The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1897-03-10

their sa5erS. compelled t;le sar e..
william von Ky lso0i. 10 dray Ev4,er
out Of the vel for them, and i. vas
verc pure water. Bat the battie ragged,
and SEQ dead and half dead were
llung into the well :er quick and elsg
burial. 50 tlat the we'll cfreireSit;neEt
became the we'll OF death. and long af
t5r people looked down into the we'll,
ana Trey sac tue bieacLed skulls, but
no rater. So the human soul was a
well OF good, but the armies OF sin
have fought around it and fought
across it and been slain, and it has be-
come q well Of skeletons. Dead hopes,
dead resolutions, dead opportunities,
dead ambitions An abandoned well
unless Christ shall reopen and purify
and Eli itas the well OF Belgium never
was. Unclean, unclean.
Another seraphic posture IN the
text, With twain he covered the
face. That means reverence God
ward. Never SO much irreverence
abroad in the world as today. You
see tin the Gefaced s:atuary. IN the
cuttiog out OF figures from fine paint
ings, in the chipping OF monuments
for memento, IN the fac. that mill.
tary guard must stand at the grave Of
Lincoln and Garfield, and that old
shade trees must be cut down for fire
wood, though 50 George ?. Morrises
beg the woodmer 10 spare the tree.
and that calls a corpse a cadave, and
that speaks OF death as going over to
the majority and substitutes for the
reverend terms father and mother the
old man" aud the old woman. and
finds nothing impressive in the ruins
of Baalbsc or the columns OF harnac,
and sees no difference in the Saba ath
from other days except it allows more
dissipation, and reads the Bible in
what is called higher criticism, max
ing it tnot the word OF God, but a
good book with some fue things in it.
Irre7erence 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 rollup
an idea OF sentimentality and humani-
tarianism and impudence and imbecili
ty and cali it God. No wings OF re-
verence 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 Gcd
Of the Bible shocks every sense Of pro-
priety. They talk Of the love OF God
in way that shows you they believe
it does not make any difference how
bad man IS here he will come in at
the shining gate. They talk OF the
love OF God in way which shows
you they think it is a general jail de-
livery for all the abandoned and the
scoundrelly OF the universe. No pun
ishment hereafter for any wrong done
here.
The Bible gives two descriptions OF
God, and they are Just opposite, aud
they are both true. In ore place the
Bible says God is love. In another
place the Bible says God is consum-
Ing FIRE. The explanation is plain as
plain can be. God through Christ is
love. God cut OF Christ is Ere. To
win the one ana to escape the other
we have only to throw ourselves,
body, mind and soul, into ChriSt,s
keeping. No. says irreverence, i
want no atonemeat; I want 10 par
con: I want ro Intervention. I will
60 up and face God, and l will chal-
lenga hin, aud I will defy him, and I
will ask him wha: he wants to do
with me-" So the infinite contronts
the Infinite, so tack hammer tries to
break thunderbolt, so the breath OF
a human nostril defes the everlasting
God, while the hierarchs Of heaven
bow the head and bend the knee as
the Kings chariot goes by, aad the
archangel turns away because he can
not endure the splendor. and the cho
rus OF all the empires OF heaven comes
in with full diapason, Holy, holy.
holy
Reverence for sham, reverence TO,
the old merely because it is old, rev
ererce for stupidity, however learned
reverence for incepacity, however
finely inaugurated, I have none
But we want more reverence for God,
more reverence for the sacrsments,
more reverence for the Bible, more
reverence for the pure, more reverence
for the good. Reverence character
iStic OF all great natures. You hear il
in the roll Of the master oratories
You see it in the Rephaels and Titians
and Ghirlandaios. You study it il
the architecture of the Aholiabs and
Christopher Wrens. Do not be flip
pant about God. Do not joke about
death. Do not make fun Of the Bible.
Do not deride the Eternal. The
brightest and mightiest search cannot
look unabashed upon him. Involun-
tarily the wings come up. with
twain he covered his face. "
Who is this God before whom the
arrogant and iptractable refuse rev
erence, There was an engineer Of
the name OF Strasicrates who was IN
the employ OF Alexander the Great,
and he offered TO hew a mountain IN
the shape of his master, the emperor,
the enormous figure TO hold IN the
left hand city OF 10 600 inhabitants,
while with the right and i. was to
hold basin large enough to collect
all the mountain torrents. Alexander
applauded him for MS ingenuity, but
fobade the enterprise because OF its
costliness Yeti have to tell you that
our King holds in one hand all the
cities OF the earth and all the oceans,
while he has the stars OF heaven for
MS t;ara
Earthly power GOES from hand to
hand, from Henry l to Henry II and
Henry III, from Charles I to Charles
II, from Louis l TO Louis II aud Louis
III, but from everlasting to everlast-
ing is Coz. God the first, God the
last, God the only. He has one tele-
scope, with which he sees everything
his omniscience. He has one bridge
with which he crosses everything
his omnipresence. He has one ham
mer. with which he builds everything