Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-07-20


stories in IT. Let us keep it for a Curl
oslty, anyhow. If the Bible is to be
thrown out of the school, and out of
the court room, so that men TO more
swear by it, and it is to be put in a
dark corridor of the city library, the
Koran on one side and the writings of
Confucius on the other, then let us
each one keep copy for himself, for
we might have trouble, and we would
want to be under the delusions of its
consultations; and we might die, and
we would want the delusion of the
exalted residence of Gods right hand,
which il mentions o! what an awful
thing it is to laugh in Gods face, and
hurl his revelation back at him.
After awhile the day will come
when they will say they did not
laugh Then all the hypercritisms,
all the caricatures, and all the
learned sneers in the Quarterly Re-
views" will be brought to Judgment;
and amid the rocking of everything
beneath, and amid the flaming of
every thing above, God will thunder:
''But thou didst Taught" / think the
most fascinating Laughter at Christiani-
ty ever remember was man in New
England He made the word of God
seem ridiculous, and he laughed on at
our holy religion until he came to die,
and then he said MY life has been
failure-a failure domestically;
have no children; a failure socially,
for / am treated in the streets like q
pirate; n failure professionally, be-
cause know but one minister that
has adopted my sentiments" For n
quarter OF century he laughed at
Christianity; and ever since Christiani-
ty has been laughing at him. Now, it
is mean thing TO go into mans
house and steal his goods; but tell
you the most gigantic burglary ever
invented is the proposition to steal
these treasures of our holy religion.
The meanest laughter ever uttered is
the laugh of the seeptic.
The next laughter that / shall men
ton as being in the Bible, is the
laugh of Gods condemnation: "He
that stitch in the heavens shall
laugh" Again: 81 will laugh at his
calamity" With such demonstration
will God greet every kind of great sin
and wiclSeduess- But men build up
villainies higher and higher Good
men almost pity God, because he is so
schemed against by men. Suddenly a
pin drops out of the machinery of
wickedness, or a secret is revealed,
and the foundation begins to rock;
finally, the whole thing is demolished.
What is the matter? l will tell you
what the matter is. That crash of
ruin is only the reverberation of God
laughter In the money market there
are great many good men, and n
great many fraudulent men. A fraudu-
lent man there says: 81 mean to have
my million" lie goes to work reckless
of honesty, and he gets his first 500, 000
lie gets after awhile his 500, 000
After awhile he gets his $500. co.,
Now" he says, IL have only one
more move to make, and l shall have
my million" lie gathers up all his
resources; he makes that one last
grand move, he fails and loses all, and
he has not enough money of his own
left to pay the cost of the car to his
home. People can not understand this
spasmodic revulsion. Some said it
was a sudden turn in Erie railway
stock, or in Western Union or in Illi-
nois Central; some said one thing and
some another. They all guessed
wrong ! will tell you what it was:
"He that sitteth in the heavens
laughed" a man in New York said
he would be the richest man in the
city. He left his honest work as a
mechanic, and got into the city coun-
ellis some way, and in ten years
stole SIS, ooo. 900 from the city gov
eminent Fifteen million dollarsl
He held the legislature of the
state of New York in the grip
of his right hand. Suspicious were
aroused. The grand jury presented
indictments The whole land stood
aghast The man who expected to
put half the city in his vest pocket
goes to Blackwells island; goes To
Ludlow street jail, breaks prison and
goes across the sea; is rearrested and
brought back, and again remanded to
jail Why? He that sitteth in the
heavens laughed" Rome was great
mpire; she had Horace and Virgil
among her poets; she had Augustus and
Constantine among her emperors But
what mean the defaced Pantheon, and
the Forum turned into n cattle market
and the brolen-walled Coliseum, and
the architectural skeleton of her great
aqueducts? What was that thunder:
"Oh!" you say, that was the roar
of the battering rams against hei
walls" No What was that culver;
"ohw you say, that was the
tramp of hostile legions." No. The
culver and the roar were the outburs
of omnipotent laughter from the de
fled and insulted heavens. Rene de
fed God and he laughed her down
Nineveh defied God and he laughed
her down. Babylon defied God ant
he laughed her down There is grea'
difference between Gods laughter ant
his smile. His smile is eternal beati
tude. lie smiled when David sang