Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-11-13
GODS ETERNAL PLAN.
WORLD NOT GOVERNED AT HAPHAz-
ARD, SAYS DR.. TALMAGE.
Enumerates Five Things That Have
Been Settled by Divine Wisdom.
Furnishes Proof In the Past His
tory of the World.
ICopyright, Louis Klopsch. 1901

things in this world are at loose ends
and going at haphazard is in this dis
course combated by DR.. Talmage. The
text is Psalms cXix, 80, Forever,
Lord, thy word is settled in heaven"
This world has been in process of
change ever since it was created
mountains born, mountains dying, and
they have both cradle and grave. Once
this planet was all fluid, and no being
such as you or / havesever seen could
have lived on it minute. Our heml-
sphere turns it's face to the sun and
then turns its back. The axis of the
earth's revolution has shifted. The
earth's center of gravity is changed.
Once flowers grew in the arctic, and
there was snow in the tropic. There
has been a redistribution of land and
sea, the land crumbling into the sea,
the sea Swallowing the land. Ice and
fire have fought for the possession Of
this planet The chemical composition
of it is different now from what it once
was. Volcanoes once terribly alive are
dead not one thrOb of fiery pulse, not
one breath of vapOr-the ocean chang
ing its amount of saline qualities. The
internal fires of the earth are gradually
eating their way to the surfaces-up-
heavaI and subsistence of vast realms
of continent.
Moravians in Greenland have remoy-
ed their boat poles because the advanc-
ing sea submerged them. Linnaeus
records that in 81 years a great stone
was 100 feet nearer the water than
when he wrote. Forests have le7en
buried by the sea, and land that was
cultured by farmers hoe can be touch
ed only by sailors anchor. Loeb Nevis
of Scotland and Dingle bay Of Ireland
and the fiords of Norway, where
pleasure boats now float, were once
valleys and glens. Many of the islands
of the sea are the tops of sunken
mountains Six thousand miles Of the
Pacific ocean are sinking. The diane
ter of the earth, according to scien-
tific announcement, is 1S9 miles less
than it was. The entire confguratiOn
of the earth is altered. Hills are de-
nuded of their forests. The frosts
and the waters and the air lombard
the earth till it surrenders to the as
sault The so called everlasting hills
do not last. Many railroad companies
cease to build iron bridges because
the iron has life of it's own, not
vegetable life or an animal life, but a
metallic life, and when that life dies
the bridge goes down. Oxidation of
minerals is only another term for de-
Scribing their death. Moses and sea
weeds help destroy the rocks they
decorate.
Enrth's Changes.
The changes of the inanimate earth
only symbolic the moral changes. So
ciety ever becomes different for better
or worse. Boundary lines between ma
tons are settled until the next war I'M
settles them. Uncertainty strikes
through laws and customs and legisla-
ton. The characteristic of this world
is that nothing in it is settled At
time when we hoped that the arbitra-
ton planned last summer at The
Hague, Holland, would forever sheathe
the sword and spike the gun and dis
mantle the fortress the world has on
hand two wars which are digging
graves for the flower of English and
American soldiery. From the presence
of such geological and social and ma
tiOnal and international unrest we turn
with thanksgiving and eXultation to
my text and find that there are things
forever settled, but in higher ATTITUDES
than we have ever trod. Forever, o
Lord, thy word is settled in heaven"
High up in the palace of the sun at
least five things are settled-that ma
lions which go continuously and per-
sistently wrong perish; that happiness
is the result of spiritual condition and
not of earthly environment; that this
world is q SchoOlhouse for splendid or
disgraceful graduation; that with or |
without us the world is to be made |
over into a scene of arbOreScence and |
purity; that all who are adjOined to |
the unparalleled One of Bethlehem |
and Nazareth and Golgotha will be the |
subjects of a supernal felicity without |
any taking off.
Do you doubt my first proposition |
that nations which go wrong perish. |
We have in this American nation all |
the elements of permanence and de- |
Struction. We need not borrow from |
others any trowels for upbuilding or
torches for demolition. Elements of |
ruin-nihilism, infidelity, agnosticism, |
Sabbath dissertation, inebriety, SenSu- |
atty, extravaganza, fraud; they are all i
here. Elements of safety-God wor
shipping men and women by the scores |
of millions, honesty, beneYolence, |
truthfulness, self sacrifice, industry, |
sobriety and more religion than has /
characterized any nation that has ever |
existed; they are all here. The only |
question is as to which of the forces |
will gain dOminancy-the one class as |
cendant, and this United States gov
eminent, l think, will continue as long |
as the world exists; the other class as
cendant and the United States goes
into such small DieceS that other gov