The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1900-09-27


mart of an inch the right direction. Peo-
ME talk as though things in this world
we're at loose ends. Cholera sweeps across
Marseilles and Madrid and Palermo; and
we watch anxiously Will the epidemic
sweep Europe and America? People say:
ssTbat will entirely depend on whether
the incubation is a successful experiment
| that will depend entirely on quarantine
regulation: that will depend on the early
! or late appearance of frost; that epidemic
| is pitched into the world, and it goes bun,
dering across the continents, and 1t IS al
puesswork and all appalling perhaps"
| think perhaDs that God had something to
| do with it and that His mercy may have
| in some way protected us, that He may
| have done as much for US as the quaran-
| tine and the health officers. 1t was right
and a necessity that all caution should be
used but there have come enough maca-
| roni from Italy and enough grapes from
the south of France and enough rags from ron
tatterdermalions and hidden in these arti-
cles of transportation enough choleraic
germs to have left by this time all the
| cities mourning in the cemeteries.
| thank all the doctors and guarantees, but
more than all and first of all and last OF
| all and all the time I thank God. In all
| the 5000 years of the worlds existence
| there has not one thing merely happened
So" God is not an anarchist, but hlng'
| Father.
When little Tad, the son OF President
| Lincoln, died, all America svmpathized
with the sorrow in the White House. He
used to rush into the room where the
Cabinet was in session and while the most
eminent men of the land were discussing
the questions of national existence. But
the child had 20 care about those ques-
tions. No. God the Father ard God the
| Son and God the Holy Ghost are in per.
petual session in regard to this world
! and kindred worlds. Shall you, His child,
/ ftsh IN to critioise or arraign or condemn
the divine government? No. Inc CAP
| met of the eternal three can govern and
will govern in the wisest and best way,
| and there neysr. will be mistake and,
| Ike razor skiilfully swung. shall cut that
which ought to be avoided. Precision to
the very hairbreadth. Earthly time.
pieces may go out of order and strike
wrong, saying it is l o'clock when it is 2
right, and when it is l it strikes l, and
when it is - it strikes Il, and the second
| hand is as accurate as the minute hand.
Further, my text tells US that God
sometimes shaves nations: I'm the same
day shall the Lord shave with razor
that is hired" With one sharp sweep
He went across Judea, and down went its
pride and it's power. In 1861 God shaved
| the American nation. We had allowed to
grow Sabbath dissertation and oppression
and blasphemv and fraud and impurity
and all sorts of turpitude. The South had
| it's sins and the North had its sins and
the East its sins and the West its sins;
we did not heed. At length the sword OF
war cut from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf
and from Atlantic Loard to Pacific sea-
board. The pride of the land, not the
towards, but the heroes, on both sides
went down. And that which we took for
the sword of war was the Lord razor. In
1862 again it went across the land; in
1863 again: in 1864 again. Then the sharp
! instrument was incased and put away.
One would think that our national sym
| Dol of the eagle might sometimes suggest
another eagle, that which ancient Rome
carried In the talons of that eagle were
| clutched at one time Britain, France,
Pannonia, Moesia, Dacia, Thrace,- Mace
donia, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Phoeni-
cia, Palestine, Egypt and all northern
Africa and all the islands of the Mediter-
ranean-indeed all the world that was
worth having; l20,OOo,000 of people under
the wings OF that one eagle: Where is
she now? Ask Gibbon. the historian, in
his prose poem, the Decline and Fall Of
the Roman Empire" Ask her gigantic
ruins, bemoaning their sadness through
| the ages, the screech owl at windows out
of which worldwide conquerers looked.
Ask the day of judgment, when her
crowned debauchees, Commodus and Per,
tinaX and Cahgula and Dlocletian, shall
answer for their infamy. As man and as
nations let us repent and have our trust
in a pardonng God rather than depend
on former successes for immunity. Out
| of thirteen of the greatest battles of the
world Napoleon had lost but one before
| Waterloo. Pride and destruction often
rode in the same saddle.
| But notice once more and more than
all in my text that God is so kind and
loving that when it is necessary for Him
to cut He has to go to others for the
sharp edged weapon. "In the same day
shall the Lord shave with a razor that Is
hired" God is love. God is pity. God
is help. God is shelter. God is rescue,
There are no sharp edges about Him, no
thrusting points, no instruments OF lacera-
| ton. If you want balm for wounds He
has that If you want divine salve for
eyesight, He has that. But if there is
sharp and cutting work to do which re-
quires a razor, that He hires. God has
nothing about Him that hurts save when
dire necessity demands, and then He has
| to go clear off to some one else to get the
instrument. This divine clemency will be
no novelty to those who have pondered
| the Calvarean massacre, where God sub
merged Himself in human tears and Grim
soned Himself from punctured arteries
| and let the terrestrial ana ln1erndl Worlus
maui Him until the chandeliers of the
sky had to be turned out because the uni
verse could not endure the outrage. Illus
trious for love He must have been to take
| all that as our substitute, paying out OF
| His own heart the price of our admission
at the gates OF heaven.
King Henry Ii. of England crowned his
son as king, and on the day of coronation
put on servants garb and waited, he,
the king, at the sons table, to the aston
shment of all the princes But we know
OF more wondrous scene, the King OF
heaven and earth offering to put on you,
His child, the crown of life and in the
form of servant waiting on you with
blessing. Extol that love, all painting, all
sculpture, all music, all architecture, all
worship In Dresdenian gallery let Ra-
phael hold Him up as a child, and in Ant
werp cathedral let Rubens hand Him
down from the cross as a martyr and Han.
del make all his oratorio vibrate around
that one chord-"He was wounded for our
transgressions, bruised for our iniquities."
But not until all the redeemed get home
and from the countenances in all the gal