The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-01-04

but is an outbutting and an out
of ages. In Polynesia there
are reefs hundreds OF feet deep and
1000 miles long. Who built these reefs,
these islands? The zoophytes. the
coralHnes. They We're not such work
ers who built h pyramids as were
these ma5ons, these creatures of the|
sea What small creations amounting
20 what vast aggregation! Who can
estimate the ages between the time
when the m-adrepores laid the
tionS of the stands and the time when
the madepores put on the capstone or
a completed work? 1t puzzles all
scientists to guess through how many
years the corailines were building n
Sandwich and Society islands and h
Marshall and Gilbert CUP But
more slowly and wonderfully
lative is grace in the heart. You some
times get discouraged because the up
building by the soul not go on
more rapidly. Why, you have ali eter-
nifty to build in The Little
of life are zoophyte builders, and there
will be small layer on top of small lay
er and fossilized grief. Grace does net
go up rapidly in your SOUL, but. blessed
be God, it goes up. Ten thousand MIL
lion ages will not finish you. You will
never be finished. On forever! Up
LII OoL il tA@ ~ ~ ~NANN
quietude will gradually rise the reefs,
the islands, the continents, the hemi-
spheres of grandeur and glory. Men
tafk as though i'm this life We only had
time to build. But what we build i'm
this life as compared with what we
shall build in the next life is as a
striped shell to Australia. You go into
an architects study and there you see
the sketch of a temple, the cornerstone
tc II: u~- I14- losl Oh 4Io4 r
could have an architectural sketch of
what you will be after eternity has
wrought upon you! What pillars of
strength! What affairs of superna1
worship. What pinnnacles thrusting
their glittering spikes into the sun
that never sets! You do not scold the
~coraMines cat they cannot build
an island in a day. Why should you
scold yourself you cannot COM
plete a temple of holiness for the heart
in this short lifetime? You tell me we
do not mount ito much now, but try
us after a thousand million ages of hall
1eluiah. Let us hear the angels chant
for a million centuries. Give us an
eternity with God and then see if we do
not amount to something. More slow
ly and marvellously a~ccumulative is
the grace in the soul than anything I
can think of. mo mention shall he
made of coral"
THE VIRTUE OF PATIENCE.
Lord, help us to learn that which
most of US are deficient in-patience
If thou canst take, Through the sea
millions of years to build one
bank of coral, ought we not to be will
ing to do work Through ten years of so
years Without complaint, without rest
~lessness, without chatting of spirit?
~ 4 ~-DAI~ Al~ --.-- 49,
we cannot have the millennium in a
few weeks; patience with assault of
antagonists; patience at what seems a
slow fulfillment of Bible promises; pa
thence with physical ailments; patience
under delays of providence; grand, glOr
iOus all enduring, all conquering pa
tience! Patience like that which my
lately assembled friend, DR.. Abel Stew
ems, describes when writing of one of
Wesley's preachers, John Nelson, who,
when a man had him put in prison by
false charges and being for a long time
tormented by his enemy, said, 'EThe
Lord lifted UP a standard when the an
ger was coming on like a flood, else I
mould have wrung his neck to the
ground and set my foot upon it." Pa
thence like that Of Peric1es, h Anthe-
nian statesman, who, when a man per-
sued him to his own door, hurting at
him epithets and arriving there when
it had become dark, sent his servant
with a torch to light his enemy back to
his home Patience like the eulOgized
by the Spanish prover4b when it says,
II W lost the rings, but there are the
fingers STILL" lPatience! The sweetest
sugar for the sourest cup; the balance
wheel for all mental and moral ma
dIinery; the DOT that treads into pIa-
cidity StOrmiest lake; the ibIidle for
otherwise rash tongues; the sublime 81
lence that %conquers the iboiSteTous and
blatant. Patience like that of the most
dllusttrious example of all the ages
Jesus Christ; patience under betrayal;
| patient under the treatment of Pilates
oyer and termineT; patient under the
| expector7ation of his assailants; patient
under f1agelaatiOn; patient under the
charging al of h Roman cavalry;
patient unto death. Under ALL exesper-
ations employ it,. Whatever comes,
stand it. Hold on, walt, bear up.
CHRISTIAN HOPE.
Take my hand again, and we will go
a little further into this garden Of the
sea, and we shall find that in proper
tion as the climate is hot the coral