Connecticut western news., 1897-02-04

II We nSu our own WEy In ll1C, C61Ore this we would have been impersonations of selfishness and worldliness and dis. gusting sin and puffed up until we would have been like Julius Cesar, who was made by sycophants to believe that he was divine, and the freckles on his face were said to be as the stars of the Armament.
 The God of Orion.
 One of the swiftest transatlantic voy- ages made one summer by the Etruria was because she had stormy wind abaft chasing her from New York to Liverpool But to those going in the op- posite direction the storm was a buffet ing and a hindrance. It is bad thing to have storm ahead, pushing us back, but if we be Gods children and aiming toward heaven the storms of life will only chase us the sooner into the har- bor. am so glad to believe that the monsoons, typhoons and mistrals and siroccos of the land and sea are not un- chained maniacs' let leose upon the earth, but are under divine supervision. am so glad that the God of the seven stars is also the God of Orion. It was out of Dante's suffering came the sub- l lime "Divina Commedia, and out of I John Milton's blindness came "Para- disc Lost, and out of miserable infidel attack came the Bridgewater Treatise" in favor of Christianity, and out of David's exile came the songs of conso- lation, and out of the sufferings of Christ came the possibility of the worlds re- demption, and out of your bereavement, your persecution, your poyerties, your misfortunes, may yet come an eternal | heaven.
 Oh, what a mercy it is that in the text and all up and down the Bible God | induces us to look out toward other | worldsl Bible astronomy in Genesis, in l Joshua, in Job, in the Psalms, in the prophets, major and minor, in St, | Johns Apocalypse, practically saying: Worlds, worlds, worldsl Get ready | for themP' We have a nice little world here that we stick to, as though losing | that we lose all We are afraid of falling | of this little raft of world. We are | afraid that some meteoric iconoclast | will some night smash it, and we want | everything to revolve around it and are | disappointed when we find that it re- | wolves around the sun instead of the sun i revolving around it. What fuss we make about this little bit of world, its | existence only short time between two spasms, the paroxysm by which it was hurled from chaos into order, and the paroxysm of its demolition. | And I am glad that so many texts call us to look off to other worlds, many of them larger and grander and more re- | splendent Look there," says Job, lat | Nazareth and Arcturus and his sonsf' Look there,' says St. John, 'at the moon under Christ's feetr' Look there,' says Joshua, lat the sun stand ing still above Gibeonp' "Look there, '' says Moses, ''at the sparkling firma- mentp' Look there," says Amos, the herdsman, "at the seven stars and OrionP Do not let us be so sad about those who shove off from this world un- der Christly pilotage. Do not let us be so agitated about our own going off this little barge or sloop or canalboat of a world to get on some Great Eastern of the heavens. Do not let us persist in wanting to stay in this barn, this shed, this outhouse of a world, when all the kings palaces, already occupied by many of our best friends, are swinging wide open their gates to let us in.
 When read, "In my Fathers house are many mansions, - do not know but that each world is a room and as many rooms as there are worlds, stellar stairs, stellar galleries, stellar railways. stel- lar windows, stellar domes. How our departed friends must pity us, shut up in these cramped apartments, tired if we walk 15 miles, when they some morn ing, by one stroke of wing, can make scircuit of the whole stellar system and
 be back in time for matinsi Perhaps yonder twinkling constellation is the residence of the martyrs; that group of
 l2 luminaries may be the celestial home
 of the apostles. Perhaps that steep ot light is the dwelling place of angels cherubic, seraphic, archangelic-a man. sion with as 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 expectationl How little
 it makes the present, and how stupen-
 dous it makes the futurei 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 mansionsl O,
 Lord God of the seven stars and Orion,
 how can I endure the transport, the ec- stasy, of such vision! I must obey my
 text and seek him. I will seek him. ] seek him now, for call to mind that ii is not the material universe that is most valuable, but the spiritual, and that each of us has soul worth more than all the worldswhich the inspired herds
 man saw from his booth on the hills oi Tekoa
 had studied it before, but the cathe. dral of Cologne, Germany, never i'm pressed me as it did one summer. It 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 it's 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 511 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
 splendors 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
 CT and higher, until almost reeled from
 dizziness, exclaimed: Great doxology
 in stonei Frozen prayer of many ma | tjOpSt,,