Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1901-11-01


his last win and Testament, beginning
it with the words: "In the name of
God, amen, I, William Shakespeare, of
Stratford-on-Avon,i in the county of
Warwick, in perfect health and mem
DRY, God be praised. do make and or
adain this my last will and testament
through the only merits of Jesus
Christ, my Saviour, to be made par
taker of life everlasting and my body
to the earth whereof it is made 2"
Had Shakespeare lost his. reason when
he wrote his faith in Christ and the
great atonement? Put your antag
onist a few questions like that, and
you will find him excusing himself for
an engagement he must meet imme
diately or he will start on retreat
like that which our northern troops
made for yonder Long bridge after
the battle of Manassas. A discourse
on Gods omnipotence and mans linn
itations would not have had such an
effect upon Job as the interrogation
of the text: "Canst thou bind the
sweet influence of the Pleiades 2"
These words also recognize far
reaching influences. Job probably
had no adequate idea of the distance
Of the worlds mentioned from our
world, but he knew them to be far
off, and we, who have the advantage
of modern sidereal investigation,
ought to be still more impressed
than was Job with the question Of
the text, as it puts before us the fact
that worlds hundreds OF thousands
of miles distant have grip on our
world. There are sweet influences
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 generations since an influence
for good which we have 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
material gravitation, and if, as my
text teaches and science confirms,
the, Pleiades,. which are millions of
miles from our earth, influence the
earth we ought to be impressed with
how we may be Influenced by others
far away back and how I'VE may in
fuence others far down the future.
That rill away up among the Allie
Ad1ICS, 81 CuIA .yOu IL WILL
hardly find it's. 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 itself 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 suggestive than when he
declared: "None of us. liveth or
dieth to himself" Words, thoughts,
actions, have an eternity of. flight
AS Job could not bind the sweet in
| fuences 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 centuries. after
our graves are dug. Oh, it is a ire
mendous thing to live! God help Us
| to live Alright.
Astronomers can easily locate the
| Pleiadess They will take you into
their observa tories on a clear night
and aim their revealing instrument
toward the part in the heavens where
| those seven stars have their habi-
tude, and they will point to the con-
stellation 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 in
huences near by-paternal, maternal,
conjugal-but by the time we have
/ AR Of
most three our Investigations falter
and fail. Through the modern in
teresting habit of searching back to
find the ancestral tree we may find
long list of Names, but they are
only names. The conservation OF
abandonment of some one 200 years
ago was not recorded. It would not
be SO important If you and by our
good or bad behavior blessed or
blasted only those Immediately
around as, but our. goodness or our
{sbadness will reach as far as the
strongest. rays of Alcyone' - yea,
across the eternities. Under this
consideration what do you think of
those who give themselves up to
frivolity or idieness and throw away
so years of their existence as though
they were shells or pebbles or. pods
instead of embryo eternities?
| Notice also in my text the inf1u-
ence of other worlds upon this world
We all regard the effect which our
continent has upon other continents
or one hemisphere upon the other
hemisphere. Great harvest or drought
affects the other side of our world
A panic in Wall street, New York, has
its echo in. Lombard street and. the
bourse. The nations of the earth
cablegrammed together all feel the
same thrill of delight or shock of woe
But we do not appreciate the infiu-
iaence of other worlds Ilnon our world