St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1900-01-20

crook at each end and then cut in
two, and what was one spear shall be
two pruning hooks. Down with Moloch
and up with Christ! Let no more war
horses eat out of the manger where
Jesus was born.
Peace! Forever roll of the sky the
black pillars Of smoke from the Maren-
Cos and Salamancas and Borodinos
and Sedans and Gcttysburgs of earth!
And right after them roll into the
heavens the peaceful vapors from the
chimneys of farmhouses and asylums
and churches and capitals of Christian
nations, and. as the sunlight strikes
through these vapors, they will write
in letters of jet and gold all over the
sky, from horizon to zenith: GLORY
to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good will to men!"
While thinking of these things I
looked out from my window, and the
wind was violently blowing. And l
saw from many chimneys the smoke
tossed in the air and whirled in great
velocity, volume after volume, fold
after fold, and carried on the swift
wind were the great pillars of smoke.
And, helped by Solomon in the text,
1 saw the speed of the church smy-
bolized. Do you realize the momentum
the church of God is under? Why,
the smoke of chimney on the top
| of Mount Washington, when the wind
is blowing GO miles the hour, is slow
as compared with the celebrity of good
| influences. For SO centuries the devil
had it his own way among the ma
| tions. Nearly all the great missionary
movements have been started within
the century, and see what one century
has done to recover the world from 50
centuries of devastation. What great
revivals! What mighty churches!
What saved millicns!
From the ruins of Babylon and As
syria and Nineveh and the valleys of
the Nile combinations have been ex-
humed proving to all fair-minded men
that the Bible is the truest book ever
written. The mythologies of Egypt
were found to have embodied in them
the knowledge of mans expulsion
from paradise and the sacrifice of a
great Emancipation. Moses account
of the creation, corroborated by the
hammer Of Christian biologists; the
Oldest profane writers, Hiromus, Hell
anicus and Berosus, confirming the
Bible account of ancient longevity;
Tacitus and Pliny confirming the
Bible accounts of destroyed Sodom
and Gomorrah; Tacitus and Porphyry
telling the same story of Christ as
Matthew and Luke told; Macrobius
telling Of the massacre Of children in
Bethlehem, and Phlegon sketching at
the .crucifixion
1t is demonstrated to all honest men
that it is not so certain that William
Cullen Bryant wrote 'Thanatopsis" or
Longfellow wrote '.Hiawatha" as that
God, by the hand of prophet and apos-
tie, wrote the Bible. All the wise men
in science and law and medicine and
literature and merchandise are grad
ually coming to believe in Christianity,
and soon there will be no people who
disbelieve in it except those conspicu-
Gus for lack of brain or men with two
because it rebukes their swinish pro-
pensities.
The time is Fastening when there
will be no infidels left except liber-
tines and harlots and murderers. Mil
lions of Christians where once there
were thousands, and thousands where
once there were hundreds. What
bright evening this, the evening of the
nineteenth century! And the twen-
tieth century, which is about to dawn.
will, in my opinion, bring universal
victory for Christ and the church that
now is marching on with step double
quick or, if you prefer the figure of
the text. is being swept on in the
mighty gales of blessing imposing and
grand and majestic and swift like pill
lars of smoke.
Oh, come into the church through
Christ the door, a door more glorious
than that of the temple of Hercules,
which had two pillars, ard one was
gold and the other emerald! Come in
to-day! The world you leave behind
is poor world, and it will burn and
pass off like pillars of smoke. Whether |
the final conhagration will start in the |
coal mines of Pennsylvania, which, in
some places, have for many years been
burning and eating into the heart of |
the mountains, or whether it shall be-
gin near the California geysers or
whether from out the furnaces Of |
Cotopaxi and Vesuvius and Stromboli |
it shall burst forth upon the aston |
ished nations make no prophecy, but |
all biologists tell US that we stand on
the lid of a world, the heart of which |
is raging, roaring, awful flame, and |
some day God will let the red mon
sters out of their Imprisonment OF |
centuries, and New York, on fire in |
1885, and Charleston on fire in 1865, |
and Chicago on fire in 1872, and Bos- |
ton on fire in 1873 were only like one |
spark from q blacksmith's forge as
compared with that last universal |
blaze which will be seen in other |
worlds. But gradually the flames will |
lessen, and the world will become a
great living coal, and that will take on |
ashen hue, and then our ruined planet |
will begin to smoke, and the noun
tains will smoke, and the valleys will |
smoke, and the islands will smoke,
and the seas will smoke, and the cities
will smoke. and the five continents |
will be five pillars of smoke. But the
black vapors will begin to lessen in
height and density and then will be-
come hardly visible to those who look |
upon it from the sky galleries, and
after awhile from just one point there
will carl up a thin, solitary vapor, and
then even that will vanish, and there
will be nothing left except the charred
ruins of q burned out world, the corpse
of q dead star, the ashes Of an extin-
guished planet. fallen pillar Of
smoke.
But that will not interfere with your
investments if you have taken Christ
as your Saviour. Secure Heaven as
ID