The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1899-01-07


though you have special temptations
| where you are now, how much of the
! outside style Of temptation you escape?
Do you, the merchant incarcerated in
the sickrcom, realize that every hour Of
the day you spend looking out of the
window or gazing at the particular fig
ure on the wall paper or listening to the
clocks ticks men are being wrecked by
| the allurements and uncertainties of
business life? How many forge1'ies are
committed, how many trust funds are
swamped. how many public moneys are
being misappropriated. how many
bankruptcies suffered? II may be, II
is. very uncomfortable for Noah inside
the ark, for the apartment is crowded
and the air is vitiated with the breath
ing of so much human and animal life,
but it is not half as bad for him as
though he were outside the ark. There
is not an OK. or a camel. or an antelope,
or sheep inside the ark as badly off as
the proudest king outside. While you
are on the pillow or lounge you will
make no bad bargains you will rush
into no rash investments. you will avoid
the mistakes which thousands Of men
as good as you are every day making.
Notice also that there was a limit to
tie shut-in experience of those ancient
mariners. I suppose the 40 days of the
descending and uprising floods and the
$50 days before the passengers could go
ashore must have seemed to those eight
people in the big boat like small
eternity. Rain, rain. rain!" said the
wife of Noah. Twill it never stop?"
For 40 mornings they looked out and
saw not one patch of blue sky. Float.
ing around amid the peaks of noun
tains, Shem and Ham and Japheth had
to hush the fears of their wives lest
they should dash against the project
ing rocks. But after awhile it cleared
off. Sunshine, glorious sunshine! The
ascending mists were folded up into
clouds, which instead of darkening the
sky only ornamented 1t. AS they
Il oked out Of the windows these worn
passengers clapped their hands and
rejoced that the storm was over, and
thint If God could stop such storm
as that lie could stop any storm in your
lifetime experience. If He can control
avulture in mid-sky, He can stop a sum-
mer bat that flies in at your window.
AT the right time He will put the rain
bow on the cloud and the deluge OF
your misfortunes will dry up. Ipreach
the doctrine OF limitation, relief and dis
cnthrallment. At just the right time
the pain will cease, the bondage will
drop, the imprisoned will be liberated,
the fires will go out, the body and mind
and soul will be free. Patience! An
old English proverb referring to long
continued invalidism, says: "A creak-
ing gate hangs long on its hinges" and
this may be a protracted case of vale
tudinarianism. but you will have taken
the last bitter drop, you will have suf-
fered the last misinterpretation, you
will feel the gnawing of the last hun
ger, you will have tainted the last time
from exhaustion, you will have felt the
cut of the last lancet, you will have
wept under the last loneliness. The
last week of the Noachian deluge came,
the last day, the last hour, the last mo-
ment. The beating of the rain on the
roof ceased, and the dashing of the
pillows on the side of the ship Quoted,
and peacefully as yacht moves out
over quiet Lake Cayuga, Como or Luz
cerne, the ark with its illustrious pas
sengers and important freight glided
TO its mountain wharfage.
Notice also that on the cessation of
the deluge the shut-ins came out. and
they built their houses and cultured
their gardens and started new world
on the ruins of the old world that had
been drowned out. Though Noah lived
$50 years after this worldwide accident
and no doubt his fellow passengers sur.
vived centuries, ! warrant they never
got over talking about that voyage.
Now, l have seen Dore's pictures and
many other pictures of the entrance
into the ark, two and two, of the hui
man family and the animal creation
into that ship which sailed between
two worlds, antediluvian world and the
postdiluvian world, but l never saw
picture of their coming out, yet their
embarkation was not more important
than their Decentralization. Many a
crew has entered ship that never
landed. Witness the steamer Portland,
short time ago, with 100 souls on
board, going down with all its crew and
passengers. Witness the line of sunken
ships reaching like submarine cable
of anguish across the ocean depths
from America to Europe. If any ship
might expect complete wreckage, the
one Noah commanded might have ex-
pected it. But no. Those who en-
barked disembarked. Over The plank
reaching down the side of the ark to
the Armenian cliffs on which they had
been stranded the procession descend
ed. No other wharf felt so solid or af-
forded such attractiveness as that
height of Ararat when the eight pas
sengers put their feet on it. And no
sooner had the last one, the invalided
wife of Japheth. been helped down the
plank upon the rock than the other
apartments of the ship were opened,
and such a dash of bird music never
filed the air as when the entire or
chestra of robin redbreast. and MORN