The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1901-05-31
poet like David, a great CLEANER lfke

o
Ruth, great physician like Luke, a
. great preacher like Paul, great
Christ like no one on earth or in
! Heaven because the superior of all be-
ings terrestrial or celestial. He has
learned by heart the Ten Command
ments and the sermon on the mount
and has splendid theories about every
thing. Between that fair-haired boy
and the achievement of what he wants
and expects there are obstacles and
hindrances known only to the God
who is going to discipline him for
heroics magnificent. l have no power
to prophesy the different experiences
of his encouragement and dissppoint-
ment, of his struggle or his triumph,
but as sure as God lives to make His
word come true that boy who will sleep
tonight nine hours without waking
will be final victor. ] do not know the
intermediate chapters of the volume
of that young mans life, but know
the first chapter and the last chap
ter. The first chapter is made Of high
resolve in the strength of God, and the
last chapter is filled with the rewards
of a noble ambition. AS his obseuuiez
pass out to the cemetery the poor will
weep because they will lose their best
friend. Many in whose temporal well
fare and eternal salvation he bore a
part will hear of it in various places
and eulogize his memory, and God will
say to the ascending spirit: ITO him
that overcometh will l give to eat of
| - e. ;aL So AZ
the paradise of God" In the hour of
that souls release and enforcement
there will be Heavenly reclamation,
as in the royal balances "the Lord
weigheth the spirits"
In the same divine scales the spirit
of nations and civilizations is weighed.
Egyptian civilization did it's work, but
it was cruel and superstitious and
idola trous and defiant of the Almighty.
1t was cast out and cast down. The
tourist finds his chief interest not in
the generation that now inhabits the
regions watered by the Nile and
sprinkled by her cascades, but in the
temples that are the skeletons of an
cient pride and pomp and power-her
obelislls, her catacombs, her mosques,
the colossus of Rameses, the dead cit
les of Memphis and Karnak, the mu-
scum containing the mummified forms
of the pharaohs. 1t is not the Egypt
of to-day that we go to see, but the
Egypt of many centuries ago. Her
spirit has departed. Her doom was
sealed. The Lord weighed her spirit.
And so the spirit of our American
nation is put into the royal balance,
and it will be weighed as certainly as
all the nations of the past were
weighed and as all the nations of the
present are being weighed. When we
go to estimate the wealth of this ma
ton, we weigh its gold and silver and
coal and iron and copper and lead, and
all the steelyards and all the balances
are kept busy. So many tons of this
and so many tons of that, a noun
tainful of this metal and another
mountainful of another metal. That |
is well. We want to know our mining
wealth, our manufacturing wealth, our
agricultural wealth, and the bushel |
measure and the scale have an i'm por@ I
tant work. But know right well there
is Divine weighing in this country all
the time going on, and can tell you
our country's destiny if you will tell
me whe Their it shall be God honoring
nation, reverential to the only book
of His authorship, observing the
"shalt nots" of the law Of right
given on Mount Sinai and the law of
love given on the Mount of Beati-
tudes, one day out of the week OBJ
served not in revelry, but in holy
convocation, marriage honored in
ceremony and in fact, blasphemy ST.
fenced in all the streets, high toned
systems of morals in all parts of our
land, then our institutions will live,
and all the wondrous properties of
the present are only a faint hint of
the greater properties to come.
Richer harvests will rustic in the
fields, higher style of literature will
turn it's leaves in our libraries, nobler
men will adorn our state and nation
al Legislature, and there will be Wash
ingtons and Hamiltons and Patrick
Henrys and John Marshalls and Abra-
ham Lincolns in the future quite
equal to those of the past. And the
last day of the worlds existence will
find our free American institutions
permanent as the mountains before
they begin to fall and glorious as the
seas before they begin to die.
What a world this will be when it
IS weighed after it's regeneration
shall have taken place! Scientists
now guess at the number of tons our
world weighs, and they put the Appe-
hines and the Sierra Nevadas and
and the Himalayas in the
scales. But if weighed as to it's NOR
lis at the present time in the royal
balance the heaviest things would be
,he wars, the international hatreds,
he crimes mountain high, the moral
disasters that stagger the hemi-
spheres on their way through i'm
nensity. But when the Gospel has ,
,ardenized the earth, as it will yet
yardenize it, and the atmosphere
hall be universal balm and the soil
will produce universal harvest and
ruitage and the last cavalry horse
hall be unsaddeled and the last gun !
,arriage unwheeled and the last for