Connecticut western news., 1897-02-18

who said at the close of his life, 'l have been everything and everything is nothing" And when the urn that was to contain his ashes was at his com mand brought to him he said, Little urn, thou shalt contain one for whom the world was too little"
 Do you not also learn from the mis- fortune of this king of Babylon what a terrible thing is the loss of reason! There is no calamity that can possibly befall us in this world so great as de- engagement of intellect; to have the body of man and yet 10 fall even below the instinct of brute. In this world of horrible sights, the most horrible is the idiots stare. In this world of horrible sounds, the most horrible is the maniac's laugh. A vessel driven on the rocks, when hundreds go down never to rise and other hundreds drag their mangled and shivering bodies upon the winters beach, is nothing compared to the foun- dering of intellects full of vast hopes and attainments and capacities.
 Christ's heart went out toward those who were epileptic, falling into the fire, or maniacs cutting themselves among the tombs. We are accustomed to be more grateful for physical health than for the proper working of our mind. We are apt to take it for granted that the intellect which has served us so we'll will always be faithful. We forget that an engine of such tremendous power, where the wheels have such vastness of circle and such swiftness of motion, and the least impeachment might put it out of gear, can only be kept in proper bal ance by a divine hand. No human hand could engineer the train of immortal faculties. How strange it is that our memory, on whose shoulders all the misfortunes and successes and occur rences of a lifetime are placed, should not oftener break down, and that the scales of judgment, which have been weighing so much and so long, should not lose their adjustment, and that fancy, which holds dangerous wand, should not sometimes malieiously wave it, bringing into the heart forebodings and hallucinations the most appalling! Is it not strange that this mind, which hopes so much in its mighty leaps for the at tainment of its objects, should not be dashed to pieces on its disappointments: Though so delicately tuned, this instru- ment of untold harmony plays on, though fear shakes it and vacations rack it and sorrow and joy and loss and gain ill quick succession beat out of it their dirge or toss from it their anthem. At morning and at night, when in your prayer you rehearse the causes of your thanksgiving, next to the salvation by Jesus Christ, praise the Lord for the preservation of your reason.
 He Served a Purpose.
 See also in this story of Nebuchadnez- gar the use that God makes of bad men. The actions of the wicked are used as instruments for the punishment of wick edness in others or as the illustration of some principle in the divine govern ment. Nebuchadnezzar subserved both purposes. Even so I will go back with you to the history of every reprobate that the world has ever seen, and I will show you how to great extent his wickedness was limited in its destructive power and how God glorified himself in the overthrow and disgrace of his en- emy. Babylon is full of abomination, and wicked Cyrus destroys it. Persia fills the cup of its iniquity, and vile AL exander puts an end to it. Macedon must be chastised, and bloody Emilius does it. The Bastille is to be destroyed, and corrupt Napoleon accomplishes it. Even so selfish and wicked men are of ten made to accomplish great and glori- ous purposes. Joseph's brethren were guilty of superlative perfidy and mean ness when they sold him into slavery kor about ST, yet how they must have been overwhelmed with the truth that God never forsakes the righteous when ister of Egyptl Pharaoh expresses the Israelites with the most diabolic tyran- ny; yet stand still and see the salvation of God. The plagues descend, the To- custs, and the hail, and the destroying angel, showing that there is God who will defend the cause of his people, and finally. after the Israelites have passed through the parted sea, behold, in the wreck of the drowned army, that Gods enemies are chaff in a whirlwindl In some financial panic the righteous suf
  stores and shops in night foundered on the rock of bankruptcy, and healthy credit without warning dropped dead in the street, and money ran up the long ladder of 26 per cent to laugh down upon those who could not climb after it.
 Dealers with pockets full of securities stood shouting in the deaf ears of banks. Men rushed down the streets with pro tested notes after them. Those who be- fore found 1t hard to spend their money were left without money to spend. La borers went home for want of work, to see hunger in their chair at the table and upon the hearth. Winter blew his breath of frost through fingers of icicles, and sheriffs with attachments dug among the cinders of fallen storehouses, and whole cities joined in the long fu- neral procession, marching to the grave of dead fortunes and fallen commerce. Verify the righteous suffered with the wicked, but generally the wicked had the worst of it. Splendid estates that had come together through schemes of wickedness were dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel, and God wrote with let ters of fire, amid the ruin and destruc- tion of regulations and estates that were thought impregnable, the old fashioned truth, which centuries ago be wrote in his Bible, ''The way of the wicked he turneth upside down" As the stars of heaven are reflected from the waters of the earth, even so Gods great and mag nificent purposes are reflected back from the boiling sea of human passion and turmoil. As the voice of a sweet song uttered among the mountains may be uttered back from the cavernous home of wild beast and rocks split and thun- der scared, so the great harmonies of Gods providence are rung back from the darkest caverns of this sin struck earth. Sennacherib and Abimelech and Herod and Judas and Nero and Nebuchadnezzar, though they struggled like beasts unbroken to the load, were