The morning news., 1897-09-20


like the stars In swiftness Of motion The
worlds do not stop TO shine There are
no fixed stars save as to relative position.
The star apparently most thoroughly fixed
flies thousands of miles a minute The
astronomer using his telescope for al
penstock, leaps from wor.d-crag to world
crag, and finds no star standing still. The
chamOis hunter has TO fly to catch his
prey, but not so swift Is his game as that
which the scientist tries TO shoot through
the tower of observatory. Like Detrels
/ mid-Atiantic, that seem to come from no
shore, and be bound to no landing-place-
I flying nying-so these great hocks of
worlds rest not as they go-wing and
wng-age after age-for ever and ever.
/ The eagle hastes to its prey, but we shall
in speed beat the eagles. You have motto
/ ed the velocity Of the swift horse under
whose feet the miles slip like a smooth rib
bon, and, as he passes. the four hoofs
| strike the earth in such quick beat, your
pulses take the same vibration. But al.
these things are not swift in comparison
with the motion of which 1 speak. The
moon moves hfty-four thousand miles in
a day. Yonder, Neptune dashes on elev-
en- thousand miles in a hour. Yonder,
Mercury goes one hundred and nine thou
sand miles il an hour. So like the stars
the Christian shall shine in swiftness of
motion.
You hear now of father or mother or
ii takes you two days to get to them. You
hear of some case of suffering that de-
mands your immediate attention, but il
takes you an hour to get there Oh, the
joy when you shall in fulhlment of the
text, take starry speed, and be equal to
one hundred thousand miles an hour,
Having on earth got used TO Christian
work, you will not quit when death strikes
you. You will only take on more velocity
There is a dying child in London, and its
spirit must be taken up to God; you are
there in an instant to do Il. There is a
young man in New York to be arrested
from going into that gate of sin; you are
there in an instant to arrest him. Wheth-
er with spring of foot, or stroke of wing
or by the force of some new law that shall
hur you to the spot where you would go,
/ know not; but my text suggests Veloc-
ity. All space open before you, with moth
ing to hinder you in mission of light and
love and joy you shall shine in swiftness
of motion as the stars forever and ever.
Again: Christian workers. like the
stars, shine in magnitude. The most IL
literate man knows that these things in
the sky, looking like gilt buttons, are
great masses of matter To weigh them,
one would think that it would require
scales with pillar hundreds of thousands
of miles high, and chains hundreds of
thousands of miles long, and at the bot
tom of the chains basins on either side
hundreds of thousands of miles wide, and
that then Omnipotenee alone could put the
mountains into the scales and the hills
into the balance. But puny man has been
equal to the undertaking. and has set a
little balance on his geometry and weigh
ed world against world. Yea, he has
pulled out his measuring line, and an
nounced that Herschel is thirty-six thou
sand miles IL diameter, Saturn seventy
nine thousand miles in diameter. and Ju-
fhOngOn1 mil in Tfav
eter, and that the smallest pearl on the
beach of heaven is immense beyond all
imagination. So all they who have toiled
for Christ on earth shall rise up to a
magnitude of privilege, a mag
nitude of strength and a magnitude
of holiness, and a magnitude of joy; and
the weakest saint in glory become greater
than all that we can imagine of an arch
angel.
Brethren, 1T doth not yet appear what
we shall be-" Wisdom that shall know
everything; wealth that shall possess
everything; strength that shah do every
thing; glory that shall circumscribe every
thing! We shall not be like a taper set
in a sick mans window, or a bundle of
sticks kindled on the beach to warm a
shivering crew: but you must take the
diameter and the circumference of a world
if you would get any idea of the greatness
of our estate when we shall shine as the
stars forever and ever.
Lastly-and coming to this point my
mind almost breaks down under the con-
templation-lke the stars, all Christian
workers shall shine in duration The
same stars that look down upon us looked
down upon the Chaldean shepherds.
The meteor that I saw flashed across the
sky the other night, l wonder if it was not
the same one that pointed down to where
Jesus lay in the manger and If, having
pointed out his birthplace 1t has ever
Lott. A.
watching to see how the world would treat
him. When Adam awoke in the garden
in the cool of the day, he saw coming out
through the dusk of the evening the same
worlds that greeted us last night.
In Independence hall is an old cracked
bell that sounded the signature of the
Declaration of Independence. You cam
not ring 1t now; but this great chime of
silver bells that strike in the dome of
night, ring out with as sweet a tone as
when Goa swung them al the creation.
Look up at night, and know that the white
| lilies that bloom in all the hanging gar
| dens OF our King are century plants-not
blooming once in a hundred years, but
| through all the centuries. The star at
! which the mariner looks tonight was the
| light by which the ships of Tarshish were
! guided across the Mediterranean, and the
| Venetian fotilla found its way into Lee
! panto. Their armor is as bright to-
! night as when, in ancient battle the stars
| in their courses fought against Sisera
! To the ancients the stars We're symbols
| of eternity. But here the figure of my
| text breaks down-not in defeat but in
| the majesties of the Judgment The stars
! shall not shine forever The Bible says
| they shall fall like autumnal leaves AS
when the connecting factory-band slips at
| nightfan from the main-wheel, all the
! smaller wheels slacken their speed, and
| with slower and slower motion they turn
! until they come to fun stop, so this great
! machinery of the universe, wheel within
wheel, making revolution OF appalling
| speed shall, by the touch of Gods hand,
! slip the band of present law, and slacken
/ and stop That is what viii be the mat
| ter with the mountains. The chariots in
which they ride shall halt so suddenly
! that the kings shall be thrown out. Star
| after star shall be carried out to burial
| amid funeral torches of burning worlds
| Consultations shall throw ashes on their
| heads, and all up and down the highways
| of space there shall be mourning, mourn
| ing, mourning, because the worlds are
| dead. But the Christian workers shall nev-