Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1898-08-11

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where there was no lower depth. From
being waited on at the banquet Of
the skies, to the broiling Of fish for His
own breakfast. on the banks Of the
lake. From emblazoned chariots If
eternity to the saddle of a mules back.
From the homage of cherubic. seraphic,
archangelic, to the paying of sixty-two
and half cents of tax to Caesar. From
the deathless country to tomb built
to hide human dissolution. The uplift-
ed wave Of Galilee was high, but He
had to come down before. with His
feet, He could touch it, and the whirl-
wind that arose above the billow was
higher yet, but He had to come down
before with His lip He could kiss it
into quiet. Bethlehem STOPPING
down. Nazareth a STOPPING down.
Death between two burglars STOPPING
down. Yes, it was in consonance with
humiliations that went before and self
abnegations that came after. when on
that memorable day in Herod's temple
He stopped down and wrote on the
ground.
Whether the words He was writing
were in Greek or Latin. or Hebrew,
cannot say, for He knew all those
languages. But He is still stopping
down, and with His finger writing On
the ground; in the winters in letters
of crystals, in the spring in letters OF
flowers, in summer in golden letters
h in
fire on fallen leaves. How it would
sweeten up and enrich and emblazen
this world could we seel Christs cal
igraphy all over it! This world was
not flung out into space thousands OF
years ago, and then left to look out
for itself. 1t is still under the divine
care. Christ never for half second
takes His hand off of it. or it would
soon be shipwrecked world, defunct
world, an obsolete world, an aban-
doned world, a dead world. Let there
be light" was said at the beginning
And Christ stands under the Wintry
skies and saws. let there be snowflakes
to enrich the earth; and under the
clouds of spring and says, come We
blossoms and make redolent the or
cnards; and in September, dips the
branches in the vat of beautiful col
ors, and swings them into the hazy
air. No whim of mine is this. with
out Him was not anything made that
was made" Christ writing on the
ground,
I must not forget to say that as
Christ, STOPPING down, with his finger
wrote on the ground, it is evident that
his sympathies are with this penitent
woman, and that he has no sympathy
with her hypocritical pursuers. Just
opposite to that is the worlds habit.
Why didn't these unclean Pharisees
bring one of their own number to
Christ for eXcoriation and capital
punishment? No, no. They overlook
that in a man which they damnate in
woman. And so the world has had
for offending woman scourges and OBJ
jurgation, and for just one offense she
becomes an outcast, while for men
whose lives have been sodomic for
twenty years the world swings open
its doors of brilliant welcome; and
they may sit in high places. Unlike
the Christ Of my text, the world writes
a mans misdemeanor in dust, but
chiscls a womans offense with great
capitals upon ineffaceable marble.
For foreign lords and princes, whose
names cannot even be mentioned in
respectable circles abroad because they
are walking lazarettos of abomination,
some of our American princesses of
fortune wait, and at the first beck sail
out with them into the blackness of
darkness forever. And in what are
called higher circles of society there is
now not only the imitation of foreign
dress and foreign manners, but an imi-
tation of foreign dissoluteness. I like
a foreigner and 1 like an American,
but the sickest creature on earth is an
American playing the foreigner So
ciety needs to be reconstructed on this
subject. Treat them alike, masculine
crime and feminine crime. If you cut
the one in granite, cut them both in
granite. If you write the one in dust,
write the other in dust. mo, no."
says the world; "let woman go down
and let man go up" What is that l
hear FLASHING into the Hudson or Po-
tomac at midnight? And then there
is gurgle as of strangulation, and
all is still. Never mind. 1t is only a
woman too discouraged to live. Let
the mills of the cruel world grind right
on.
But while I speak Of Christ of the
text, his STOPPING down writing in the
dust, do not think l underrate the
literature of the dust. 1t is the most
tremendous of all literature 1t is the
greatest of all libraries. When Layard
exhumed Nineveh he was only opening
the door of it's mighty dust. The ex-
cavations of Pompeii have only been
the unclasping of the lids of volume
of nations dust. When Admiral
Farragut' and his friends visited that
resurrected city, the house of Balbo,
who had been one of it's chief citizens
in it's prosperous days, was opened,
and table was spread in that house
which 1910 years had been buried by
volcanic eruption, and Farragut and