The Yale expositor., 1897-03-05

mightiest seraph cannot look una
dashed upon him. Involuntary the
wings come up. with twain no COW
cred his face"
AS you take pinch of salt or powder
between your thumb and two fingers,
so Isaiah indicates God takes up the
earth. He measures the dust OF the
earth, the original there indicating that
God takes all the dust Of all the con-
tinents between the thumb and two
fingers. You wrap around your hand
blue ribbon five times, ten times.
You say 1t is five hand-breadths, or 1t.
Is ten hand-breadths. So indicates the
prophet God winds the blue ribbon or
the sky around his hand. "He meteth
out the heavens with a span." You
know that balances are made OF a beam
suspended in the middle with two ba-
sins at the extremity of equal heft In
that way what a vast heft has been
weighed. But what are all the bal
ances Of earthly manipulation COM
pared with the balances that Isaiah
saw suspended when he saw God put
ting into the scales the Alps and the
Apprentices and Mount Washington and
the Sierre Nevadas. You see the earth
had to be ballasted. 1t would not do
to have too much weight in Europe, or
too much weight in Asia, or too much
weight in Africa, or in America; so
when God made the mountains he
weighed them. The Bible distinctly
says so. God knows the weight Of the
great ranges that cross the continents,
the tons, the pounds avoirdupois, the
ounces, the grains, the millegrammes
just how much they weighed then.
and just how much they weigh now.
He weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in balance"
See that eagle in the mountain nest.
1t looks so sick, so ragged-feathered.
so WORKOUT and so half asleep. Is
that eagle dying? No. The ornithol-
ogist will tell you it is the moulting
season with that bird. Not dying, but
moulting. You see that Christian sick
and weary and WORKOUT and seeming
about to expire on what is called his
death-bed. The world says he is dy-
ing. | say 1t is the moulting season
for his soul-the body dropping away,
the celestial pinions coming on. Not
dying, but moulting Moulting out of
darkness and sin and struggle into
glory and into God. Why do you not
shout? Why do you sit shivering at
the thought of death and trying to hold
back and wishing you could stay here
forever, and speak Of departure as
though the subject were filled with
skeletons and the varnish of collins,
and as though you preferred lame foot
TO swift wing?
o people of God, let us stop playing
the fo oil and prepare for rapturous
flight. When your soul stands on the
verge Of this life, and there are vast
precipices beneath, and sapphired
domes above. which way will you fly?
Will you swoop or will you soar? VIII
you fly downward or will you fly up
ward? Everything on the wing this
day bidding us aspire. Holy Spirit on
the wing. Angel of the New Covenant
on the wing. Time on the wing. flying
away from u.s. Eternity on the wing,
flying toward us. Wings. wings. wings!
Live so near to Christ that when
you are dead. people standing by your
lifeless body will not soliloquize, say
ing: What disappointment life was
to him; how averse he was to depart
ure; what pity 1t was he had to die;
what an awful calamity" Rather
standing there may they see sign
more vivid on your still face than the
vestiges of pain, something that will
indicate that it was happy exit-the
clearance from oppressive quarantine.
the cast-off chrysalid. the moulting of
the faded and the useless. and the as
cent from malarial valleys to bright,
shining mountain-tops, and be led TO
say, as they stand there contemplating
your humility and your reverence in
life, and your happiness in death:
with twain he covered the feet, with
twain he covered the face, with twain
he did fly" Wings! Wings! Wings!