Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-11-20


wants, instead of a quiet Sabbath, one
of carousal. Hewants the stimulus of
strong drinks. He wants the permits
sions of profigate life The one men,
bership, the one bad habit, the one Ca
rousal, robs him of all the possibilities
and innocent enjoyments and noble in
SEPARATIONS of lifetime By one mouth
full of forbidden fruit he loses whole
orchard of fruit unforbidden.
You see what an expensive thing is
sin. It costs l., 600 times more than it
is worth. AS some of all kinds Of quad
rupeds and all kinds Of winged crea-
lures passed before our progenitor that
he might announce q name, from eagle
to bat, and from lion to mole, so l sup
pose there were in paradise specimens
of every kind of fruit tree And i'll that
1 enormous orchard there was not only
enough for the original family Of two,
but enough fruit fell ripe to the ground
and was never picked up to supply
whole towns and villages if they had
existed But the infatuated couple turn
ed away from all these other trees and
faced this tree, and fruit of that they
will have though it cost them all para
disc
! This story of Eden is rejected by
some as an improbability if not all i'm
possibility. but nothing on earth is east
er for me to believe than the truth OF
this Edenic story, for | have seen the
same thing in this year of our Lord
1897 could call them by name, If it
were polite and righteous to do SO. the
men who have sacrificed paradise on
earth and paradise in heaven for one
sin. Their house went Their library
went Their good name went. Their
! field of usefulness went Their health
went Their immortal soul went My
friends, there is just one sin that will
turn you out of paradise if you do not
quit it You know what it is. and
God knows, and you had better drop
the hand and arm lifted toward that
bending bough before you pluck your
own ruin. When Adam stood on tiptoe
and took in his right hand that one
round peach or apricot or apple, satan
reached up and pulled down the round
beautiful world of our present residence
Overworked artist, overwrought mer-
chant, ambitious politician, avaricious
! speculator, better take that warning
from Adam orchard and stop before
you put out for that one thing moro
| solomon's Orchard.
But l turn from Adams orchard to
Solomon's orchard. With his own hand
he writes, II made me gardens and or
chards Z" Not depending on the natural
fall of rain he irrigated those orchards
Pieces of the aqueduct that watered
those gardens | have seen, and the reser-
yoirs are as perfect as when thousands
of years ago the mason S trowel smooth
ed the mortar over their gray surfaces
| No orchard of olden or modern time
probably ever had its thirst SO well
slaked The largest of these reservoirs
is $50 feet long. 207 feet wide and so
feet deep These reservoirs Solomon re-
fers to when he says, Il made me pools
of water, to water Herewith the wood
that bringeth forth trees. Solomon
used to ride out to that orchard before
breakfast. 1t gave him an appetite and
/ something to think about all the day
Josephus, the historian, represents him
as going out early in the morning from
Jerusalem to the famed rocks of Etam,
fertile region. delightful with para
discs and running springs. Thither the
king, in robes of white, rode in his
chariot, escorted by troop of mounted
archers chosen for their youth and stat
ure and clad in Tyrian purple, whose
long hair, powdered with gold Dust
sparkled in the sun. !" After Solomon
had taken his morning ride in these
luxuriant orchards he would sit down
and write those wonderful things IN
the Bible, drawing his illustrations
from the fruits be had that very morn
ing plucked or ridden under And,
wishing to praise the coming Christ. he
says, 'As the apple tree among the
trees of the wood. so is my beloved. "
And wishing to describe the love of the
| church for her Lord he writes, Com
fort me with apples, for am sick of
love-" and desiring to make reference
to the white hair of the octogenarian,
and just before having noticed that tho
blossoms of the almond tree were white,
he says of the aged man, 1.-The almond
tree shall flourish The walnuts and
the pomegranates and the mandrakes
and the figs make Solomon S writings a
diyinely arranged fruit basket
The Luxury of Religion.
What mean Solomons orchards and
Solomon's gardens, for they seem to
mingle, the two into one, flowers under
foot and pomegranates over headf 10
me they suggest that religion is lux
ury All along the world has looked up
on religion chiefly as a dire necessity
lifeboat from the shipwreck, ladder
from the confagration, soft landing
J place after we have been showed OF tho
precipice Of this planet. AS conse-
quence so many have said, I'VE will
await preparation for the future until
the crash of the shipwreck. until the
conhagration is in full blaze, until we
reach the brink OF the precipice. No
doubt religion is inexpressibly impor-
tant for the last exigency But what do
the apples, and the figs and the melons,
and the romegranates, and the citron,
and the olives of Solomon orchard
mean? Luxury They mean that our re-
ligion is the luscious. the aromatic, the
pungent, the arburesceut. the etflores-
cent, the foliaged, the outrageous
They mean what Edward Payson meant
when he declared, IF my happiness
continues to increase, cannot support
it much longer. 1t means what Bapa
Padmanji. Hindoo convert meant
when he said, II long for my bed, not
that may sleep-I lie awake often aud
long-but to hold communion with my
God. :" 1t means what the old colored