Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-05-12

repulsive regions? All the deserts will
be irrigated the waters will be forced
| up to the great American desert be-
tween here and the Pacific by machin-
cry now known or yet to be invented,
and, as Great Salt Lake City has no
rain and could not raise an apple or a
| bushel of wheat in a hundred years
without artificial help, but is now
! through such means one great garden,
so all the unproductive parts Of all the
continents will be turned into harvest
| fields and orchards. A half-dozen De
| Lesseps will furnish the world with all
| the canals needed, and will change the
course of rivers and open new lakes,
| and the great Sahara desert will be cut
up into farms with an astonishing yield
of bushels to the acre. The marsh will
be drained of its waters and cured Of it's
malaria. l saw what was for many
! years called the Black Swamp of
Ohio, its chief crop chills and fevers,
but now, by the tiles put into the
ground to carry off the surplus mois-
ture, transformed into the richest and
wastes nothing, l think, means that
this world, from pole to pole, has come
to perfection of foliage and fruitage. For
that reason he keeps the earth running
through space, though so many fires
are blazing down in its timbers and
so many meteoric terrors have threat
ened to dash it to pieces. AS soon as
the earth is completed Christ will d.
vide it up among the good The reason
he does not divide it now is because it
is not done. A kind father will not di-
vide the apple among his children until
the apple is ripe. In fulflment Of the
New Testament promise, THE meek
shall inherit the EARTH" and the prom
Use of the Old Testament, 'He shall di-
vide the spoil with the strong" the
world will he apportioned to those
worthy to possess it.
capable of holding. feeding, clothing
and sheltering twelve hundred million
people, and where we have only sixty
million inhabitants, we have two mill
lion who cannot get honest work, and
with their families an aggregation of
five millions that are on the verge Of
starvation. Something wrong, most
certainly. In some way, there will be
new apportionment. Many of the
millionaire estates will crack to pieces
on the designations of grand children,
and then dissolve into the possession
Of the masses who now have an INSULT
cheney.
What, you say, will become of the
expensive and elaborate buildings now
devoted to debasing amusements?
They will become schools, art galleries,
museums, gymnasiums, and churches.
The world is already getting disguised
with many Of these amusements, and
no wonder. What an importation of
unclean theatrical stuff we have within
the last few years had brought to our
shores! And professors of religion
patronizing such things! Having sold
the goods and go over to him publicly,
body, mind and soul, and withdraw
your name from Christian churches,
and say: know all the world by these
presents that l am patron of unclean-
ness and child of hell" Sworn to be
the Lords. you are perjurers.
If you think these offenses are to go
on forever, you do not know who the
Lord is God will not wait for the Day
of Judgment All these palaces of sin
will become palaces of righteousness.
They will come into the possession OF
those strong for virtue and strong for
God. "He shall divide the spoil with
the strong"
China and Africa, the two richest
portions of the earth by reason of
metals, and rare woods, and inexhausti-
BILE productiveness, are not yet divided
up among the good because they are not
ready to be divided Wait until the
doors that Livingstone opened in Africa
shall be entered, and Bishop Taylor,
with his band of self-supporting mis-
sionaries, have done their work, and the
Ashantees and Senegambians shall
know Christ as well as you know him,
and there shall be on the banks Of the
Nile and Niger higher civilization
than is now to be found on the banks of
the Potomac or the Hudson, then Christ
will divide up that continent among
his friends. Wait until China, which
is half as large as all Europe, shall have
developed her capacities for rice and tea
and sugar among edibles; and her anne
thyst and sapphire and topaz and opal
and jasper and porphyry, among pre-
cious stones; and her rosewood and
ebony and camphor and varnish trees
among precious woods; and turned up
from her depths half-dozen Pennsyl-
yanias OF coal and iron, and twenty Ne
vadas of silver, and fifty CALIFORNIA; of
gold, and her five hundred millions of
people shall be evangelical; then the
Lord will divide it up among the good.
If my text be not a deception, but the
eternal truth, then the time is coming
when all the farms will be owned by
Christian farmers, and all the COM
merce controlled by Christian mer-
chants. and all the authority held by
Christian officials, and all the ships
commanded by Christian captains, and
all the universities under the instruc-