The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1901-05-30

that is debasing, ruinous and deathful. II
In such spirit we get what we start for,
We only secure gigantic discomfort. No
man was ever made happy by what he got.
we get IL and the spirit with which we
Keep 1t and the spirit with which we dis
tribute IL. Not since the world stood has
there been any instance of complete hap
piness from the amount Of accumulation.
Give the. man IT worldly ambition sixty
years of brilliant successes. He sought for
renown, and the nations speak his name:
he sought for afluence. and he is put 10
his wits END 60 find out the best stocks
and bonds in which he may make his in
vestments; he is director in enough banks
and trustee in enough institutions and
president of enough companies to bring on
paresis, of which he is now dying. The
royal balances are lifted to weigh the am
bition which has controlled him lifetime.
What was the worth of that ambition?
How much did il yield for usefulness and
heaveny Less than a scruple less than a
grain of sand, less than an atom, less than
nothing. Have funeral a mile long with
carriages; let the richest robes of ecclesi-
astics rustic about the casket; caricature
the scene by choirs which chant Blessed
are the dead that die in the Lord" That
mans life is a failure. and il his heirs
scuffie in the Surrogate's court about the
incapacity of the testator to make last
will and testament it will only be q pro-
loneation of the failure. The son, through
dissipation, spent his share of the fortune
before the father died. and SO was cut off
with a dollar; the daughter married against
his will, and she is disinherited; relatives
whom he could never bear the sight OF
will put in their claim, and after years OF
litigation 60 much of the estate as the law.
yers have not appropriated to themselves
will go into hands which the testator
of WI in lacf
days he bad fearful farewells to the
houses and lands and government securi.
ties he could not take along with him into
the sepulcher
do not know the intermediate chapters
of the volume of that young mans life,
but l know the first chapter and the last
chapter. The first chapter is made of high
resolve in the strength Of God. and the
last chapter is filled with the rewards of
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 welfare and
eternal salvation he bore a part will hear ol
it in various places and eulogize his mem
ory. 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 enthrone.
ment there will be heavenly acclamation
as in the royal balances "the Lord weigh
eth the spirits"
But if our character and behavior as
nation are reversed and good morals give
place to loose living and God is put away
from our hearts, and our schools and our
homes and our people and our literature
be debauched, and anarchism and athe.
ism have full sway. and our American
Sabbath becomes a Partisan Sabbath, and
infamous laws get place on our statute
lie. rx.1 &hA loft kA0
a joke instead Of sanctity, and the God
to whom Columbus prayed to on the day
of his landing from stormy seas and whom
Benjamin Franklin publicly reverenced
when he moved, amid derisive cries, the
regular opening of the, American Congress
with prayer, shall in our national future
be insulted and blasphemed, then it will
not be long before we will need another
Edward Gibbon to write the decline and
fall of the United States republic, and it
will not be another case of destruction by
the Goths and Huns and Tartars and Tam
erlanes and Attlas or foreign opposition
and hate, but it will be case of world as.
founding national suicide.
The wish of this sermon is to empha-
size the invisible, to show that there are
other balances besides those made of brass
and platinum and aluminium and set in
earthly storehouses; that the spirit is the
most important part of us; that the scales
which weigh your body are not as impor-
tant as the scales which weigh your soul.
Depend not too much for happiness upon
the visible. Pyrrhus was king and had
large dominion, but was determined to
make war against the Romans and Cineas,
the friend of the king, said to him, Sir,
when you have CONQUERED them what will
you do next?" "Then Sicily is near at
hand and easy to master" And what
when YOU have conquered Sicity" Then
f. fri nj
thage, which cannot long Withstand us"
"When these are conquered, what will you
next attempt" "Then we will fall in
upon Greece and Macedonia and recover
what we have lost there" "Well, when
all are subdued what fruit do you expect
the king, 1--WE will sit down and enjoy our
selves" "Sir.' said Cineas, may we not
do it now? Have you not already king
dom of your own? And he that cannot
enjoy himself with kingdom cannot with
the whole world"
I say to you who love the Lord the
kingdom is within you. Make more OF the
the world has no bushel to measure, no
steelyards to weigh AS far as possible
we should make our balances like to the
divine balances.
What a world this will be when it is
weighed after its regeneration shall have
taken place! Scientists now guess at the
number of tons our world weighs, and they
put the Apennines and the Sierra Nevadas
and Chimborazo and the Himalayas in the
scales, but if weighed as to its morals 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
hemispheres on their way through immen-
sity. But when the gospel has gardenized
the earth, as it will yet gardenize it, and
the atmosphere shall be universal balm,
and the soil shall produce universal har-
vest and fruitage, and the last cavalry
horse shall go unsaddled, and the last gun
carriage unwheeled, and the last fortress
turned into museum to show nations in
peace what horrid thing war once was,
then the world will be weighed, and as
the opposite side of the scales lifts as
though it was light as feather the right
side of the scales will come down, weigh
ing more than all else, those tremendous
values that st. Peter cuumerated-faith,
virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience,
godliness, brotherly kindness, charity.
God forbid that it should ever be writ
ten concerning us as individuals OF com.
munities or nations, as it was written on
the wall of Belshazzar's banqueting hall
the hour when Daniel impeached the mon
arch and translated the fiery words which
blanched the cheeks Of the revelers and
made them drop their chalices brimming
with wine "Thou art weighed in the bal
ances and fond wanting"