The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-02-05

! that each world IS room ana as many
rooms as there are worlds, stellar stairs,
stellar galleries, stellar Railways, stel-
lar windows, stellar domes. How our
departed frienCs must pity us, shut up in
these crampcd apartments, tired if we
walk D miles, when they some morn
ing, by Ole stroke of wing, can make
circuit Of the whole stellar system and
be back III time for mathis! Perhaps
yonder twinklng constellation is the
residence Of the martyrs; that group of
~ luminaries may be the celestial home
Of the apostles. Perhaps that steep of
light is the dwelling place Of angels
cherubic, seraphic, a1changelic-a man.
sion with Is many rooms as worlds and
all their windows Illuminated for fes-
tivity.
Worth of the Soul.
Oh, how this widens and lifts and
stimulates our expectation How little
it makes the present, and how stupen-
dous it makes the futurel How it con-
soles us about our pious dead, that, in
stead of being boxed up and under the
ground, have the range of as many rooms
as there are worlds, and welcome every
where, for it is the Fathers house, in
which there are many mansions! o,
Lord God Of the seven stars and Orion,
how can endure the transport, the &C.
stasy, of such vision! l must obey my
text and seek him. will seek him. 1
seek him now, for call to mind that it
is not the material universe that is most
valuable, but the spiritual, and that
each Of us has soul worth more than
all the worlds which the inspired herds
man saw from his boCth on the hills of
Tekoa.
had studied it before, but the cathe-
dral of Cologne, Germany, never i'm
pressed me as it did one summer. 1t is
admittedly the grandest Gothic struc-
ture in the world, its foundation laid in
1248 only few years ago completed.
More than 600 years in building. All
Europe taxed for its construction. Its
chapel of the Magi with precious stones
enough to purchase kingdom. Its
chapel of st. Agnes with masterpieces
of painting. Its spire springing Oil feet
into the heavens. Its stained glass the
chorus of all rich colors. Statues encir-
cling the pillars and encircling all.
Statues above statues, until sculpture
can do no more, but faints and falls
back against carved stalls and down
on pavements over which the kings
and queens of the earth have walk
ed to confessional. Nave and aisles and
transept and portals combining the
splenGors of sunrise and sunset, Inter-
laced, interfoliated, intercolumned
grandeur. AS I stood outside, looking at
the double range of flying buttresses and
the forest of pinnacles, higher and high
er and higher until l almost reeled from
dizziness, l exclaimed: "Great doxology
in stonel Frozen prayer of many ma
tionsp'
But while standing there saw poor
man enter and put down his pack and
kneel beside his burden on the hard
floor of that cathedral. And tears of
deep emotion came into my eyes, as
said to myself: ''There is a soul worth
more than all the material surround
ipgs. That man will live after the last
pinnacle has fallen and not one stone
of all that cathedral glory shall remain
He is now Lazarus in
rags and poverty and WEAKNESS, but i'm
mortal and son of the Lord God AL
mighty, and the prayer he now offers,
though amid many superstitions, / be-
lieve God will hear, and among the
apostles whose sculptured forms stand
in the surrounding inches he will at
last be lifted, and into the presence of
that Christ whose sufferings are repre-
sented by the crucifiX before which he
bows, and be raised in due time out of
all his poverties into the glorious home
built for hill and built for us by him
who maketh the seven stars and Orion. "