The Yale expositor., 1897-09-24


tries to shoot through the tower OF OBJ
servatory. Liks petrels mid-Atlantic,
that seem TO come from no shore, and
be bound to no landing place-nying.
fying-so these great fiocks of worlds
rest not as they go-wing and wing
age after age-for ever and ever. The
eagle hastes to its prey, but we shall
in speed beat the eagles. You have no
ticed the velocity of the swift horse
under whose feet the miles slip like
a smooth ribbon, and, as he passes, the
four hoofs strike the earth in such
quick beat, your pulses take the same
vibration. But all these things are not
swift in comparison with the motion
OF which / speak. The moon moves
$4,000 miles in a day. Yonder, Nep-
tune flashes on II 900 miles in an hour.
Yonder, Mercury goes 900 miles in
an hour. So like the stars the Chris
tian shall shine in swiftness of motion.
You hear now of father or mother or
child sick 1000 miles away, and 1t takes
you two days to get to them. You hear
OF some case of suffering that demands
your immediate attention, but it takes
you an hour to get there. Oh, the joy
when you SHALL in fulfilment of the text,
take starry speed and be equal to 100000
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 it's spirit
must be taken up to God; you are there
in an instant to do it. There is a
young man in New York to be arrested
from going into that gate of sin; You
are there in an instant 10 arrest him.
Whether with spring of foot, or stroke
of wing, or by the force of some new
law that shall hurl you to the spot
where you would go, / know not; but
my text suggests velocity. All space
open before you with nothing to hinder
you in mission of light and love and
Joy, you shall shine in swiftness of mo-
ton as the stars for ever and ever.
Again: Christian workers, like the
stars, shine in magnitude. The most
illiterate 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 re-
quire scales with a pillar hundreds OF
thousands OF miles high, and chains
hundreds of thousands of miles long,
and at the bottom the chains basins on
either side hundreds of thousands OF
miles wide, and that then omnipotence
alone could put the mountains into the
ha int
But puny man has been equal TO the
undertaking, and has set a little bal
ance on his geometry, and weighed
world against world. Yea, he has pull
ed out his measuring line, and an
nounced that Herschel is $4,000 miles
in diameter, Saturn 10000 miles in
diameter, and Jupiter $4,000 miles in
diameter, and that the smallest pearl
on the beach of heaven is immense be-
yond all imagination. So all they who
have toiled for Christ on earth shall
rise up to a magnitude of privilege, and
a magnitude of strength, and magni-
tude of holiness, and a magnitude of
Joy; and the weakest saint in glory be-
come greater than all that we can i'm
agine of an archangel.
Brethren, 1T doth not yet appear
what we shall be-" Wisdom that shall
know everything; wealth that shall
possess everything; strength that shall.
do everything; glory that shall circum--
scribe evrything! We shall not be like.
taper set in a sick mans window, or
bundle of sticks klndled on the beach
CHI lint
must take the diameter and the cir
conference of the world if you would
get any idea of the greatness of our
estate when we shall shine as the stars
for ever and ever.
Lastly-and coming to this point my
mind almost breaks down under the
contemplation-like the stars. ali
Christian workers shall shine in dura-
ton. The same stars that look down
upon us looked down upon the Chris
tian shepherds. The meteor that / saw
flashing across the sky the other night,
/ 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, it has ever since
been wandering through the heavens,
watching to see how the world would
treat himl When Adam awoke in the
garden in the cool of tho 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 tho
Declaration of Independence. You can
not ring it now; but this great chime
of silver bells that strike i'm the dome
of night, ring out in as sweet tone as
when God swung them at the Creation.
Look up at night, and know that the
white lilies that bloom in all the hang
ing gardens of our King are century
plants-not blooming once In 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
fiotilla found its way into Lepanto.
Their armor is as bright tonight as
when, in ancient battle, the stars In
thair courses fouQht aOainet CfSaro