The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-07-04

Christ went on until he broke-aIl the
seven seals and opened all the SCROLL 1
the future Of all Of US is a Sailed
scroll. and I am glad that no fyne hut |
Christ can open it. Do not let US Join |
that class of Christians in our day, |
are trying to break the sever seals .
of the future. They are trying to peer
into things they have no business with.
Do not go to some necromancer or
spirftualist or s~oothsayer or fortune
teller to find outtwhat is going to hap !
pen to yourself or your family or your
friends. Wait till Christ breaks the
seal to find out whether in you own
personal life or the life of the nation
or the life of h world it is going to be
the white horse of prosperity or b red
horse Of war OF the black horse Of fam
inc. You will soon enough see him paw
and hear him neigh. Take care Of the
present, and h future will take care
of itself. If a man live 20 a his
biography is in a scroll having at least
seven seals, and let him not during the
frs ten years of his life try to look i'm
to the twenties, o the twenties into
the thirties, nor the thirties into the
forties, nor the forties into the fifties,
nor the fifties into the sixties, nor the
sixties into the seventies. From the
way the years AVE got the habit of
racing along, 1 guess you Will not have
10 Walt d sICdI III oC4oAC oil lhO
seals of the future are broken. I would
not give 2 cents to know how long I
am going to live, or in what day of
what year the world is going to be de-
molished. I would rather give 81, 900 not
to know. Suppose some one could
break the mex seal in the scroll Of
your personal history n should tell
you that on the next 4th Of July, 1901,
YOU were to die, the summer after
next, how much would you be good for
between this and that? 1t would from
now until then be a prolonged funeral.
You would be counting the months and
the days, and you family n friends
would be counting them, and next 4th
Of July you would rub your hands to-
gether and whine: lone year from to-
day I am to go. Dear me! / wish nc n
had told me so long before. 1 wish that
necromancer had not broken the seal
of the future" And meeting some un-
dertaker, you would say: Il hope you
will keep yourself free for an engage
ment the 4th of July, 1901. That day
you will be needed at my house. To
save time, you might az we'll take my
a now, 5 feet IL hes. / am
glad that Christ dropped a thick veil
over the hour of our demise and of the
hour of the worlds destruction when
he said. o h a day and hour know
eth no man; no, not the angels, but
my Father only" Keep your hands off
the seven seals.
There is another mighty seven Of the
Bible-viz, the seven thunders. What
those thunderS meant we are not told.
and there has been much guessing
about them; but they are to come, we
are told, before the end of all things,
and the world cannot get along with
out them. Thunder is the speech of
lightning. There are evils in our world
which must be Numbered down and
which will require at least seven vol
leys to PROSTATE them. We are all do
ing nice, delicate, soft handed work
in churches and refOrmatory inst1tu-
tons against the evils Of the world,
and much of it amounts to a teaspoon
dipping out the Atlantic ocean, or a
clam shell digging away at a noun
tain, or a tack hammer shifting the
Gibraltar. What is needed is thunder
bolts, and at least seven of them. There
is the long line of fraudulent CONNER
cial establishments, every stone In the
foundation, and every brick in the wall,
and every nail in the rafter made out
of dishonesty; skeletons of poorly paid
sewing girls arms in every beam OF
that establishment; human nerves
worked into every figure of that en-
broidery; blood in the deep dye of that
refulgent upholstery; billions OF DOL
lars of accumulated fraud ~intrenched
in massive ~storehouses, and stock COM
| panies manipulated by INSCRIPTIONS
| men, until the monopoly is defiant of
all earth heaven. How shall the
evil be oversome? By treaties on the
| maxim: Honesty is the best policy?"
Or by soft repetition of the golden rule
that we must "do to others as we
would have them do to us?" No; it
will not be done that way. Via is
needed and will come is the seven
thunders
! There is drunkenness backed up by a
capital mightier than in any other bust
| ness. Intoxicating liquors enough In
this country to float a navy. Good
| grain to the amount of 81, $50, 900 BUSH
els annually destroyed to make the
| deadly LIQUID. Breweries, distilleries
ginshCps, rum palaces, liquor assoc!a-
| tons, our nation spending nnuall
! seven hundred ard forty millions Of
| dollars for rum, resulting in bankrupt
| cy, disease, paupelism, filth, assassina-
| ton, death, illimitable woe. What will
| stop them? High license? No. Pro-
| hibition laws? No. Churches? No.
| Moral suasion? No. Thunderbolts will
do it; nothing else will. Seven thun-
ders!
Yonder are intrenched infidelity and
atheism with their magazines OF litera-
| ture scoffing at our Christianity; their
| Hoe printing presses busy day and
night. There are their disappearing
apostles, their drunken Tom Paines
| and libertine Voltaires Of h present
| as we'll as the past, REINFORCED by all
| the powers CT darkness from highest
| demon to lowest imp. What will extir-
| pate those monsters of infidelity and
atheism? John Browns shorter cate
chism about "WhO made you?" or
| Westminster catechism about What
| is the chief end of MANI" No. Thun-
| derbolts! The seven thunders! For
the impurities of the world, empalaced
| as we'll as cellared, epauletted as well
as ragged, enthroned as we'll as ditch
ed; for corrupt legislation which at
times makes our state n national
| capitals a hemisphere stencil; for su-
| perstitions that keep Whole nations in
squalor century after century their Jug
| gernauts crushing, their knives lacerat-
ing, their waters drowning, their flu
neral pyres burning the seven thun-
| derS!
THE SEVENTH CHRYSOLITE.
| Oh, men and women, disheartened at