Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1893-03-03

telegraph wire from the Mediterranean and
Rel Seas shelled creatures were brougnb
up from depths OF 1000 fathoms. The Eng
lish admiralty, exploring in behalf OF
science, found mollusks at depth OF %4oo
fathoms. or 4,210 feet deep. What realm
awful for yastness
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 for them is the
only reason. And il God provide 50 munifi-
Gently for them, will He not see that you
have wardrobe and shelters Wardrobe and
SHELTER for periwinklei 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 with
out home soul that takes hold on centuries
and cons?
Hugh Miller found ''the Footprints Of the
Creator in the old red sandstone" and |
hear the harmonies Of God in the tinkle of
the sea shells when the tides CO ne in. The
same Christ who drew a 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.
In almost every mans life, however well
born and prosperous for years, and in al.
most every wonaD's life, there comes very
dark time, at least once. A conjunction of
circumstances will threa ten bankruptcy and
homelessness and starva ton. IL may be that
these words will meet the ear or will meet
the eye of those who are in such a state o.
foreboding. Come, then, and see how God
gives an ivory palace to water animal that
you could cover with ten-cent piece and
clothes in armor against all attack coral
no bigger than a snowflake. do not think
that God will take better care of a bivalve
than of one of His own children.
/ rake to your feet with the gospal rake
the most thorough evidences Of Co.'s care
for His creatures. lpile 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
aud look at these bouquets OF shell, lit to be
handed queen on her coronation day, and
zee these fallen rainbows OF color. and ex-
anime these lilies in stone these primroses
in stone, these heliotropss in stone, these
cowSIips in stone, these geraniums in stone.
these iaponicas in stone.
o We who have your telescopes ready look.
ing cut 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
you are unconscious, AMI among the most
beautiful and suggestive of these worlds is
the genealogical world. Take this lesson Of
q providential care. How does that old
hymn go?
We may. like ships, by tempests be tossed
On perious deeps, but cannot be lost.
Though satan enrages the wind and the tide,
The promise assures US the Lord will provide.
But while you get this pointed lesson OF
providentlal care from the shelied creatures
Of the deep, notice in their construction
that God helps them to help themselves. 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 own neck. 1t
is most interesting thing to see these crus-
taceap 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
aud. ike the mollusks, build their own
fortunes out of t1eir own brain, out Of their
OWL sweat, out of their own industries.
Not a mollusk on all the beaches of all the
seas would have house OF shell If it had
not itself built one. Do rot wait for others
to shelter you or prosper you. ALI the
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 AMI leave them
a fortune are as silly as moliusk would be
to wait fer some other mollusk to drop on
II a shell equipment. Ii would Kill the mol
lusk as in most cases it destroys man. Not
one person out of hundred ever was strong
enough to stand large estate by Inherit
ance dropped on him In chunk. Have
great expectations from only two persons
God and yourself. Let the onycha OF my
text become your precePtor.
But the more I examine the ehells the
more am impressed t5at Col is God OF
eraotion. Many scoff et emotion and seem
TO think that God is a God OK cold geometry
aud iron laws and eternal apathy and en-
throued stoicism. Mol Mol The shells with
,verroyrering emphasis deny It While law
yad oriar reign 10 ths oGiveTsa, you hsve
hut - see zoe ;ayshnsss Ct COlcr on the
crust acse. az shades oi crimson from FAINT
EST blush to blood OF battlefield, al shades
OF green, all shades of all colors ~ rs ~,
hlsck C whltest light ;,;Ia than mother
premedtates or calculates how many kisses
and hugs she shall give her babe waking up
in the morning sunlight.
Yes. nv God is an emotional God, and He
saws, 1--WE must have colors and let the sun
paiut 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
doxoloyy for the seraphim, and resurrec-
ton 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 it, without re-
gard to the tears it would take, or the blood
it would exhaust. or the agonies it would
crush out.
When see the Louvres and the Luxem
tourgs and the Vaticans Of Divine painting
strewn along the 5000 miles of coast, and !
hear in forest on summer morning mus
csl academies and Handel societies of full
orchestras, l say God is a God OF emotion,
and if He observes mathematics 1t Is mathe.
MATES set to music and His figures are writ
ten not in white chalk on blackboards but
written by finger of sunlight on walls OF
jasmine and trumpet creeper.
In my study of the conchology Of the Bible
this onycha of the text also impresses 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 onychaT Moses took that shelf
Of the onycha, put it over the fire, and as it
crumblei into ashes it exhaled an odor that
hung in every cnrtain 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 IL malodor.
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 keepit. They make him learn by