The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-10-29

WOulu hui nave udu SUCH All eueCI upOu
Job as the interrogation of the text.
"Canst thou bind the sweet influence Of
Pleiades?'
Sweet Influences From Afar.
These words also recognize farreaching
influences. Job probably had no ade-
quate idea of the distance of the worlds
mentioned from our world, but he knew
them to be far of, and we, who have the
advantage of modern sidereal investiga-
ton, ought to be still more impressed than
was Job with the question of the text, asst
puts before US the fact that worlds nun
dreds Of thousands of miles distant have
a grip on our world There are sweet il
~fiuences which hold us from afar. There
may have been in our ancestral line per-
haps 200 years ago some consecrated man
or woman who has held over all the gen.
e~rations since an influence for rood which
we nave no power to realize, and we in
turn, by our virtue or vice, may influence
those who shall live 200 years from now.
Moral gravitation is as powerful as ma
terial grayitatiOn, and if, as my text
teaches and science confirms, the Plei-
AIDES, which are millions of miles from our
earth, influence the earth we ought to be
impressed with how we may be influence
ed by others far away back and how we
may hAutAIe oluSIS ID uO"h liz III
ture. That riA away up among the Ale
ghanies, so thin You think it will hardly
find its way down the rocks, becomes the
mighty Ohio rolling into the Mississippi
and rolling into the sea. That word you
utter, that deed you do, may augment it
self as the years go by until rivers cease
to roll and the ocean itself shall be dried
up in the burning of the world. Paul,
who was all the time saying important
things, said nothing more startlingly sug-
gestive than when he declared, None of
US liveth or dieth to himself" Words,
thoughts, actions, have an eternity of
fight. AS Job could not bind the sweet
influences of the Seven Stars, as they
were called, so we cannot arrest or turn
aside the good projected long ago. Those
influences were started centuries before
our cradle was rocked and will reign CEN
turtles after our graves are dug. Oh, it is
q tremendous thing to live! God help Us
to live Alright.
Astronomers can easily locate the Plei-
AIDES. They will take you into their OBJ
servatories on a clear night and aim their
revealing instrument toward the part in
the heavens where those seven stars have
their habitude, and they will point to the
constellation Taurus, and you can see for
yourself. But it is impossible to point to
influences far back that have affected our
character and will affect our destiny. We
know the influences near by-paternal,
maternal, conjugal-but by the time we
have gone back two generations or at
most three our investigations falter and
fail. Through the modern interesting
habit of searching back to find the ances-
trail tree we may find a long list of
names, but they are only names. The
conservation OF abandonment Of some one
200 years ago was not recorded. 1t would
not be so important if you and l by our
good or bad behavior blessed or blasted
only those Immediately around US, but
our goodness or our badness will reach as
far as the strongest ray Of Alcyone-yea,
across the eternities. Under this consid-
Grafton what do you think of those who
give themselves up to ~frivolity or idleness
and throw away fifty years of their ex-
istence as though they were shells or peb-
bles or pods instead Of embryo eternities?
Surprises of the Next World.
L suppose one of the greatest surprises
of the next world will be to see what
wide, farreaching influence for good or
evil we have all exerted. I am speaking
of ourselves, who are only ordinary peo-
pie. But who can fully appreciate the
farreaching good lone by men Of wealth
in Great Britain for the working classes
Mr.. Lister of Bradford, Edward Akroyd
of Halifax, Thomas Skies of Hudders-
field, Joseph Wentworth and Josiah Ma
son and Sir Titus Salt? This last great
soul, with his vast wealth, provided 1856
houses at cheap rent for 5000 working
people and chapel and cricket ground and
croquet lawn and concert hall and saw
ings bank where they might deposit some
of their earnings and life insurance for
those who looked further ahead and bath
houses and parks and museums Inc lee
ture halls with philosophical apparatus,
the generous example of those men of a
previous generation being copied in many
places in Canada and the United States,
making life. which would otherwise be a
prolonged d~rudgery, an inspiration and a
joy.
AT Dunfermline, Scotland. is a stone
house, the room on the second floor
twelve feet by fourteen in size. The an
nual rent of that room years ago was
$50. That was the one room in which
the father and mother Of Andrew Carne-
rie lived with the whole family. Intlu-
eEces were started there which made An
Irew Carnegie the most distinguished
philanthropist of ell time. and what his
lifts of great libraries on both sides the
sea will do tor the coming generations I
% not think any angel of God would
:.ave enough capacity to calculate. Who
@ould bind the sweet influences of that
oieiadesI
After awhile there will be a man who
viii do for churches and missionary soci-
ties and Bible distribution what Andrew
Carnegie has lone for libraries. and then
the millennium will be here. The millen-
MUM is here. The shove of uncounted
millions of dollars for all good purposes
| think is the first step Of that golden
thousand years of peace and holiness
which have been predicted and for which
the world has so long waited. As the
snowdrop belongs to January and the vio-
let to March and the honeysuckle TO June
and the chrysanthemum to November, so
!, this bloom and fragrance of generosity
on the part of the worlds wealth mean
the advancing summer Of the worlds re-
: lease. of Eden restored. of DaradiSe re-