The Farmville herald. [volume] (Farmville, Va.) 1890-1934, 1901-09-20

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 10 the God
who is going to discipline him for
heroics magnificent. ! have no power
TO prophesy the different experiences
OF his encouragement and disappoint-
ment, Of his struggle or his triumph,
but as sure as God lives 10 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 l 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 filed with the rewards
of a noble ambition. As his obsequies
pass out to the cemetery the poor will
weep because they will lose their best
friend. Many in whose temporal wei
fare and eternal salvation he bore a
part will hear Of il in various places
and eulogize his memory, and God will
say TO the ascending spirit: ITO him
that overcometh will / 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 enforcement
there will be Heavenly reclamation.
as in the royal balances 1.-The Lord
weigheth the spirits"
In the same divine scales the spirit
Of nations and civilizations is weighed.
Egyptian civilization did its work, but
II was cruel and superstitious and
idolatrous 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 aB-
cient pride and pomp and power-her
obelisks, 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 il 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
90 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 we'll We want TO know our mining /
wealth. our manufacturing wealth, our /
agricultural wealth, and the bushel /
measure and the scale have an impor- /
tant work. But know right well there |
is a Divine weighing in this country all /
the time going on. and ! can tell you /
our country's destiny if you will tell /
me whether il shall be a 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 Beat-
tudes, one day out of the week OBJ
served not in revelry, but in holy
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 10 come.
Richer harvests will rustic in the
fields. a higher style Of literature will
turn its leaves in our Libraries. nobleT
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 viii
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 70
is weighed after its regeneration
shall have taken place. Scientists
now guess at the number Of tons OuI
world weighs. and they put the Appe
mines and the Sierra Nevadas and
and the Himalayas in the
scales. But If weighed as to its NOR
ais at the present time in the royal
balance the heaviest things would be
the wars. the international hatreds,
the crimes mountain high, the moral
disasters that stagger the hemi-
spheres on their way through i'm
mensity. But when the Gospel has
gardenized the earth, as il will yet
yardenize il. and the atmosphere
shall be universal balm and the soil
viii produce universal harvest and
fruitage and the last cavalry horse
shall be unsaddeled and the last gun
carriage unwheeled and the last for
iress turned into a museum TO show
nations in peace what horrid thing
war once was, then the world will be
and as the opposite side Of
The scales lift as though it was light /
Il q I.