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

fan coral because it is like the in
with which you cool yourself
on a hot day; another specimen IS call
ed the organ pipe coral because it re-
sembles the kind of musical instru-
ments. AN THE flowers and all h
shrubs in the gardens of the LAM have
their correspondencies in this garden
of the sea. Corallum! TT is a
for beauty. And yet there is no beau
ty in the coral compared with our re-
figion. It gives phyiSognomic beauty.
1t does not change the features. 1t e
not give features with which the per
son was not originally endowed, hut
it sets behind the features of the homli
est person a heaven that shines clear
through. So that often on first ac-
quaintance you said of a man, He is
THE homliest person l { ever saw" when
after you come to understand him and
his mobility of soul shining through his
countenance, you said, 'fHe is the love-
hest person I ever saw No one ever
had a homely Christian mother. What
J ever the world may have thought of
her, there were two thought weli-your
F.; father, who had admired her for fifty
! years, and you, over whom she bent
with so many tender miniStrations.
When you think OF the angels of God
/ and your mother among them, she out
/ shines them an. Oh, that our young
I. people could understand that there is
| nothing that so much b6autifieS THE
! human cCuntenance as the religion or
| Jesus Christ. 1t makes everything
p; beautiful. Trouble beautiful. Sick
ness beautiful. disappointment beau
| tiful. Everything beautiful.
Near my early home tfFr"H was a
place called the Two BridS These
i bridges 1eaped the two streams. Wen,
! my friends, the religion of Jesus Christ
is two bridges. 1t bridges all the past.
1t arches and o~verspans all the future.
It makes the dying pillow The landing
place of angels fresh from glory. 1t
turns the sepulcher into a May time or
clard. Tt catches up the dying into
full orchestra. CCraIium! And yet
] that Ices not express the beauty. mo
! mention shall be made of coral"
take your hand again and walk a
little farther on in this garden of the
SEA and I notice the durability Of the
work of the coral. Montgomery speaks
of it. He says, "Frail- were their forms,
eIrherrperal their hives, their masonry
imperishable." RnizopCds are insects
so small that they are invisible, and
yet they built the Apennines and they
planted for their own monument the
cord:Ileras. It takes 49,, coo, 600 of them
to make che grain. Corals are chang
11LS t1IS III I'm ANA, SNAy AAS
to the commerce of the world, Take
this chllrr1el,'' TAX that channel"
fAvpid the other CHANNEL" Animal
cules beating back the Atlantic and
. Pacific seas. If the insects OF the ocean
have built a reef 900 miles long, who
knows hut that they may yet build a
reef 5000 miles long, and thus that by
one Stone bridge Europe shall be united
with this continent en- one side ard
INV or,tot hcr. ,cta1I1a Ih,:c1c1o "a cio uIi1I 1a
united with this continent on the o,El2r
side, and the touri of the world, with
out the turn Of a steamers wheel or
the spread Of a ships sail, may go al
around the world, and thus be fulfilled
the prophecy, There Shall he no more
sea-"
WORK THAT ENDURES.
But the durability Of the coral's work
lis not at all to he compared with the
durability of cur work CT God. The
| coral is going to crumble in the fires Cf
THE last day, but cur work for God will
endure forever. No more discouraged
| man ever lived ttiln Beethoven, the
great musical composer. Unmercifua-
ly criticised by brother artists and his
! music sometimes rejected Deaf for
| twenty-five years, and forced ON his
way to Vienna to beg food and lodging
| at "a very plain house by the roadside.
In the evening the family opened a
musical instrument and played and
sang with great enthusiasm, and one
| of the numbers they rendered was so
emotional that tears ran down their
cheeks while they sang and played.
| Beethoven, Sitting in the room, too deaf
to hear the singing, WAS curious to
know what was the music that so ever
powered them, and when they got
through he reached UP and took the
folio in his hand and found it was his
own music-Beethoven's Symphony in
"-and hec ried Out, Il wrote that"
The household sat and stood abaShed
ito find that their poor looking guest
was the great composer. But he never
left that house alive. "a fever seized
linn that night, and no relief could be
afforded, and in a fey days he died.
But just before expiring he took the
hand OF his nephew, who had been sent
for and arrived, saying, AFTER all,
Hummel, I must have had some tail
emit" Poor Beethoven! His work still
lives, and in the twentieth century win
be better appreciated than it was in
the nineteenth, and a. long as there is
on earth an orchestra to play or AN
oratoriO to sing, B~eethoven's nine SYM
phonies viii be the enchantment of ma
tons.
BUT you are not a and
o say that there Is nothing remark
able about you-only a mother trying
to rear our family for usefulness and
heaven. Yet the song with which you
sing your child to sleep Will never
cease its mission. You will grow old
and die. That son will pass out into
the world. The song with which you
sang him to sleep last night viii go
with him white he lives, a conscious or
unconscious restraint and inspiration
here and may help open to him the
gate OF a glorious and triumphant here
after. The lullabies OF this century
viii sing through an the centuries. The
humblest good accomplished in time
viii last through eternity, I sometimes
get discouraged, as I suppose you do,
the vaStness of the work and at how
Iiftle We are doing. And Yef. do Ym