Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1898-08-06
Awake From Stupidity.

Awake FROM SLuplultys
Let us wake from our stupidity and
take the whole world as parable.
Then, if with gun and pack of hounds
we start off before dawn. and see the
morning coming down off the hills to
meet us, we would cry out with the
evangelist, 1.-THE dayspring from on
high hath visited us, or, caught in a
snowstorm, while struggling home, eye
brows and beard and apparel all covered
with the whirling flakes, we would cry
out with David, "Wash me, and l
shall be whittier than snow" In pic
ture gallery of Europe there is on the
ceiling an exquisite fresco, but the peo-
pie having to look straight up it wearied
and dizzied them and bent their necks
almost beyond endurance. So great
looking glass was put near the floor,
and now visitors only need to look easily
down into this mirror and they see the
fresco at their feet, and so, much Of the
high heaven Of Gods truth is reflected
in this world as in a mirror, and things
that nre above are copied by things
around us.
What right have we to throw away
one of Gods Bibles-aye, tho first Bible
he ever gave the race? We talk about the
Old Testament and the New Testament,
but the oldest Testament contains the
lessons of the natural world. Some peo-
ple like the New Testament so well they
discard the Old Testament. Shall we
like the New Testament and the Old
Testament so well as to depreciate the
oldest-namely, that which was written
before Moses was put af1oat on the boat
OF leaves which was called with as
phaltum or reject the Genesis that was
written centuries before Adam lost rib
and gained wife? No, mol When
Deity stoops down and writes on the
ground, let us read it.
would have no less appreciation of
the Bible on paper that comes out Of
the paper mill, but would urge appre-
citation of the Bible in the grass, the
Bible in the sand hill, the Bible in the
geranium, the Bible in the asphodel,
the Bible in the dust. Some one asked
an ancient king whether he had seen the
eclipse of the sun. No, +" said he 1
have so much to study OH earth have
no time to look at heaven. And if our
faculties were all awake in the study Of
God we would not have time to go
much further than the first grass blade.
| have 10 fear that natural religion will
ever contradict what we call revealed
religion. 1 have no sympathy with the
followers of Aristotle, WHO after the
telescope was invented would not look
tarough it lest it contradict some of the
theories OF their great master, shall
be glad to put against enc lid OF Inc
Bible the microscope and against the
other lid of the Bible the telescope.
Graphic Words.
But when Christ stopped down and
wrote on the ground what did he write?
The Pharisees did not stop to examine.
The towards, whipped of their own con-
sciences, fed pellmell. Nothing will
fiay a man like an aroused conscience.
DR.. Stevens, in his History of Metho-
dism,' says that when Rev. Benjamin
Abbott, of olden times, was preaching
he exclaimed, "For aught know there
may be murderer in this house. And
a man rose from the assemblage and
started for the door and bawled aloud,
confessing to murder he had commit
ted 10 years before. And no wonder
these Pharisees, reminded of their sins,
took to their heels.
But what did Christ write on the
ground? The Bible does not state. Yet
as Christ never wrote anything except
that once you cannot blame us for want
ing to know what he really did write.
But am certain he wrote nothing triv-
ial Or nothing unimportant, And viii