The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1899-12-23
PILLARS OF SMOKE
The Divine Symbol That Typiies
Gods Power and Mercy.
hr. TnImage speaks of the Trials
Through which Truth Has rri-
umphRntly Struggled
Martyrs 10 Faith
downright. 1893. by Louis Hlopsch.l
Washington,

uggestlyeuess aud power, test solo
mons Song $40; "Who is this that
cometh out of the wilderness like pill
lars Of smoker
The architecture Of the smoke is won
frous, whether God with His finger
curyes II into cloud, or grounds itintoa
dome, or points 1t in spire, or spreads
lima wing, or, as in the text, hoists 1t
in a pillar. Watch it winding up from
the country farmhouse in the early
morning, showing that the pastoral in
dustriss have begun, or see IL ascending
from the chmueys of the city, telling
of the homes fed, the factories turning
out valuable fabrics, the printing
presses preparing book and newspaper,
and all the ten thousand wheels of work
in motion. On a clear day this vapor
spokeu of mounts with such buoyancy
and spreads such n delicate veil across
the sky and traces such graceful lines
of circle and semicirc.e and waves and
losses and sinks and scars and scatters
with such aflluence of shape and color
and suggest iyeness that if you have
never noticed it you are like a man who
has all his life lived in Paris and yet
never seen the Luxembourg, or all his
life in Rome and never seen the vatican,
or all his life at LocRport and never
seen Niagara. Forty-four times the
Bible speaks of the smoke, and il is
about time that somebody preached a
sermon recognizing this strange, weird,
beautiful, castle, charming, terrific and
fascinating yapor. Across the Bible
Sky floats the smoke of Sinai, the smoke
Of Sodom, the smoke of Al, the smoke of
the pit the smoke of the volcanic hills
when God touches them, and in my text
the glorious church of God coming up
out Of the wilderness like pillars Of
smoke.
In the first place, these pillars of
smoke in my text indicate the suffering
the church of God has endured. What
do l mean by the church? mean not a
building. not sect, but those who in
al ages and all lands and Of all beliefs
love God and are trying to do right. For
many centuries the Heavens have been
black with the smoke of martyrdom. If
set side by side, you could girdle the
earth with the fires of persecution
Rowland Taylor, burned at Hadleigh;
Latimer, burned at Oxford; John Rog-
ers, burned at Smithfield John Hooper,
burned at Gloucester; John Huss,
burned at Constance; Lawrence Saun-
ders, burned at Coventry; Joan of Arc,
burned at Rouen.
Protestants have represented Catbo-
lies as having a monopoly of persecut-
ors, but both Protestant and Catholic
have practiced cruelties. The Catholics
during the reign of Hunneric were by
Protestants put to the worst tortures,
stripped of their clothing, hoisted in the
air by pulleys with weights suspended
from their feet, then let down, and ears
and eyes, and nose and tongue We're
amputated, and red hot plates of iron
were put against the tenderest part Of
their bodies.
George Bancroft, the historian, says
of the state of Maryland: In the land
which Catholics had opeEed to Protes-
tants mass might not be said publicly,
no Catholic priest or bishop might ut
ter his faith in voice of persuasion, no
Catholic might teach the young. If a
hayward child of apapist would but be-
come an apostate, the law wrested for
him from his parents share of their
Such were the methods
adopted to prevent the growth of po-
perry"
Catholicism as well as Professionalism
has had its martyrs. 1t does seem as
if when any one sect got complete dom
iEancy in any land the devil of persecu-
ton and cruelty took possession of that
sect. Then see the Catholics after the
See the Gentiles after the
Jews in Touraine, where great pit was
dug and fire lighted at the bottom of
the pit, and 1G0 Jewish victims were
See the Presbyterian parlia-
ment of England, more tyrannical in
their treatment of opponents than had
been the criminal courts. Persecution
against the Baptists by Paedo-Baptists.
Persecution of the Established church
against the Methodist church. Perse-
cution against the esbyterians. I'm
der Emperor Diocletian 900 Chris
tians We're massacred, and 100000 more
Of them died from Punishment and ex-
posture.
Witness the sufferings of the Wal
lenses, of the Albgenses, of the Nesto-
rians. Witness st. Bartholomew's |
massacre. Witness the duke of Alva
Irving out of life $4,000 Christians.
Witness HCrod and Nero and Decius and
Hildebrand and Torquemada and earl
If Montford and Lord Claverhouse, who,
when told that he must give account for
us oruelties, said: II have no need to
recount to man, and, as for God, l will |
AXE Him in my own hands" A red line
'uns through the church history of 1900
FEARS, line of blood. Not by hundreds |
II thousands, but by millions must we
'ount those slain for Christ's sake. No
wonder John Milton put the groans of
he martyrs to an immortal tune, writ
ng:
Avenge, o Lord, thy slaughtered saints,
whose bones
de 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
md turned the brightest day the world
yer saw into midnight. "Who is this
nat cometh out of the wilderness like
lliars of smoke?"
has persecution ceased? Ask that
Dung man who is trying to be Chris
ian IN a store or factory, where from
morning to night he is the butt of all
ne mean witticisms of unbelieving en-
lnNRc Il. 49, IL