The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1898-01-08

overreach you Il take all you nave.
Defense against cold, defense against
heat, defense against sickness, defense
against the worlds abuse, defense all
the way down TO the grave, and even
the tombstone sometimes is not a suf-
hcient harricadc.
If n soldier. who has been on guard,
shivering and stung with the cold,
pacing up and down the parapet with
shouldered musket, is glad when some
one comes to relieve guard and he can
go inside the fortress, ought not that
man to shout for joy who can put
down his weapon of earthly defense
and go into the kings castle? Who is
the more fortunate, the soldier who
has to stand guard 10 hours or the
man who has to stand guard six hours?
We have common sense about every
thing but religion, common sense
about everything and transference
from this world.
Again: There is u blessing in an abb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that II escapes SO many bereavements.
The longer we live the more attach
ments and the more kindred, the more
chords to be wounded or rasped or
sundered. If n man. live on to 20 or
so years of age, how many graves
are cleft at his feetl In that
long reach of time father and
mother go, brothers and sisters
go, children go, grandchildren go,
personal friends outside the fam
lily circle whom they had loved with a
love like that of David and Jonathan.
Besides that, some men have a natural
terpidation about dissolution, and
eyer and anon during 40 or 80 or
60 years, this horror of their disso-
luton shudders through souland body.
Now, suppose the lad goes at 10 years
of age? He escapes so funerals, so
caskets, so obsequies, so awful wrench
ings of the heart, 1t is hard enough
for us to bear their departure, but is it
not easier for us to bear their depart
ure than for them to stay and bear
so departures Shall we not by
the grace of God rouse ourselves
into q generosity of bereavement
which will practically say; at is hard
enough for me to go through this be-
reavement, but how glad l am hat he
will never have to go through it." So
! reason with myself, and so you will
find it helpful to reason with your
selves. David lost his son. Though
David vas king, he lay on the earth
mourning and inconsolable for some
time At this distance of time, which
do you really think was the one to be
congratulated, the short-lived child, or
the long-lived father? Had David died
as early as that child died he
would, in the first place. have escaped
that particular bereavement, then he
would have escaped the worse b~ereave-
ment of Absalom, his recreant son,
and the pursuit of the Philistines, and
the fatigues of his military campaign,
and the jealousy of Saul, and the per-
fdy of Ahithopel, and the course of
Shimei, and the destruction of mis- fam.
lily at Ziklag, and, above all, he would
have escaped the two great calamities
Of his life, the great sins of unclean.
ness and murder. David lived to be of
vast use to the church and the world,
but so far as his own happiness was
does it not seem to you that
would haYe been better for him to
have gone early9
Now, this, my friends, explains some
that to you have been mex
plicable. This shows you why when
God takes little children from a house
hold, He is very apt to take the bright
est, the most genial, the most sympa-
the most talented. Why? 1t
Is because that kind of nature suffers
the most when it does suffer, and Is
most liable to temptation. God saw
TEMPEST sweeping up from the
and He put the delicate
craft into the first harbor. Taken
from the evil to come"
Again, my friends, there is z bless
in an abbreviated earthly exist
ence, in the fact that it puts one soon
er in the center of things. All astron-
omers, in1dels as we'll as Christian,
agree In believing that the universe
around some great center. ANY
who has studied the earth and
the heavens knows hat Gods
figure in geometry is a circle.
When God put forth his hand to create
the universe, he did not strike that
ut right angles, but he waved it
a circle, and kept on waving in d
circle until systems and consultations
galaXies and all worlds took that
Our planet swinging around
,ther suns, but somewhere a great
iub, around which the great wheel of
he universe turns. Now the center is
Heaven. That b the capital of the
universe. That Is the great netropo-
is of in1mensity.
Does not-Our common sense teach US
hat. In matters of study, it is better
or US to move out from the center to-
ward the circumference, rather than
% be on the circumference, where our
world now lisp We are like those who
A,,lr, 4L2 1N.ftnA rphi1o
tanding on the Atlantic beach. The
.ay to study the continent is to cross
t, or to go TO the heart of it. Our
Itanding point in this world Is de-
We are at the wrong n Of
he telescope. The best way to study
! piece of machinery is, not to stand
IN the door step and try to look in, but
go in with the engineer and take
,ur place right amid the saws and cyl
nders. We wear our eyes out, and our
brain out, from the fact that we are
tudying under such great disadvan'
age. Millions of dollars for observa.
cries to study things about the moon,
bout the sun, about the rings of
about transits and occulta-
ions and eclipses, simply because our
tudio, our observatory. is poorly
we are down N Inc cSlldr
ryiug to study the palace of the uni-
'erse. while our departed Christian
have gone upstairs amid the
kylights to study. Now, when n can
oonsr get to the center of things, Is
lie not to be congratulated Who want
o be always in the freshman classP
We study God in this world by the
photograph of Him; but we
IL know we can, in five minutes Of in
eryiew with a friend, get more accu-
ate idea of him than we can by study
ng him so years through pictures or
words. The little child that died last
light knows more of God than all And
yer, and all Princeton, and all New
and all Edinburgh. and all
he theological institutes In Christen-
ON. Is it not better to GO up to the
cry headquarters of knowledge?
Does not our common sense teach us
hat 1t Is better to be ri the center
han to be clear II on tho rim Of the
Wheel, holding ~nervously fast to the
ire, lest we be suddenly hurled into
light and eternal felicity? Through
Il kinds OF optical instruments trying
n npeY in throu0h the 0r1nkS and the