Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-03-06
ACyOMAC H. VA, SATURDAY. MARCH l91

glorious machinery for usefulness and
work, so often making misstcps, so often
going i'll the wrong direction. God
knowing every step, the patriarch say
ing, .Thou sctlest Trint on the heels
of my feet" Crimes of the hand crimes
of the tongue. crimes of the eye, crimes
of The ear not Ncrse than crimes of the
foot. Oh, we want the wings of humil-
lily to cover the feet! Ought we not to
GO into self abneeation before the all
searching. i'll scrutinizing, all trying
eye of God? The seraphs do. How much
more we? with twain he covered the
feet F."
All this talk about the dignity of hu-
man nature is braggadocio and sin. Our
nature started at the hand of God regal,
but it has been paurerized. There is q
well in Belgium which once had very
pure water and it was stoutly masoned
with stone and brick but that well aft
erward became the center of the battle
of Waterloo. At the opening of the bat
tie the soldiers with their sabers COM
PEELED the gardener, William Won Kyl-
som, to draw water out of the well for
them, and it was very pure water. But
the battle ragged and 800 dead and half
dead were flung into the well for quick
and easy burial, so that the well of re-
freshmcnt became the we'll of death, and
long after people looked down into the
well and they SAW the bleached skulls,
but no water 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 become a
we'll of skeletons. Dead hopes, dead res
olutions, dead opportunities, doad am
billions. An abandoned well unless
Christ shall reopen and purify and fill
it as the we'll of Belgium never was.
Unclean, unclean.
Irrcverence.
Another scraphic posture in the text,
with twain he covered the face. " That
means reverence Godward. Never so
much irrcvercnce abroad in the world
as today. You see it i'll the defaced
statuary, i'll the cutting out of figures
from fine paintings, i'll the chipping of
monuments for mcmento, III the fact
that military guard must stand at the
grave Of Lincoln and Garfield, and that
old shade trees must be cut down for
firewood, though 80 George p. Morrises
beg the woodmen to spare the tree, and
that calls corpse cadaver, and that
speaks of death ut going over to the ma
ioritv, and substitutes for the reverent
terms father and mother the old MAJ"
and "the cid woman," and finds moth
ing impressive III the ruins of Baalbec
or the columns Of Karnac, and sees no
difference in the Sabbath from other
days except it allows more dissipation,
and reads the Bible III what is called
higher criticism, making it not the word
of God. but good book with some fine
things i'll it.
Irrcverence 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 roll up an
idea of sentimentality and humanitari-
anism and impudence and imbecility
and call it God No wings of reverence
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
God of the Bible shocks every sense Of
propriety. They talk of the love of God
III way that shows you they believe it
does not make any difference how bad a
man is here he will come in at the shin
ing gate. They talk of the love of God
i'll way which shows you they think it
is a general Jail delivery for all the
abandoned and the scoundrelly of the
universe No punishment hereafter for
any wrong done here.
The Bible gives two descriptions of
God, and they are just opposite, and
they are both true. In one place the
Bible says God is love. In another place
the Bible says God is a consuming fire.
The explanation is plain as plain can
be. God through Christ is love. God
out of Christ is fire TO win the one
and to escape the other we have only to
throw ourselves, body, mind and soul,
into Christ's keeping. No, says IT.
reverence, II want no atonement; L
want no pardon; want no interven-
ton; will 90 up and face God, and l
will challenge him, and l will defy
him, and l will ask him what he wants
to do with me. " So the finite confronts
the Infinite; so Il tack hammer tries to
break a thunderbolt so the breath Of
human nostrils defes the everlasting
God, while the hierarchs of heaven bow
the head and bend the knee as the
Kings chariot gees by, and the arch
angel turns away because he cannot en-
dure the splcndor, and the chorus of all
the empires of heaven comes i'll with
full diapason, Holy, holy, holyl"
a Pressing Need.
Reverence for sham, reverence for the
old merely because it is old, reverence
for stupidity however learned, reverence
for incapacity however finely inaugu-
rated, have none. But we want more
reverence for God, more reverence for
the sacraments, more reverence for the
Bible, more reverence for the pure,
more reverence for the coed. Reverence
characteristic of all great natures.
You hear it in the roll of the master
oratorios You see it in the Raphacls
and Titians and Ghirlandaios. You
study it in the architecture Of the Aho-
labs and Christopher Wrens. Donot be
Aippant aEout Gcd. Do not joke about
death. Do rot make fun Of the Bible.
Do not dcridc the Eternal. Tie bright
est and mightiost scraph Cannot lcok
unabashed ,lron him. Mroluntarily the
wings come up with twain he covered
his f?ce -