigger than a SLOW
fake. l do not think that God will take
better care of bivalve than of one of his
own children.
Irake to your feet with the gospel rake
the most thorough evidences of Gods care
| for his creatures pile around you great
mounds Of shells that they may teach you
most comforting theology. Oh, ye Of
little faith, walk among these arbors OF
coraline, and look at these bouquets Of
shell fit to be handed a queen on her coro-
nation day, and see these fallen rainbows
of color, and examine these lilies in stone,
these primroses in stone, these heliotropes
in stone, these cowslips in stone, these ge-
raniums in stone, these japonicas in stone
Oh, ye who have your telescopes ready,
looking out on clear nights trying to see
what is transpiring in Mars, Jupiter and
Mercury, know that within few hours
walk or ride of where you now are there
are whole worlds that you might explore,
but of which you are unconscious, and
among the most beautiful and suggestive
of these worlds is the genealogical world.
Take this lesson Of providential care.
How does that old hymn go3
We may, like ships, by tempest be tossed
| On perilous deeps, but cannot be lost.
Though satan enrages the wind and the tide,
The promise assures us, the Lord will provide.
GODS HELP TO SELF HELP.
| But while you get this pointed lesson of
providential care from the shelled crea-
lures of the deep, notice in their construc-
tion that God helps them to help them
selves. This house of stone in which they
live Is not dropped on them and is not
built around them. The material for it
exudes from their own bodies and is adorned
with colored fluid from the pores of their
| 10 iyota
to see these crustacean animals fashion
their own homes out of carbonate Of lime
and membrane
And all Of this is mighty lesson to
those who are waiting 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 of their own indus
tries. Not mollusk on all the beaches of
all the seas would have house of she'll if
it had not itself built one Do not wait for
others to shelter you or prosper you. All
the crustaceous creatures of the earth, from
every fake of their covering and from every
ridge Of their tiny castles on Atlantic and
Pacific 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 mollusk
would be to wait for some other mollusk to
drop on it shell equipment. Itwould kill
the mollusk, us in most cases it destroys a
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. Let the onycha Of
my text become your preceptor.
But the more examine the shells the
more am impressed that God is God of
emotion. Many scof at emotion and seem
to think that God Is God Of cold geometry
and iron laws and eternal apathy and en-
throned stoicism. Mol Mol The shells,
with ovtrpowering emphasis, deny it.