Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-01-20

already abroad or from direct inspira-
ton, IT seems to me David had wide
knowledge of the heavens. Whether he
understood the full force of what he
wrote, know not, but the God who
inspired him knew, and he would not
let David write anything but truth, and
therefore ell the worlds that the tele-
scope ever reached or Copernicus or
Galilei CT Kepler or Newton or La
place or Herschel or our own Mitchell
ever saw We're so easily made that they
were made with the fingers AS easily
as with your fingers you mold the wax,
or the clay, or the dough to particular
shapes, SO he decided the shape of
our world, and that it should weigh
SIX sextillion tons and appointed for
all worlds their orbits and decided their
color-the white to Sirius. the rudy
to Aldebaran, the yellow to Polux.
the blue to Affair, marrying some of
the stars, as the 2, 400 double stars that
Herschel observed. administering to the
whims Of the variable stars MS their
glance becomes brighter or dim, pre-
pairing what astronomers called, 1.-The
girdle OF Andromeda" and the nebula
in the sword handle of Orion. Worlds
on worlds! Worlds under worlds.
Worlds above worlds. Worlds beyond
worldsl So many that arithmetics are
OF no use in the calculation Bat he
counted them as he made them, and he
made them with his fingers! Reserva-
ton of power! Suppression of omnipo-
tence! Resources as yet untouched.
Almightiness yet undemonstrated Now
ask, for the benefit of all disheartened
Christian workers, Ii God accomplished
so much with his fingers. what can he
do when ne puts cut all his strength
and when he unlimbers all the batteries
of his omnipotence? The Bible speaks
again and again of God's outstretched
arm, but only once, and that i'll the text
of the bare arm of God.
GREAT UNDERTAKING.
My text makes it plain that the rec
LITIGATION of this world is stupendous
undertaking. 1t takes more power tC
make this world over again than it took
to make 1t at first. a word was only
necessary for the first creation, but for
the new creation the unsleeved and I'M
hindered fore arm of the Almighty. The
reason of that | can understand In the
shipyards CT Liverpool or Glasgow or
New York great vessel is construct
ed. The architect draws ont the plan,
the length of the beam. the capacity OF
tonnage, the rotation Of wheel or screw,
the cabin, the masts and all the ap-
pointments Of this great palace of the
deep. The architect finishes his work
without any perplexity, and the car
penters and the artisans toll on the craft
so many hours a day, each one doing his
part, until with flags flying. and thon-
sands of people huzzaing on the docks,
the vessel is launched Bnt out on the
sea that steamer breaks her shaft and
is limping slowly along toward harh0r,
when Caribbean whirlwinds,S those
mighty hunters of the deep. looking our
for prey of ships, surround that wound
ed vessel and pitch it on rocky coast,
and she lifts and falls in the breakers
until every joint is loose. and every
spar is down, and every wave sweeps
over the hurricane deck as she parts
midships.
Would it not require more skill and
power to get that splintered vessel off
the rocks and reconstruct it than it re-
quired originally to build her? Aye.
Our world that God built so beautiful,
and which started ont with all the flags
of Edenic foliage and with the chant of
para1isaical bowers, has been 60 cen
turtles pounding in the skerries of sin
and sorrow, and to get her out, and to
get her Off, and to get her on the right
way again will require more of omnip-
otence than it required to build her
and launch her. So | am not sur
prised that though in the drydock of
one word our world was made it will
take the unsleeved arm of God to lift
her from the rocks and put her on the
right course again. 1t is evident from
my text and its comparison with other
texts that it would not be so great an
undertaking to make whole constella-
ton of worlds, and whole galaxy of
worlds, and a whole astronomy of
worlds, and swing them in their right
orbits as to take this wounded world,
this stranded world, this bankrupt
world, this destroyed world. and make
it us good as when it started.
EVILS To OVERCOME.
Now, Just look at the entbroned diff.
culties in the way, the removal of which.
the overthrow of which, seem to require
the bare right arm of omnipotence.
There stands heathenism. with its $780,
000, 900 victims. | do not care wheth-
er you call them Brahmans or Bud
dhists, Confucians or fetch idolateIs.
At the Worlds fair in Chicago last
summer those monstrosities of religion
tried to make themselves respectable,
but the long hair and baggy trousers
and trinKeted robes of their representa-
tives cannot hide from the world the
fact that those religions are the authors
of funeral pyre, and Juggernaut crush
ing, and Ganges infanticide, and Chi
nese shoe torture, and the aggregated
massacres of many centuries. They
have their heels on India, ON China, on
Persia. OF Borneo, on three-fourths OF
the acreage of our poor old world.
l know that the missionaries who
are the most sacrificing and Christlike
men and women on earth, are making
steady and glorious inroads upon these
built up denominations of the centuries.
All this stuff that You see in some of
the newspapers about the missionaries
! E.-t, Inv nd a
mulgated by corrupt American or Eng
lish or Scotch merchants. whose loose
behavior in heather cities has been re-
buked by the missionaries, and these
corrupt merchants write home or tell
innocent and unsuspectins visitors in
India or China or the darkened islands
of the sea these falsehoods about our
consecrated missionaries. who. turning
| their backs on home and civilization
and -emolument and comfort, spend
their lives in trying TO introduce the
mercy of the gospel among the down
trodden OF beathenism. Some of those
merchants leave their families in Amer
lea or England or Scotland and stay for
few years in the ports of heathenisnl
while they are making their fortunes
/ in the tea or rice or opium trade, and
/ while they are thus absent from home
give themselves to orgies Of diss0luta-
ness such as no pen or tongue conld,
without the abolition of all deceney.
attempt TO report. The presence of the
missionaries. with their pure and noble
| households, in those heather ports is a
constant rebuke to such debauchees and