The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-12-05
STAIRS TO THE MIDDLE CHAMBER.
Rev. DIR. Fairs Impressive Commu-
MON Sermon,

The services at the Independent Church
yesterday were of unusual interest. In the
morning the communion was observed.
Tnere was very large attendance, many
soldiers being present and participating in
the solemn and impressive services.
Chaplain Mason of the Forty-ninth Iowa
was in the pulpit with DR.. Fair, and at
the communion table made an address
which was full of beauty and power. DR..
Fair announced the names of nine new
members. His communion sermon was
based on l Kings, SIS: They went up
with winding stairs into the middle cham
Der" This middle chamber, he
said, is supposed to have
been the place where the sacred
vestments and golden vessels of the tenn
pie were kept, where the high priest robed
himself to enter the holy of holes, and
where after the sacrifice, the priests
Toasted upon the residue of the sacred
Offering Doubtless it was a wonderful
chamber, curiously wrought and beauu-
fully adorned, richly stored with the me-
MORALS of grace. Thrice blessed were
they who entered its eanctity and peace.
The text Dr. Fair said emphasizes the
singular fact that this middle
the ground. but was elevat-
ed above its lowly surface. When the
high priest would enter its sacred precincts
to robe himself for the holy of holies, he
must needs ascend, rise above earthly
things, with the world beneath his feet,
his face toward heaven. 80" he
said, we learn the place where
The soul robes itself in the vest
ments of righteousness to perform its
q, arif
is not found amid the pursuits and pleas
ures of the word, but in a different and
higher sphere. The scriptures recognize
that there are two spheres the natural
and the spiritual, one lower the other
higher, one temporal, the other
eternal But although separate
these two spheres are interlinked. Gods
own hand has built stairway, over whose
shining steps we may ascend. Wonderful
thought! A guilty human soul treading
that stairway, whose wilderness even an
angels wing would seem to stain--man,
a worm of the dust, arraying himself in
the robes of the divine and eternal High
Priest, to stand in the heavenly holy of
holes. This is the stairway of faith and
repentance and self-sacrihce."
The text emphasizes another singular
fact said DR.. Fair, viz: That
the stairs were winding, not
straight, broad and easy; but narrow
and tortuous. AS the priests assembled,
they seemed to be going backward and
forward, merely revolving around their
initial step; at times the temple was In
full view just above. then by sudden
turn, they were looking over the desert
waste, where the Dead sea rolled its slug
glsh waves So the Christian life winds
through many experiences, over dreary
tracts of sorrow, humiliation and tempta-
ton, through sunshine and shadow, but
always leading upward The last lesson
the text teaches is the progressive charac-
ter of religion. The high priest did not
reach the middle chamber at bound. so
we advance SER by step" he
said, adding one Christian virtue
after another, overcoming one sin
after another. Be not discouraged
some day the last and highest step of the
great stairway will be reached; out of the
chamber of sickness and pain and death
you will emerge into the middle chamber
beyond the skies, robed for the holy OF
holes, to be kings and priests forever unto
Goa