Connecticut western news., 1897-09-23

OnriSt, they famed with enthusiasm. Wonder they are-circle of light, con- stellation of joy, galaxy of fire Oh, that you and I, by that grace which can transform the worst into the best, might at last sail in the wake of that fleet and wheel in that glorious group as the stars forever and everi
 Again, Christian workers will shine like the stars in swiftness of motion. The worlds do not stop to shine. There are no fixed stars, save as to relative position. The star apparently most thor oughly fixed flies thousands of miles minute. The astronomer, using his tele- scope for an alpenstock, leaps from world crag to world crag and finds no star standing still. The chamois hunter has to fly to catch his prey, but not so swift is his game as that which the sci enlist tries to shoot through the tower of observatory. Like petrels midatlan- tic, that seem to come from no shore, and be bound to no landing place, fly ing, flying, so these great fiocks of worlds rest not as they go, wing and wing, age after age, forever and ever. The eagle hastes to its prey, but we shall in speed beat the eagles. You have noticed the velocity of the swift horse under whose feet the miles slip like a smooth ribbon, and as he passes the four hoofs strike the earth in such quick beat your pulses take the same vibra- tion, but all these things are not swift in comparison with the motion of which I speak The moon moves 54, 900 miles in 8 day. Wonder Neptune flashes on 11,00O miles in an hour. Wonder Mer- cury goes 109, 900 miles in an hour. So like the stars the Christian shall shine in swiftness of motion.
 With the Speed of a Star.
 You hear now of father or mother or child sick 1000 miles away, and it takes you two days to get to them. You hear of some case of suffering that de- mands your immediate attention, but it takes you an hour to get there. Oh, the joy when you shall, in fulfillment of the text, take starry speed and be equal to 100, 900 miles an hourl Having on earth got used to Christian work, you will not quit when death strikes you. You will only take on more velocity. There is dying child in London, and Its spirit must be taken up to God. You are there in an instant to do it. There is young man in New York to be ar rested from going into that gate of sin.
 You are there in an instant to arrest him. Whether with spring of foot, or stroke of wing, or by the force of some new law that shall hurl you to the spot where you would go, I know not, but my text suggests velocity. All space open before you, with nothing to hin- der you in mission of light and love and joy, you shall shine in swiftness of motion as the stars forever and ever.
 Again, Christian workers, like the stars shine in magnitude. The most il- literate man knows that these things in the sky, looking like gilt buttons, are great masses of matter. To weigh them one would think that it you'd re- quire scales with pillar hundreds of thousands of miles high and chains hun dreds of thousands of miles long, and at the bottom of the chains basins on either side hundreds of thousands of miles wide, and that then Omnipotence alone could put the mountains into the scales and the hills into the balance, but puny man has been equal to the un- dertaking and has set little balance on his geometry and weighed world against world. Yea, he has pulled out his measuring line and announced that Herschel is 38, 900 miles in diameter, Saturn 79,000 miles in diameter and Jupiter 89 900 miles in diameter and that the smallest pearl on the beach of heaven is immense beyond all imagina- tion. So all they who have toiled for Christ on earth shall rise up to mag nitude of privilege, and magnitude of strength, and a magnitude of holiness, and magnitude of joy, and the weak
 est saint in glory become greater than all that we can imagine of an archangel. Brethren, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be- Wisdom that shall know everything, wealth that shall pos sess everything, strength that shall do everything, glory that shall circum- scribe everythingl We shall not be like l taper set in a sick man 8 window, or l bundle of sticks kindled on the beach to warm shivering crew, but you must | take the diameter and the circumfer- | ence of 8 world if you would get any l idea of the greatness of our estate when | we shall shine as the stars forever and l ever.
 The Reign Without End.
 Lastly-and coming to this point my mind almost breaks down under the
 contemplation-like the stars, all Chris | tian workers shall shine in duration. l The same stars that look down upon us l looked down upon the Chaldean shep- | herds. The meteor that saw flashing
 across the sky the other night won- der if it was not the same one that | pointed down to where Jesus lay in the manager, and if, having pointed out his birthplace it has ever since been wan l dering through the heavens, watching | to see how the world would treat him | When Adam awoke in the garden in
 the cool of the day, he saw coming out through the dusk of the evening the same worlds that greeted us last night. In Independence hall is an old cracked bell that sounded the signature of the Declaration of Independence. You can
 not ring it now, but this great chime of silver bells that strike in the dome of
 night ring out as sweet tone as when
 God swung them at the creation. Look
 up at night and know that the white
 lilies that bloom in all the hanging
 gardens of our King are century plants
 not blooming once in 100 years, but
 through all the centuries. The star at
 which the mariner looks tonight was
 the light by which the ships of Tarshish
 were guided across the Mediterranean
 and the Venetian flotilla found it's way
 into Lepanto. Their armor is as bright
 tonight as when, in ancient battle, the
 stars in their courses fought against Sisera.