Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-06-21

one world and swung it, glorious mass,
through immensity, but behold His wis
dom in dividing up the grandeurs into in
Vulnerable worlds, rolling splendors on all
sides, diversity, amplitude, majesty, in
fnity. Worlds, worlds, moving in COM
plete order, shining with complete "a.
dance. Mightest telescope on one hand
and most powerful microscope on. the
other, discovering in the plan of God not
one imperfection.
Witty writer's sometimes depreciate the
thunder and say it is the lightning that
strikes, but am sure God thinks well of
the thunder, or He would not make so
much of it, and all up and down the Bible
He uses the thunder to give emphasis 1t
was the thunder that shook Sinai when
the law was given. 1t was WIN thunder
that the Lord discounted the Philis-
tines at Eben-ezer.
Job pictures the war horse as having
neck clothed with thunder. st. John in
an apocalyptic vision again and again
heard the thunder. The thunder, which
is now quite we'll explained by the cleo
tricians, was the overpowering mystery of
the ancents, and, standing among those
mysteries, Job exclaimed: ''Lo, these are
parts of His ways. But how little por-
tion is heard of Him? But the thunder
of His power Who can understand?
pO, dioO, Gil oy oICho VI ehCOioSy. Wy w
tell us what is omnipotence-tha is,
Gods capacity to be everywhere at the
same time "Where is God% said
heather philosopher to a Christian man.
The Christian answered, "Let me ask you
where He is not?" The child had it right
when, asked how many Gods are there,
and he answered, "One." "How do you
know that" he was asked again. He an
swered, "There is only room for one, for
L. II
says that if man were set in the highest
heavens he would not be any nearer the
essence of God than if he were in the
centre of the earth. | believe it: If this
divine essence does not reach all places,
what use in our prayer, for prayers are
being offered to God on the other side
of the earth as well as here, and God
must be there and here to take supplca.
tons which are offered thousands of miles
apart. Ubiquity No one has it but God.
And what an alarm to wickedness, an
enforcement when we. need help God
on the throne and God with the kneeling
child saying his evening prayer at his
mothers lap. God above you, God be.
meath you, God ON the right of you, God
on the left of you, God within you. No
pantheism, for that teaches that all
things are God, but Jehovah possesses all
things, as our souls possess our bodies
God at the diameter and circumference
of everything, as close to you as the food
you put to your lips, as the coat you put
upon your back, as the sunlight that
shines in your face. Appreciation of that,
if through Jesus Christ, the atoning Sa-
viour, we are right with God, ought to
give us a serenity, q tranquility, that
nothing could upset. Would it make us
gloomy? No, for God is the God Of joy
and will augment our happiness.
We have all been painfully reminded in
our own experiences that we cannot be IN
two places at the same time, and yet here
places at the same time. Nader, the as
tronomer, went on with his explorations
of the heavens until he concluded that the
star Alcyone, one of the Pleiades, was the
centre of the universe, and it was fixed
world, and all the other worlds revolved
around that world, and some think that
| that world is heaven and Gods throne is
| t~re and there reside the nations, OF ire
| blessed. But He is no more there than lie
is here. Indeed Alcyone has been found
to be in motion, and it also is revolving
around some great centre. But no place
| has yet been found where God is not
| present by sustaining power. Omn1pres-
ence! Who fully appreciates it? Not l;
| not you.
| Sometimes we hear Him in a whisper;
sometimes we hear Him in the voice OF
the storm that jars the Adirondacks. But
we cannot swim across this ocean. The
| finite cannot measure the infinite. We
feel as Job did after finding God in. the
gold mines and the silver mines of Asia,
saying, "There is a vein for the silver and
place for the gold where they fine it."
| The nature of God never changes, and
| from all eternity that holy passion glowed
in the Infinite, and think He was throw
ing out worlds into space and inhabiting
them and more worlds for the application
of that love. He may not have told the
other worlds what He did for this world,
as He has not told us what He did for
onstrated in mightier worlds before our
little world was fitted up for human resi-.
dence. Will man owning $4,000 acres Of
land put all the cultivation on half
acre? Will God make a million worlds
and put His chief affection on one small
| planet? Are the other worlds and larger
worlds standing vacant, uninhabited,
while this little world is crowded with in.
habitants? No, it takes a universe of
worlds to express the love of God. And
| there are other ransoms and other rescues
| and other redemptions, as there may be
| other millenniums and other resurrection
mornings and judgment days than those
of our world But in the space of six
| feet by five was comprised the mightlest
evidence of Gods love that any world
ever saw or ever will see. Compressed on
| two planks joined together as cross,
there was enough agony there concen-
lions into torture. That God allowed the
assassination of His own Son for the res.
| cue of our world is all the evidence needed
| that He loved the world. Go ahead, o
church of God! Go ahead, o world, and
tell as well as you can what the love of
| God is, but know beforehand that Paul
was right when he said, "It :. passeth
|! knowledge" Let other poets take up
the story of Gods love where William
Cowper and Isaac Watts and Chatless
Wesley and Horatius Bonar left it, and
tine Madonna" and the Alteration of the
Magi' and the "Crucifxion" as Raphael
and Titan and Claude and Correggio pre-
sented them. Let the German pulpit or.
| ator take up the theme of Gods love
where Frederick Tholuck left it, let Ital-
ian pulpit take it up where Gayazzi left it,
let French pulpit orator take up the
theme where Bourdeloue left it, let the
Swiss pulpit orator take, up the, theme
where Merle d'Aubigne left it, let the
English pulpit take it up where George
Whitefeld left it, let the Scotch pulpit
take it up where DR.. Candlish left it, let
the Welsh pulpit take it up where Christ
mas Evans left it, and let the American
pulpit take it up where Archibald Alex
ander and DR.. Kirk and Matthew Simp-
son left it, But the world will never APP
preciate fully the love of God uEtil they
hear from His own lips the outburst of
| His infinite and everlasting affection.