Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1899-07-06


trying to break the seven seals of the
future. They are trying to peep into
things they have no business with.
There is another mighty seven Of the
Bible, viz, the seven thunders What
these thunders meant we are not told,
and there has been much guessing
about them; but they are to come, We
are told, before the end of all things,
and the world cannot get along with
out them. Thunder is the speech Of
lightning There are evils in our
world which must be Numbered down,
and which will require at least seven
volleys to PROSTATE them. We are all
doing nice, delicate, soft-handed work,
in churches and reformatory institu-
tions, against the evils of the world.
and much of it amounts to a teaspoon
dipping out the Atlantic ocean, or a
clam shell digging away at noun
tain, or a tack hammer shifting the
Gibraltar What is needed Is thun-
derbolts, and at least seven Of them.
There is the long line Of fraudulent
commercial establishments,ev every stone
in the foundation, and every brick in
the wall, and every nail in the rafter
made out of dishonesty; skeletons Of
poorly paid sewing girls arms in every
beam of that establishment; human
nerves worked into every figure Of that
embroidery; blood in the deep dye of
that refulgent upholstery; billions Of
dollars of accumulated fraud entrench-
ed in massive storehouses, and stock
! companies manipulated by unscrupu-
lous men, until the monopoly is de-
faint of all earth and heaven. How
shall the evil be overcome? By trea-
tises on the maxim: Honesty is the
best policy? Or the soft repetition OF
the golden rule that We must do to
others as we would have them do 20
us?" No, 1t will not be done that
way. What is needed and will come Is
the seven thunders.
There is drunkenness backed up by a
capital mightier than in any other
business. Intoxicating liquors enough
in this country to float a navy. Good
grain to the amount of $3.50, 900 BUSH
els annually destroyed to make the
deadly liquid. Breweries, distilleries,
gin shops. rum palaces. liquor associ-
atoms, our nation spending annually
seven hundred and forty millions of
dollars for rum. resulting in bank
ruptcy, disease, pauperism. filth, as
sassination, death, illimitable woe.
What will stop them? High license?
No. Prohibition laws? No. Churches?
No. Moral suason? No. Thunder
bolts will do it; nothing else will.
Seven thunders!
Yonder are intrenched Infidelity and
Atheism with their magazines of liter
ature soothing at our Christianity; their
Hoe printing presses busy day and
night. There are their disappearing
| apostles, their drunken Tom Paines
and libertine Voltaires of the present
as well as the past, reinforced by all
the powers Of darkness from highest
demon to lowest imp. What will ex-
tirpate those monsters of infidelity and
| atheism? John Browns shorter cate
chism about Who made your" or
Westminster catechism about What is
the chief end of man." No. Thun-
derbolts! The seven thunders, For
the impurities of the world empalaced
as we'll as cellared. epauletted as well
as ragged, enthroned as we'll as ditch
ed; for corrupt legislation which ut
times makes our state and national
capitals hemisphere stencil; for SUI
perstitions that keep whole nations in
squalor century after century, their
Juggernauts crushing, their knives la
cerating, their waters drowning. their
funeral pyres burning, the seven thun-
ders,
Oh, men and women, disheartened at
the bad way things often go, hear you
not a rumbling down the sky of heavy
artillery, coming in on our side, the
seven thunders Of the Almighty? Do
not let us try to WELD them ourselves;
they are too heavy and too fiery for US
to handle; but God can and God will:
and when all mercy has failed and all
milder means are exhausted then judg-
ment will begin Thunderbolts! De-
pend upon it, that what is not done
under the fash of the seven candle
sticks will be done by the trampling of
the seven thunders. But | leave this
imperial and multipotent mineral
seven, where the Bible leaves it. i'm
bcdded in the finest wall that was
ever built, or will be constructed, the
wall Of heaven. 1t is the seven strata
OF precious stones that make up that
wall. After naming six Of the pre-
cious stones in that wall, the Bible
cries out-"the seventh chrysolite."
The chrysolite is an exquisite green.
ard in that seventh layer of the heav-
emily wall shall be preserved forever
the dominant color of the earth we
once inhabited. | have sometimes been
saddened at the thought that this
world, according to science and rev.
elation, is to be blotted out of exist
ence, for it is such beautiful world.
But here in this layer of the heavenly
wall. where the mineral seven Is 10
be imbedded, the strata of green is
to be photographed, and embalmed,
and perpetuated, the color of the grass
that covers the earth, the color of foil
age that fills the forest, the color OF
the deep sea. One glance at that
green chrysolite, a million years after
this planet has been extinguished, will
bring to mind just how it looked in
summer and spring, and will say to
those who were born blind on earth,
and never saw at all in this world,
after they have obtained full eyesight