The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-03-06

| the ma lOflIN, anu SuOSllJuICo " III
reverent terms father and mother,
s'the old man" and 1.-The old woman"
and finds nothing impressive in the
ruins of Baalbec or the columns of
Karnac, and sees no difference in the
Sabbath from other days except it al
lows more dissipation, and reads the
Bible in what is called higher criti-
cism, making 1t not the Word of God,
but a good book with some fine
things in il. ~Irreverence never so much
abroad. How many take the name
of God in vain, how many trivial
things said about the Almighty. Not
willing to have God in the world, they
roll up an idea of sentimentality and
humanitarianism and impudence and
imbecility, and call it God. No wings
of reverence over the face, no taking
off of shoes on holy ground, You can
tell from the way they talk they could
have made u better world than this,
and that God of the Bible shocks every
sense of prOpriety. They talk of the
love of God in a way that shows you
they believe it does not make any diff
ference how bad a man is here, he will
come in at the shining gate. They talk
of the love of God in a way which
shows you they think it is a general
Jail delivery for all the abandoned and
the scoundrelly of the universe. No
punishment hereafter for any wrong
lone here.
The Bible gives two descriptions of
God, and they are just opposite, and
they are both true. In one place the
Bible says God is love. In another
place the Bible says God is a consuming
fire. The explanation is as plain as
plain can be. God through Christ is
love. God out of Christ is fire. To win
the one and to escape h other we
have only to throw ourselves body,
mind and soul into Christ's keeping.
NO" says Irreverence, 81 want no
atonement, / want no pardon, l want
no intervention; 1 will go up and face
God, and / will challenge Him, and /
will defy Him, and l will ask Him
what He wants to do with me-" So
the finite confronts the infinite, so a
tack hammer tries 10 break a thunder
bolt, so the breath of human nostrils
defies the everlasting God, while the
hierarchs of Heaven bow the head and
bend the knee as the Kings chariot
goes by, and the archangel turns away
because he cannot endure the splendor,
and the chorus of the empires of Heav-
en- comes in with full diapason: holy,
holy, holyf'
Reverence for sham, reverence for
the old merely because it is old, ever
ence for stupidity, however learned,
reverence for i~ncapacity however finely
inaugurated, L have none. But we
want more reverence for God, more
reverence for the sacraments, more
reverence for the Bible, more reverence
for the good. Reverence a character
istic of all great natures. You hear it
in the roll of the master o~ratorios.
You see it in IN Raphaels and Titans
and Ghirlandajos. You study it in the
architecture of the Aholiabs and Chris
topher Wrens. Do not be fippant
about God. Do not joke about death.
Do not make fun of the Bible. Do not
deride the eternal. The brightest and
mightiest seraph cannot look una
DASHED upon Him. I~nvoluntarily the
wings come up. with twain he
covered his face"
Earthly power goes from hand to
hand, from Henry /. to Henry II. and
Henry Ill, from Charles 1. to Charles
H., from Louis l. to Louis ii. and
Louis Ill, but from everlasting to
everlasting is God. God the first, God the
last, God the only. He has one tele-
scope with which He sees everything:
His omniscince. He has one bridge
with which He crosses everything:
His omniprescence. He mas one hammer
with which He builds everything: His
o~mnipotence. Put two tablespoonfuls
of water in the palm of your hand and
it will overflow; but Isaiah indicates
that God puts the Atlantic and the Pa
cifo and the Arctic and the Antarctic
and the Mediterranean and the Black
sea and all the waters of the earth in
the hollow of His hand. The fingers
the beach on one side, the wrist the
beach on the other. He holdeth the
water in the hollow of His hand"
AS you take a pinch of salt or powder
between your thumb and two fingers,
80 Isaiah indicates TOD takes up
the earth. He measures the lust of
the earth, the original there indicating
hat God takes all the dust of the con-
tinents between the thumb and two
fingers. You wrap around your hand
a blue ribbon five times, ten times,
You say it is Ave hand-breaths, or it is
ten hand-breaths. So indicates the
prophet God winds the blue ribbon of
the sky around His hand. "He meteth
out the Heavens with a span" You
know hat balances are made of a beam
suspended in the middle, with two
basis at the extremity of equal heft,
In that way what vast heft has been
weighed. But what are all the bal
ances of earthly manipulation
compared with the balances that
Isaiah saw suspended when he
saw God putting into the scales
the Alps and the Apprentices and Mount
Washington and the Sierra Nevadas.
You see h earth had to be ballasted,
1t would not do to nave 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 say so. God knows
the weight of the great ranges that
gross the o~antipents, 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 a balance" Oh, what a God to run
against; oh, what a God to disobey;
oh, what a God to dishonor; oh, what
God to defyi The brightest, the
ipiG ntiCSI dhBSl JdhGS no luluilldIlty
with God, The wings Of reverence are
lifted. with twain he covered his
face"
Another seraphic posture in the text.
The seraph must not always stand still.
He must move, and it must be without
clumsiness. There must be celebrity
and beauty in the movement. with
twain he did fly" Correction, exhil-
Correction at our slow gait,
we only crawl in the service when
ought TO fly at the divine bidding.
EXhilaration in the fact that the soul
has wings as the seraphs have wings.
What is o wing2 An instrument of lq-
comotion. They may not be like
wing, they may not be like
birds wing, but the soul has wings,
God a so: He shall mount up on
wings as eagles" We are made in the
image, and God has wings. The
Bible says SO. "Healing in his wings"
''Under the shadow of His wings"
Under whose wings hast thou come
to trust" The soul with folded wings
now, wounded wing, broken wing,
bleeding wing, Gagged wing. Aye! L
- = C.-l .as%A.- L..