The Burke County news. [volume] (Morganton, N.C.) 1899-1901, 1899-07-14

-tuc DtSl bulik, IL ONct "
best swept. the best Widowed and the best
chcndeliered. Log cabins may do IN
neightorhoods where mos. OF the people
live ia log cabins. but let there be palatiat
churches for regions where many OF the
people live In palaces. Do not have a bet
ter place for yourself than for your Lord
and King. Do not live in a parlor and put
your Christ in a kitchen. These seven
candlesticks OF which l speak were not
made OF pewter or iron: they were gold
en- candlesticks, and gold Is. not only
q valuable but q bright metal. Have every
thing about your church bfight-your
ushers with smiling faces. your music jubi-
liant, your handshaking cordial, your en-
tire service attractive. Many people feel
that In church they must look dull, IN or
de. to look leyerential, and many whose
faces in other kinds OF aSsemblage show all
the different phases Of emotion have in
church no more expression than the bacE
wheel Of a hearse. Brighten up and be re-
sponsive. II YOU feel like weeping, weep.
II you feel like smiling, smile. Ii you feel
Indignant at some wrong assaiied from the
pulpit, frown. Do not leave your natural
ness and rtsiliency home because it is Sun
day morning. II AS officers of q church you
meet people at the church door with a
black look, and have the music black, and
the minister in black preach Il black ser
mon, and from invocation to benedict.on
have the impression black, few will come.
IL tIOSc III 10 ON VIII = tAcS udO
not come at all.
lilies on each branch, and know that the
moro lovely and bright they are the more
At they are to hold the light. But a
Christless light is Il damage to the world
rather than a good. Cromwell stabbed his
cavalry horses in st. PaulS Cathedral,
and many now use the church in which to
stable ~vanities and WOrldlineSs. A worldly
church is a candlesticS without the candle,
and it had its prototype in st. Sophia's in
ConstantinOplc, built to the glory Of God
by Constantine, but transformed to base
uses by Mohammed the Second. Built out
of colored marble; a curOla with twenty
four windows soaring to a height Of $50
:eet; the ceiling one great bewilderment Of
mosaic: galleries supported by eight
columns of pOrrhyry and siXty-seven col
umns OF green jasper: nine brOnZe doors
with alto-relievo work, fascinating to the
eye OF any artist; vases and Nestments in-
ciusted with all manner OF precious stones.
Four walls on fire with indescribab.e
%splen1or. Though labor was cheap, the
buildiD: cost 81, 500, COO. Ecclesiastical
structure. almost supernatural in pomp
and majesty. But Mohammedanism tore
down from the walls Of that building all the
sanity and Christly images, and high up
in the dome the figure Of the cross was
rubbed out that the crescent Of the bar
barOus Turk might be substituted. A
great church, but 10 Christ. A gorgeous
candlestick. but no candle! Ten thousand
such churches would not give the world rs
much light as one homemade tallOw can
die by which last night some grandmother
in the eighties put on her specticles and
read the Psalms Of David in larger type.
Up with the churches, bv all means. Hun
dreds Of them, thousands OF them. and the
more the better. But let each one be 4
blaze of heavenly light, making the world
brighter aud brighter, till the last shadow
has disappeared, and the last Of the suf-
fering children Of God shall have reached
the land where they have no need Of can
dlestick or "Of candle, neither light Of the
sun. for the Lord God giveth them light,
and they shall reign forever and ever"
Turn now i'll your Bible to the seven
stars. We are distinctly told that they are
the ministers Of religion. Some are large
stars, some Of them small stars, some OF
them sweep a wide circuit and some Of
then II small circuit. but so far as they are
genuine they get their light from the great
central sun around which they make revo-
luton. Let each one keep in his own
sphere. The solar system would be soon
wrecked if the stars, instead Of keeping
their own orbits. should go to hunting
down other stars. Ministers OF religion
should never clash. But in all the cen
turtles of the Christian church some OF
these stars have been hunting an Edward
Irving or a Horace Bushnell or an Albert
Barnes. And the stars that were in pur.
suit Of the other stars lost their " Orbit.
and some OF them could never again find
1t. Alas for the heresy hunters, The bes,
way to destroy error is to preach. the
truth. The best way to scatter darkness
is to strike a light. There is in immensity
room enough for all the ministers. The
ministers who give up righteousness and
the truth will get punishment enough any.
how, for they are 1.-THE wandering stars 70,
whom is reserved the t~lackness OF dark.
uess forever
should like. as n minister, when I an
dying, to be able truthfully to saw what u
captain OF the English army, fallen at the
head Of his column and dying on the Egyp-