The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1898-01-02

grace in the heart. You sometimes
get discouraged because the upbuild-
ing by the soul does not 90 on more
rapidly. Why, you have all eternity
to build ini The little annoyances OF
life are zoophyte builders, and there
will be small layer on top Of small lay
er, and fossilized grief on the top OF
fossilized grief. Grace does not go up
rapidly in your soul, but, blessed be
God. it goes up. Ten thousand million
ages will not finish you You will
never be finished. On forever! Up
foreverl Out of the sea of earthly dis
quietude will gradually rise the reefs,
the islands, the continents, the hem
ispheres Of grandeur and glory. Men
talk as though in this life we only had
time to build; but what we build in
this life, as compared with what we
shall build in the next life, is as
striped shell to Australia. You go into
an architects study and there You see
the sketch of a temple, the corner
stone of which has not yet been laid.
o, that 1 could have an architectural
sketch OF what you will be after eter-
nifty has wrought upon. you! What
pillars of strength! What altars of su-
pernal worship. What pinnacles
thrusting their glittering spikes into
the sun that never sets! You do not
scold the corallines because they can
not build an island in a day. Why
should you scold yourself because you
cannot complete a temple of holiness
| for the heart in this short lifetime?
You tell me we do not amount to
much now, but try us after thou
sand million ages of hallelujah. Let
us hear the angels chant for a mill
lion centuries. Give us an eternity
with God. and then see il we do not
amount to something. More slowly
and marvelously accumulative is the
grace in the soul than anything can
think Of mo mention shall be made
of coral"
Again. take your hand, and we
walk on through this garden Of the
sea and look more particularly than
we did at the beauty of the coral. The
poets have all been fascinated with 1t.
One Of them wrote:
There; with broad and easy motion.
The fan coral sweeps through the
clear deep sea,
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of the
ocean
Are bent like corn on the uplan |
lea"
One specimen of coral is called the
dendrophilia, because it is like tree;
another is called the astrara, because
il is like a star; another is called the
brain coral, because it is like the con-
volutions of the human brain; another
is called the fan coral. because it is
like the instrument with which you
cool yourself on a hot day; another
specimen is called the organ pipe coral
because it resembles the king of mu-
sical instrument. All the flowers ana
all the shrubs in the gardens Of tins
land have their correspondence n
this garden of the sea. Corallum. II
is a synonym for beauty. And ye
there is no beauty in the coral com
pared with our religion. 1t give:
physiognomic beauty. 1t does no
change the features; it does not Civ,
features with which the person wal
not originally endowed, but it set.
behind the features of the homelies
person a heaven that shines cleal
through. So that often. on first ac
quaintance. you said of a man: III
is the homeliest person l ever saw.
when. after you come to understand
him and his nobility of soul shinins
through his countenance, you said
He is the loveliest person l ever saw.
No one ever had homely Christian
mother. Whatever the world ma,
have thought of her. there were I'VE
who thought well-your father, VIII,
had admired her for fifty years. an.
you, over whom she bent with SO man,
tender ministrations. When you thinl
of the angels of God, and your mothc
among them, she outshines them all
Oh. that our young people could un
derstand that so much beauties thi
human countenance as the religion G
Jesus Christ, 1t makes everything
beautiful. Trouble beautiful. Sick
ness beautiful. Disappointment beau
tiful. Everything beautiful.
Near my early home there was
place called the Two Bridges" Thes
bridges leaped the two streams. Well
my friends. the religion of Jesu
Christ is two bridges. 1t bridges al
the past 1t arches and overspans al
the future. 1t makes the dying pill
low the landing place of angels fresl
from glory. 1t turns the sepulchr
into a May-time orchard. 1t catche
up the dying into full orchestra. Cor
alum! And yet that does not expires
the beauty: "No mention shall b
made of coral"
I take your hand again, and walk
little further on in this garden of ia
sea, and. l notice the durability of tn
work OF the coral. Montgomer.