The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-12-22

sunaset-the hour when the gate OF
HEAVIER opens to let the day pass into
the ~eternities, and some of the g1ories
escape this way through the brief
opening We talk about the Italian
sunsets amid the Apennines and sunset
amid the cordiIleras, but I VIII tell you
how o may see a grander sunset thar
any mere lover of nature ever beheld:
that Is. by finging n It all your hat
reds and animosities, n let the horses
Of fire trample them, and the chariots
Of fire roll we them, and the spearmen
of fire stab them. and the beach or fire
onsume them. and h billiws OF fire
overwhelm them.
Again, we should not let h sun go
down on our wrath, because It Is Of lit
tie importance what the world says OF
you or does to you when you have the
affiuent God Of the sunset as your pro-
WIDER and defender. People talk as
though IL were a fixed spectacle of ma
ture and always the same. But no one
ever saw two sunsets alike, and II the
world has existed 5000 years there nave
been about 2,190.000 sunsets, each OF
them as distinct from all the other pic
lures in the gallery Of sky as I'll
tian's Last Supper" Rubens' Descent
From the Cross" Raphael's Trans
figTlration'' and. Michael Angeles Last
Judgement are distinct from each 9TH
er. II that God OF such infinite re-
sources that he can put on the wall OF
the sky each evening o h the
Louvre and Luxembourg galleries all
in one is my God and your God. our
proyider and protector, what is the use
of our worrying about any human an
tagonism? If we are miSinrerpreted,
the God OF the many colored sunsets
can put the right co1Jr on our action.
IL all the garniture of the western
heavens at eventide is but the uphol-
stery of one of the windows for us to
he chasing enemies. Let not this Sab
bath IL go down upon your wrath.
THE KEY OF IMMORTALITY.
MohamTned said, THE sword is the
key Of heaven and hell" But, my
hearers, in the last day we will find
just the opposite of that to be true, and
that the sword never unlocks heaven,
and that he who heals wounds is great
er than he who makes them, and that
on the same ring are two keys-God's
forgiveness of us and our forgiveness
of e~nemies-and these two keys unlock
paradise.
And now I wish for all of you a
beautiful sunset to your earthly exist
ence. With some of you it has been a
long day of trouble and with theirs
Of you it will be far from calm. When
the sun rose at 6 o'clock, it was the
morning of youth, and a fair day was
prophesied, but by the Tins h noon.
day or middle life had come, and the
clock of your earthly existence had
struck II, cloud racks gathered, and
tempest beloved in the track of temp
est. But as the evening Of old age ap-
proaches, I pray God h skies may
brighten and the clouds be piled up
into pillars ais Of celestial temples to
which you go, or move as with mount
ed cohorts come to take o home. And
as you sing out of sight below the hori-
zon, may there be a radiance of Chris
tan example lingering long after you
are gone, and on the heavens be written
in letters of opal and on the hills in
letters of emerald. Thy u shall no
more go down. neither shall thy moon
withdraw Itself, for the Lord shall be
thine everlasting light, and the days
of thy mourning shall be ended" So
Shall the sunset of earth become the
sunrise Of heaven.