Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1901-06-01

obsequies pass out to the cemetery the
poor will weep because they will lose
their best friend. Many In whose tenn
poral welfare and eternal salvation he
bore q part will hear Of 1t 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 the tree of life, which is In the
midst Of the paradise of God" In the
hour of that souls release and en-
thronement there will be heavenly ac-
clamatlon as in the royal balances
''the Lord weigheth the spirits"
Other balances may lack precision
and fail In counterpoise. Scales are af.
fected by conditions Of atmosphere and
acid vapors. After all that the nations
have done to establish an invariable
standard perfection has pever yet been
reached and never will be reached.
But the royal. balances Of which
speak are the samein heat and cold, In
all weathers. in all lands and In all
the heayens-just and true to the last
point of justice and truth. The same
balance that weighed the tempted spir-
1t Of Adam under the fruit tree, and
the spirit of Cain In the first assassina-
ton, and the spirit of courage In JOSH
ia during the prolonged daylight, and
the spirit OF cruelty In Jezebel, and the
spirit of grief In Jeremiah's lamenta-
ton, and the spirit of evangelism In
where he first saw the light, and the
roo: to Ostia. the place Of his behead-
ment, is weighing still and never yet
has varied from the right one milli-
gram, which Is the one siX-thousandth
part of a grain. The only perfect
standard of weights and measures ever
established was established In the
heavens before the world was made
and will continue to do its work after
the world is burned up. To measure
the time we have calendars. To meas
ure the lightning we have the electrom-
eters To measure the atmospheric
pressure we have the barometers. To
measure souls we have the royal bal
ances. "The Lord weigheth the spir-
IT'S"
Weighed by the Lord.
In the same divine scales the spirit
of nations and civilizations is weighed.
Egyptian civilization did its work, but
1t was cruel and superstitious and idol
atrous and defiant of the Almighty. 1t
was cast out and cast down. The tour
list finds his chief interest not In the
generation that now inhabits the re-
gions watered by the Nile and sprin-
kled by her cascades, but In the tenn
pies that are the skeletons Of ancient
pride and pomp and power-her obe-
lisks. her catacombs. her mosques, the
colossus of Rameses, the dead cities OF
Memphis and Thebes. the temples OF
Luxor and Karpak. the museum con-
talning the mummifed forms Of the
pharaohs. II Is not the Egypt OF today
that we 90 to see. but the Egypt Of
many centuries ago. Her spirit has de-
parted. Her doom was sealed. The
Lord weighed her spirit.
Now cross over the Dardanelles or
Hellespont and see Greclan civilization
put In the royal balances. Surely that
is an imperishable spirit A land that
produced a Pindar and Homer In po-
etry, a Sophocles and an Eschylus In
tragedy. HerodOtus and Thucydides
In history, q Socrates and Plato In phi
losophy. a Strabo in geography. a Hip
pocrates In medicine, q Xenophon In
literature, a Plutarch In biography, a
Miltiades and an Alexander In battle,
and could build temple Of Diana at
Ephesus and the acro-Corinthus at Cor
inth, and could crown the Acropolis
with a Parthenon-surely such a land,
with more genius compressed In small
space than in any of the nations Of all
the ages, will stand forever triumphant
among surrounding nations. No. Her
pride of heroics, her pride of literature,
her pride Of architecture, must be
brought down lower and lower. and hui
initiation must follow humiliation until
in the latter part Of the nineteenth cen
tury she is compelled to submit to the
outrages of a sultan whose hands are
red with the blood of $4,000 Arme-
mans. Had Athens prayerfully lis
tened to Paul's sermon on Mars hill
and adopted bis precepts Of brother
hood and divine worship she would
have stood in her old power today. and
al Greece would have stood with her,
and that civilization so long dead un-
der the carved pillars of her shrines
and under tie marble of her pentelican
mountains would have been. perhaps
for all Asia and for much of Europe. q
living civilization. But for her AFRO
gance she was cast out and cast down
The Lord weighed her spirit.
The Crucial Test.
And so the spirit of our American
nation is put into the royal balance,
and it will be weighed as certainly as
All tue VI pdSN nNAN "N'S7H
ed and as all the nations OF the present
are being weighed. When we go to
estimate the wealth Of this nation. 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; mountainful OF
this metal and another mountainful OF
another metal. That is well. We want
to know our mining wealth, our manu-
featuring wealth, our agricultural
wealth, and the bushel measure and
the scales have an important work.
But know right well there is a divine
weighing In this country all the time
going OH, and | can tell you our coun-
trys destiny, if you will tell me wheth-
er It shall be a God honOring nation,
reverential to the only book of his au'
thorship, observing the SHALT nots" OF
the law of right given on Mount Sinai
and the law of love given on the Mount
of Beatltudes, one day Of the week OBJ
served, not in revelry, but In holy con-
,ooo+ion pnorriaOa honOrpd I'm cere-