The Penn's Grove record., 1901-05-10

which Paul was shipwrecked, the fords at
which Jordan was passed, the Red Sea
bank on which were tossed the carcasses
of the drowned Egyptians. A man said:
Il went to the Holy Land an infidel. /
came back a Christian. | could not help
/ I'M not shocked, as some have been, at
the building Of railroads in the Holy Land.
/ wish that all the world might go and see
Golgotha and Bethlehem. How many who
could not afford muleteers now easily buy
tickets from C~onstantinople to Joppa,
Then let Christians travel! God speed
the rail trains and guide the steamships
this night painting across the deep in the
phosphorescent wake of the shining feet
of Him who from wave cliff to wave cliff
bestormed Tiberius. The Japanese come
across the water and see our civilization
and examine our Christianity and go back
and tell the story and keep that empire
rocking till Jesus shall reign
"Where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run"
And the firearms with which the infdel
traveller brought down the Arab horseman
and the jackals of the desert have been
surrendered to the church, and we reach
forth our hand. crying, There is none like
that; give it mel
So it has also been with the learning and
~eloquence of the world. People say, "Reli-
gion is very good for aged women, it is
very good for children, but not for men"
But we have in the roll Of Christ's host
Mozart and Handel in music; Canova and
Angelo in sculpture; Raphael and Rey-
nolds in painting; Harvey and Boerhaave
in medicine; Cowper and Scott in poetry;
Grotius and Burke in craftsmanship;
Boyle and Leibnitz in philosophy; Thomas
Chalmers and John Mason in theology.
The most brilliant writings of a worldly
nature are all aglow with Scriptural allu.
sions. Through senatorial speech and
through essayist's discourse Sinai thunders
and Calvary speaks and Sloan sparkles.
Samuel l.. Southland was mighty in the
courtroom and in the senate chamber, but
that day when he stood before the literary
societies at Princeton commencement and
pleaded for the grandeur of our Bible.
Daniel Webster won not his chief gar
lands while responding to Hayne nor when
he opened the batteries OF his %eloquence
on Bunker Hill, that rocking Sinai OF the
American Revolution. but on that day
when, in the famous Girard will case, he
showed his affection for the Christian reli-
gion and eulogized the Bible. The elo-
quence and the learning that have been on
the other side come over to our side. Cap
tured for Godl "There is none like that;
give it mel"
So, also, has it been with the picture
making of the world. We are very anX.
ious on this day to have the printing press
and the platform on the side of Christian,
ity. but we overlook the engraver's knife
and the painters pencil. The antiquarian
goes and looks at pictured ruins or exam,
ines the chiseled pillars of Thebes and
Nineveh and Pompeii, and then comes
back to tell us of the beastliness of ancient
art, and it is a fact now that many of the
finest specimens, merely artistically consid-
cred. of sculpture and painting that are to
be found amid those ruins are not fit to
be looked at, and they are locked up.
How Paul must have felt, when, stand
ing amid these impurities that stared on
him from the walls and the pavements and
the bazaars of Corinth, he preached of the
pure and holy jesus! The art of the
world on the side of obscenity and crime
and death.
Much Of the art Of the world has been
in the possession OF the vicious. What to
%unclean Henry VIII, was a beautiful pic
ture of the Madonna? What to Lord JET
freys, the unjust judge. the picture of the
Last Judgment" What to Nero, the
u~nwashed, a picture of the baptism in the
Jordan? The art of the world on the
wrong side. But that is being changed
now. The Christian artist goes over to
Rome, looks at the pictures and brings
back to his American studio much OF the
power of these old masters. The Chris
tan minister gees over to Venice, looks
at the "Crucifxion of Christ and comes
back to the American pulpit to talk as
never before of the sufferings of the Saw
Jour. The private tourist goes to Rome
and looks at Raphael's picture of the
Last Judgment" The tears start, and
he goes back to his room in the hotel and
prays God for preparation for that day
when