The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-02-01


adversely. Il we had our own way IN
life. before this we would have been i'm
presentations OF selhshness and Worldiness
and disgusting sin, and pulled up until
We would have been like julius Caesar
who was made by sycophants TO believe
that he was divine, and the freckles OF
his face We're said to be as the stars q
the armament.
One OF the swiftest transatlantic voy-
ages made one summer by the Etrurias
was because she had stormy wind abatt,
chasing her from New York 10 Liverpool.
But TO those going in the opposite direc-
ton the storm was a buffeting and min
drance. II is a bad thing to have a
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 harbor. 1 am so
glad to believe that the monsoons, ty-
phoons. and mistrals, and siroccos OF the
land and sea are not unclaimed maniacs
let loose upon the earth, but are under
divine supervision! / am so glad that the
God of the Seven Stars is also the God
Of Orion 1t was out of Dantes suffering
came the sublime Divine Commed;a. and
out of John Milton's blindness came Par
adise Lost, and out of miserable infdel
attack came the Bridgewater Treatise in
favor of Christianity, and out os David
exile came the songs Of consolation, and
out of the sufferings of Christ came the
out of your bereavement, your persecu-
ton, your povertes, your misfortunes,
may yet come an eternal heaven.
Oh what mercy it is that in the text
and all up and down the Bible God in
duces us to look out toward other worlds!
Bible astronomy in Genesis, in Joshua, IN
Job, in the Psalms. in the prophets, major
and minor, in St. Johns Apocalypse, prac-
tically saying Worlds worlds! worlds,
Get ready for them" We have A nice
little word here that we stick to as though
losing that we lose all We are afraid Of
falling off this little raft of a 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 reyolves
around the sun instead of the sun revolv-
ing aroundit What fuss we make about
this little bit of a world. its existence only
a short time between two spasms, the par
oXysm by which it was hurled from chaos
into order, and the paroxysm of its demo-
Iition.
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, at
Nazareth and Arcturus and his sonsr
Look there" says st. John. "at the. moon
under Christ's feet" Look there" says
Joshua, Eat the sun standing still above
Gideon!" Look there says Moses, "at
says Amos. the herdsman "at the Seven
| Stars and Orionr Do not let us be 50
sad about those who shove off from this
world under Christly pilotage. Do no.
| let us be so agitated about our own going
off this little barge or sloop or canal boa
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 clubhouse 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 thai
each world is a room, and as many room
/ as there are worlds, stellar stairs, stellar
| galleries, stellar Railways, stellar win
| dows, stellar domes How our departed
| friends must pity US shut up in these
i cramped apartments, tired if we walk fiji
| teen miles, when they some morning, by
one stroke of wing. can make circuit OF
the whole stellar system and be back in
time for mathis! Perhaps yonder twnkling
constellation is the residence of the mar
| tyrs; that group of twelve luminaries may
be the celestial home of the Apostles. Per-
| haps that steep of light is the dwelling
place of angels cherubic, seraphic, arch
/ angelic. A mansion with as many rooms
as worlds, and all their windows illumi
| mated for festivty.
Oh how this widens and lifts and slim
| ulates our expectation How little 1t makes
| the present, and how stupendous it makes
| the future How it consoles us about our
| pious dead that instead of being boxed
| up and under the ground have the range
| of as many rooms as there are worlds, and
welcome everywhere, for it is the Fa-
| theirs house, in which there are many
| mansionsl Oh. Lord God of the Sever
Stars and Orion. how can / endure the
transport, the esctasy, of such visionl
| must obey my text and seek him. l viii
seek him. 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 a soul worth more
| than all the worlds, which the inspired
herdsman saw from his booth on the hills
of Tekoa.
1 had studied it before, but the Cathed-
| raj of Cologne Germany never impressed
| me as 1t did one summer. II is admit
teGly the grandest Gothic structure in the
world, it's foundation laid in 124s. only a
few years ago completed. More than six
hundred years in building. All Europe
taxed for its construction. Its chapel of
the Magi with precious stones enough to
| purchase a kingdom. Its chapel of St.
Agnes with masterpieces of painting. Its
spire springing five hundred and eleven
feet into the heavens. Its stained glass
the chorus of ali rich colors. Statues en-
circling 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 pave
ments over which the kings and queens
OF the earth have walked TO confessional.
Nave and aisles and transept and portals
combining the splendors of sunrise and
sunset Interlaced, interfoliated intercol-
umned grandeur. AS l stood outside, look
ing at the double range of flying but
tresses and the forest of pinnacles, higher
and higher and higher, until almost reel
ed from dizziness, L exclaimed: Great
doxology in stone. Frozen prayer of
many nationsv'
But while standing there 1 saw a poor
man enter and put down his pack and
kneel beside his burden on the hard floor
of that cathedral And tears of deep emo
ton came into my eyes, as l said to my
self: There is soul worth more than
all the material surroundings. That man
will live after the last pinnacle has fall
len. and not one stone of all that cathed-
Irai glory shall remain uncrumbled. He Is
now a Lazarus in rags and poverty and
WEAKNESS, but immortal, and a son OF
the LORD God Almighty; and the prayer
he now offers, though amid many super
stitions, 1 believe God will hear: and