The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-11-09

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hillside; tell US. Golgotha who heard the
stroke Of the hammer on the spikeheads,
| and the dying groan in that midnight that
dropped on midhuon, did any one ike
| Jesus have this passion for souls?
But breaking right in upon me is the
question, how can we get something of
| this Pauline and Chrisuy longing for saw
! ed immortahies? l answer: By better
! approaching the prolongatiOn of the souls
| existence compared with everything phys
! ical and material How l hope that sur
| geon will successfully remove the cata-
| ract from that mans eye! 1t is such a
sad thing to be blind Let US pray while
the doctor is busy with the delicate oper-
! alton. But for how long a time will he
/ be able to give his patient eyesight? Well
| If the patient be forty years of age, he
| will add to his happiness perhaps fifty
years of eyesight, and that viii bring the
! man TO ninety years, and il is not prob
able that he will live longer than that,
or chat he Will live so long. But what
Is good eyesght for fifty years more as
compared win clear vision for the soul a
billion of centuries? l hope the effort to
| drive bck the typhoid fever from yonder
nome Will be successful. God help the doc
tors We will wait in great anxiety until
the fires of that fever are exungu.shed,
and when the man rises from his. pillow
and walks out, with what heartiness we
Will welcome him into the fresh air and
che church and business circles. He is
thirty years of age, and If he shall live
sixty years more that viii make him nine
~. But what are sixty years more of
earthly vigor compared with the souls
health for a quadrlllion milleAniums-a
millennium, as you know, a thousand
years? This world, since fitted up for
mans residence, has existed about six
thousand years. How much longer viii 1t
exist? We will suppose it shall last as
10
will make its existence twelve thousand
years. But what are or will be twelve
thousand years compared with the eCer-
nifty preceding those years and the eter-
nifty following them Time, as compared
to eternity like the drop Of the night dew
shaken from the top Of a grass blade
by the cows hoOf on It's way afield this
morning, as compared with Med.terra-
mean, and Arabian, and Atlantic, and Pa
clhc watery dominions
A stranger desired to purchase a farm,
but the owner would not sell it-woud only
let 1t. The stranger hired it by lease for
only one crop, but he sowed acorns, and
to mature that crop three hundred years
were necessary. That was a practiced de-
ception, but 1 deceive you not when | tell
you that the crop of the soul takes hold
of amending ages.
1 see the author Of my text seated in the
house of Gaius, who entertained him at
Corinth, not far from the overhanging for
tress of Acro-Corinthus, and medtating
on the longevity of the soul, aud getting
more and more ag tated about its value
and the awful risk some of his kindred
were running concerning 1t, and he writes
this letter containing the text, which
Chrysostom admired so much he had il
read to him tw ce a week, and among 9TH
er things, he says those daring and start
ling words of my text: 81 could wish that
myself were accursed from Christ for my
brethren, my kinsmen, according to the
fesh.'
Another way to get something of the
Pauline longing for redeemed immortali-
ties IS by exal dining the vast machinery
arranged to save this inner and spiritual
nature. That machinery started to revolve
on the edge of the Garden of Eden, just
after the cyclone of sin Frustrated its sy-
camores, and tamarisks and willows, and
will not cease TO revolve until the last
soul of earth shall get rid of its last s.n
and enter the heavenly Eden. On that stu
pendous machinery for soul-saving the pa
triarch put his hand. and prophet his
hand, and evangelist his hand, and apostle
his hand, and Christ his hand. and almost
every hand that touched 1t became
crushed hand. 1t was the most expensive
machinery ever constructed. 1t cost more
to start IT,, and has cost and will cost
more to keep ii running than all the wheels
that ever made revolution on this planet.
That machinery turned not by ordinary
motive power, but by force of tears and
blood. To connect it's bands of influence,
made out of human and Christly nerves,
with all parts of the EARTH millions of
good men and women are now at work
and will be at work until every wilderness
shall become a garden. and every tear of
grief shall be tear of JOY, and the sword
of divine victory shall give the wound to
the old dragon that shall send him howl
ing to the pit, the iron gate changing
against him, never again to open.All that,
and infinitely more, to save the soul!
Why, it must be a tremendous soul-tre-
mendous for good, or tremendous for evil;
tremendous for happiness, or tremendous
for woe. Put on the left side of the larg-
est sheet of paper that ever came from
paper-mill single unit. the figure I, and
how many ciphers would you have to
add to the right of that figure to express
the souls value, each cipher adding ten
fold? Working into that scheme of the
souls redemption, how many angels of
God descending and ascending! How
many storms swooping on Lake
Galilee! How many earthquakes open
ing dungeons and striking cata-
clysms through mountains, from top
to basel What monday sun was put on
retreat! What Omnipotence lifted and
what Godhead was put to torture! All
that for the soul No wonder that Paul,
though possessing great equipoise of
temperament when he thought what his
friends and kindred were risking concern
ing their souls, flung aside all his ordina-
ry modes of speech, argument, and apt
smile, and bold metaphor. and learned
alluson, as unfit to express how he felt,
and seeing upon the appalling hyperbol-
ism of my text, cries out: Il could wish
myself accuSed;" that is, struck of the
thunderbolts of the Omnipotent God, sunk
to unfathomed depths, chained into servi-
tude to Abaddon, and thrust into fur
naces whose fires shall never burn out, If
only those whom l love might now and
forever be saved. Mind you, Paul does
not say, II do wish" He says, 81 could
wish" Even in the agony felt for others
he did not lose his balance-"I could wish
myself accursed." / could, but 1 do not
Only one being that ever lived was lit
orally willing to give up heaven for perdl-
ton, and that was the divine peasant
whom l mentioned a few moments ago.
He was not only willing to exchange do
minions of bliss for dominions OF wretch.
edness. but he did So for chat he forsook
heaven witness the stopping star and all
III IL