The Monitor-register., 1897-03-05

Christ shall reopen and purify ANU III
it as the well of Belgium never was
Unclean, unclean.
Irreyerence.
Another seraphic posture III the text,
"With twain he covered the face. Ihat
means reverence Godward. Never SO
much irreverence abroad III the world
as today. You see it i'll the defaced
statuary, i'll the cutting out OF tlgures
from fine paintings, i'll the chipping OF
monuments for memento, IN the TACT
that military guard must stand at the
grave of Lincoln and Garfield, and that
old shade trees must be cut down for
firewood, though 90 George P. Morrises
beg the woodmen to spare the tree, and
that calls corpse cadaver, and that
speaks of death at going over to the ma
ioritv. and substitutes for the reverent
terms father and mother " the old man.
and "the Old woman" and finds moth
ing impressive in the ruins of Baalbec
or the columns of Karnac, and sees no
difference in the Sabbath from other
days except it allows more dissipation,
and reads the Bible in what is called
higher criticism, making it not the word
of God, but a good book with some fine
things in it.
Irreverence never SO much abroad.
How many take the name of God i'll
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 humanitari-
anism 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 a
better world than this, and that the
God of the Bible shocks every sense Of
propriety. They talk of the love of God
in way that shows you they believe it
does not make any difference how bad a
man is here he will come in at the shin
ing gate. They talk of the love of God
in 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 done 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 consuming fire,
The explanation is plain as plain can
be. God through Christ is love. God
out of Christ is fire To win the one
and to escape the other we have only to
throw ourselves, body, mind and soul,
into Christ's keeping. "No, F." says ir-
reverence, Il want no atonement; l
want no pardon; want no interven-
ton; I will go up and face God, and l
will challenge him, and 1 will defy
him, and 1 will ask him what he wants
to do with me- " So the finite confronts
the Infinite; so tack hammer tries to
break a thunderbolt; 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 arch
angel turns away because he cannot en-
dure the splendor, and the chorus of all
the empires Of heaven comes in with
full diapason, Holy, holy, holyp'
A Pressing Need.
Reverence for sham, reverence for the
old merely because it is old, reverence
for stupidity however learned, reverence
for incapacity however finely inaugu-
rated, l have none. But we want more
reverence for God, more reverence for
the sacraments, more reverence for the
Bible, more reverence for the pure,
more reverence for the good Reverence
characteristic of all great natures.
You hear it in the roll of the master
oratorios. You see it in the Raphaels
and Titians and Ghirlandaios. You
study it in the architecture of the Aho-
labs and Christopher Wrens. Donot be
/ f1ippant about God. Do not joke about
death. Do not make fun of the Bible.
Do not deride the Eternal. The bright
/ est and mightiest seraph cannot look
unabashed upon him. Involuntarily the
wings come up with twain he covered
his face. -
Who is this God before whom the ar
rogant and intractable refuse reverence?
There was an engineer by the name of
Strasicrates who was in the employ of
Alexander the Great, and he offered tc
hew mountain in the shape of his
master, the emperor, the enormous fig
ure to hold in the left hand a city OF
10000 inhabitants, while with the right
hand it was to hold basin large enough
to collect all the mountain torrents.
Alexander applauded him for his in
genuity, but forbade the enterprise be-
cause of its costliness. Yet have tc
tell you that our King holds in one hand
all the cities of the earth, and ali the
oceans, while he has the stars of heaven
for his tiara.
Earthly power goes from hand tc
hand from Henry I TO Henry II and
Henry III, from Charles I to Charles
Ii, from Louis I to Louis II and Louis
III, but from everlasting to everlasting
is God. God the first, God the last, Goo
the only. He has one telescope, with
which he sees everything--his omnis
! cience. He has one bridge, with which
he crosses every ything-his omnipres
ence. He has one hammer, with which
he builds everything-his omnipotence
| Put two tablespoonfuls of water in the
| palm of your hand, and it will over
flow, but Isaiah indicates that God puts
| the Atlantic, and the Pacific, and the
Arctic, and the Antarctic, and the Med
| iterranean, and the Black sea, and al
the waters of the earth i'll the hollow o1
his hand. The fingers the beach on one
side, the wrist the beach on the other.
''He holdeth the water in the hollow o1
his hand.
The Blue Ribbon.
AS you take pinch of salt or powder
between your thumb and two fingers, sc
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 continents be-
tween the thumb and two fingers. You
wrap around your hand a blue ribbon
five times, ten times. You say it is five
hand breadths or it is ten hand breadths.
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 that balances are
made of beam suspended in the mid
die, with two basins at the extremity OF
equal heft. In that way what vast heft
has been weighed! But what are all the
balances Of earthly manipulation COM
pared with the balances that Isaiah saw
suspended when he saw God putting
into the scales the Alps and the Apen-
mines and Mount Washington and the
Sierra Nevadas? You see the earth had
to be ballasted. 1t would not do to have
too mpch weight in Europe, or toe
much weight in Asia, or too much
weight in Africa or in America, SC
when God made the mountains he
weighed them. The Bible distinctly
says so. God knows the weight Of the