Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1901-10-12

Ill is Dy Dr. IaImage IN TINS discourse
- illustrated and commended; text,
Job xviii, II, The crystal cannot equal
/ it,"
Many of the precious stones of the BIZ
Bile have come to prompt recognition. But
for the present / take up the less valu-
| able crystal. Job, in my text, compares
/ saving wisdom with a specimen of topaz.
| An inhdel chemist or mineralogist would
| pronounce the latter worth more than the
| former. but Job makes an intelligent COM
! parison, looks at religion and then looks
at the crystal and pronounces the former
as of far superior value to the latter, ex-
claiming, in the words of my text, The
/ crystal cannot equal it,"
Now, it is not Il part of my sermonic
| design to depreciate the crystal, whether
| 1t be found in Cornish mine or Harz
/ mountain or Mammoth cave or tinkling
| among the pendants of the chandeliers
| Of a palace. The crystal is the star of
/ the mountain; it is the queen of the cave;
| it is the eardrop of the hills: it finds its
heaven in the diamond. Among all the
pages of natural history there is DO page
| more interesting TO me than the page
i crystallographic. But / want to show
| you that Job was right when, taking relig-
ion in one hand and the crystal in the
other, he declared that the former is of
| far more value and beauty than the lat
/ ter, recommending it to all the people and
| TO all the ages, declaring The crystal
i cannot equal it"
In the first place. l remark that relig
| ion is superior to the crystal in exact
i ness. That shapcless mass of crystal
/ against which You accidentally dashed
/ your foot is laid out with more eXactness
than any earthly city. There are six
! styles of capitalization and all of them
/ diyinely ordained. Every crystal has
| mathematical precision. Gods geometry
| reaches through it, and it is a square, or
! it is a rectangle, or it is a rhomboid, or in
some way it has a mathematical figure.
/ Now, religion beats that i'll the simple
i fact that spiritual accuracy is more beau
/ tiful than material accuracy. Gods at
| tributes are exact, Gods law exact
1 Gods DEGREES exact, Gods management
/ of the world exact Never counting
wrong though he counts the grass blades
and the stars and the sands and the cy-
cles. His providences never dealing with
us perpendicularly when those provi-
/ dences ought to be oblique, nor literally
/ when they ought to be vertical. Every
thing in our life arranged without any
| possibility of mistake. Each life a six
| headed prism. Born at the right time;
| dying at the right time. There are no
happen SOS" In our theology. If |
| thought this was a slipshod universe, |
/ would be in despair. God is not an an
| archist. Law, order, symmetry, precision,
/ perfect square, a perfect rectangle. a
/ perfect rhomboid, perfect circle. The
! edge of Gods robe of government never
| trays out. There are no loose screws in
/ the worlds machinery. 1t did not just
| happen that Napoleon was attacked with
/ indigestion at Borodino so that he be-
| came incompetent for the day. 1t did not
| just happen that John Thomas, the mis-
sionary, on heather island. waiting for
an outfit and orders for another mission
| airy tour, received that outfit and those
| orders in box that foated ashore, while
| the ship and the crew that carried the
| box were never heard of. / believe in a
| particular providence. I believe GOD $
| geometry may be seen in all our life more
| beautifully than in crystallography. Job
| was right. THE crystal cannot equal it."
More Transparent Tran Crystal.
Again | remark that religion is superior
| to the crystal in transparency. We know
not when or by whom glass was first dis
| covered Beads of it have been found in
| the tomb Of Alexander Severus. Vases
| of it are brought up from the ruins Of
| Herculaneum. There were female aorn-
ments made out of it 5000 years ago
those adonments found now attached to
the mummies of Egypt. A great many
commentators believe that my text means
glass. What would we do without the
crystal? The crystal in the window to
keep out the storm and let in the day;
the crystal over the watch. defending its
delicate machinery yet allowing us to see
the hour; the crystal of the telescope, by
which the astronomer brings distant
worlds so near he can inspect them. Oh,
the triumphs of the crystals in the cele-
brated windows of Rouen and Salisbury,
But there is nothing so transparent in a
crystal as in our holy religion. 1t is n
transparent religion. You put it to your
eye and you see man-his sin. his soul,
his destiny. You look at God and you
see something Of the grandeur Of his
character. 1t is a transparent religion.
lnhdels tell us it is opaque. DO you know
why they tell US it is opaqueE 1t is be-
cause they are blind. The natural man
receiyeth not the things Of God because
they are spiritually discerned." There
is no trouble with the crystal. The trou-
bic is with the eyes which try TO look
through it. We pray for vision. Lord
that our eyes might be opened. When
the eye salve cures our blindness. then
we find that religion is transparent.
1t is 4 transparent Bible. All the
ulountsi7.s Of the Bible come out~Sinai
The mountain Of the law; Pisgah. the
mountain Of prospect; Oliyet, the noun
tain Of instruction; Calvary, the NOM
tain Of sacrifice. All the rivers Of the
Bible come out-Hidekel. or the river OF
paradisaical beauty; Jordan or the river
Of holy chrism Chcrith, or the river Of
prophetic supply; Nile, or the river Of
palaces, and the pure river Of life from
under the throne, clear as crystal While
reading this Bible, after our eyes have
been touched by grace, we find it ali
TRANSPARENT and tho Garth rocks now