Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1899-12-28

Sods Church.
The architecture of the smoke is
wondrous, whether God with his finger
curves 1t into cloud or rounds 1t into
dome, or points it in spire, OF
spreads 1t in wing, or. as in the text
nolsts 1t in pillar. Watch it wind
ing up from the country farmhouse in
the early morning, showing that the
pastoral industries have begun; or. see
~ ascending from the chimneys of the
Guy telling of the homes fed, the fac
tories turning out valuable fabrics, the
pruning presses preparing book and
newspaper, and all the ten thousand
"heeis or work in motion. On a clear
uay this vapor spoken OF mounts with
such ouoyancy and spreads such a del
icate veil across the sky, and traces
Sucn graceful lines of circle and semi.
etieie and waves and losses and sinks
auu scars and scatters with such af'
nueRce of shape and color and suggest
1t'eness' that if you have never no,
@ced II you are like a man who has
ali MS life lived in Paris and yet never
seen the Luxembourg, or all his life IL
rome and never seen the Vatican, OF
an MS life at Lockport and never seer
niagara Forty-four times the Bih)e
speaks Of the smoke, and it is ab0lt
time that somebody preached a sermon
recognizing this strange, weird, beau
tlful, elastic, charming, terrific and
Fascinating Vapor. Across the Billy sky
noats the smoke of Sinai, the sm,6e OF
Sodom, the smoke of All, the smoke of
the pit, the smoke Of the volc/.c hills
when God touches them, any in my
text the glorious church of CD coming
up out Of the wilderness likepillars OF
smoke.
In The first place, these pillars Of
smoke in my text fndieats che suffering
the church of God has ndured. What
do | mean by the churct? mean not
a building, not a sect but those who.
in all ages, and all layds, and of all be-
liefs, love God, and are trying to do
right. For many osnturies the heaV-
ems have been black with the smoke
Of martyrdom. Ifset side by side you
could girdle the earth with the fires
of persecution. Rowland Taylor burned
at Hadleigh; Latimer burned at OK
ford; John Rogers burned at Smith
field; John Hooper burned at Glouces-
ter; John Hlss burned at Constance;
Lawre1ee Saunders burned at Coven-
try; Joan otyArc burned at Rouen.
~ ronrncnntaH
lies as having a monopoly of persecu-
tors, but both Protestant and Catholic
have prlcticed infamous cruelties. The
Catholjcs, during the reign OF Hun
neric, were by Protestants put to the
worst ltortures, stripped OF their cloth
ing, aoisted in the air by pulleys with
weights suspended from their feet then
let down, and ears and eyes. nose and
tongue were amputated, and red-hot
pates of iron were put against the
tsnderest parts of their bodies.
George Bancroft, the historian, says
of the state of Maryland: In the land
which Catholics had opened to Protest
ants mass might not be said publicly;
no Catholic priest or bishop might ut
ter his faith in a voice of persuasion:
no Catholic might teach the young. II
hayward child of Papist would not
become an apostate, the law wrested
for him from his parents a share of
their property. Such were the meth
DDS adopted to prevent the growth Of
Popery."
Catholicism as well as Professionalism
has had its martyrs. 1t does seem as
II when any one sect got complete dom
NANCY in any land, the devil of perse-
cution and cruelty took possession OF
that sect. Then see the Catholics after
the Huguenots. See the Gentiles after
the Jews in Touraine, where great
pit was dug and fire lighted at the bot
tom Of the pit, and one hundred and
sixty Jewish victims were consumed
See the Presbyterian parliament Of
England, more tyrannical in their
treatment of opponents than had been
the criminal courts. Persecution
against the Baptist by Paedo-Bap-
fists. Persecution of the Established
Church against the Methodist church.
Persecution against the Quakers. Per-
secution against the Presbyterians. I'm
der Emperor Diocletian one hundred
and forty-four thousand Christians
were massacred, and seven hundred
thousand more of them died from ban
ishment and exposure. ,-e~-~~
Witness the -slfts'in gs of the wal
efses, of the Albigenses, of the Mes
torians. Witness st. Bartholomew
massacre. Witness the Duke of Alva
driving out of life eighteen thousand
Christians. Witness Herod. and Nero,
and Decius, and Hildebrand, and Tor
quemada, and Earl of Montfort, and
Lord Claverhouse, who when told that
he must give account for his cruelties,
said: Il have no need to account to
man, and as for God will take him in
my own hands" A red line runs
the church history Of nineteen
hundred years, line of blood. Not
by the hundreds of thousands, but by
the millions must we count those slain
for Christ's sake. No wonder John
Milton put the groans of the martyrs
to an immortal tune. writing:
"Avenge, o Lord. thy slaughtered
saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains
cold"
The smoke of martyrs homes and
martyrs bodies If rolling up all at once
would have eclipsed the MONDAY sun.
and turned the brightest day the world
ever saw into a midnight. who is
this that cometh out Of the wilderness
like pillars of smoker"
fab persecution ceased? Ask that
bg man who is trying to be Chris
in a store or factory, where from