Woodruff County news., 1901-10-12
RELIGION EXALTED.
Dr. Talmage Draws a Sermon from
 the Words of Job.
Discourse on the Latter's Comparison of Religion and the Beautiful CrystaI-POwer of the
 Gospel,

ICopyright, 1901, by Louis Klopsch, N. VI
 Washington, Oct. 6.
 The charm of an exalted religion is by Dr. Talmage in this discourse il- lustrated and commended; text, Job, 2S:17: "The crystal cannot equal it."
 Many of the precious stones of the Bible have come to prompt recognition. But for the present 1 take up the less valuable crystal. Job, in my text, compares saving wisdom with speci- men of topaz. An infdel chemist or mineralogist would pronounce the lat
 ter worth more than the former, but Job makes an intelligent comparison, looks at religion and then looks at the crystal and pronounces the former as of far superor value to the latter, exclaiming, in the words of my text: 1.-The crystal cannot equal it."
 Now, it is not part of my sermonic design to depreciate the crystal, whether it 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 it's heaven in the dia- mond. Among all the pages of na- tural history there is no page more in- teresting to me than the page crystal lographic. But l want to show you that Job was right when, taking re- ligion in one hand and the crystal in the other, he declared that the former is of far more value and beauty than the latter, recommending it to all the people and to all ages, declaring: 1.-The crystal cannot equal it."
 In the first place, remark that re- ligion is superior to the crystal in ex- actness. That shapeless mass of crys tai against which you accidentally dashed your foot is laid out with more exactness than any earthly city. There are six styles of crystalliza tion and all of them divinely ordained. Every crystal has mathematical pre- cision. Gods geometry reaches through it, and it is a square, or it is rectangle, or it's rhombold, or in some way it has a mathematical figure. Now, religion beats that in the simple fact that spiritual accuracy is more beautiful than material accuracy. Gods attributes are exact, Gods law exact, Gods decrees exact, Gods man. agement of the world exact. Never counting wrong. though he counts the grass blades and the stars and the sands and the cycles. His Providence never dealing with us perpendicular 1y when those providences ought to be oblique, nor laterly when they ought to be vertical. Everything 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 so's" in our theology. If I thought this was sHpshod universe, I would be in de- spair. God is not an anarchist. Law, order, symmetry, precision, a perfect square, perfect rectangle, a perfect rhombold, perfect circle. The edge of Gods robe never frays out. There are no loose screws in the worlds ma chinery. It did not just happen that Napoleon was attacked with indiges- tion al Borodino so that he became in- competent for the day. It did not just happen that John Thomas, the mission ary, on heather island, waiting for an outfit and orders for another mis- sionary tour, received that outfit and those orders in a box that foated ashore, while the ship and the crew that carried the box were never heard of. l believe in a particular proyi- dence. l believe Gods geometry may be seen in all our life more beautifully than in autobiography. Job was right. "The crystal cannot equal it."
 Again I remark that religion is supe- rior to the crystal in transparency. We know not when or by whom glass was first discovered. 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 adornments made out of it 5000 years ago-those adornments found now attached to the mummies of Egypt. A great many commen- tators 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 tel escope, by which the astronomer brings distant worlds so near he can in- spect them. Oh, the triumphs of the crystals in the celebrated windows of Rouen and Salisbury! But there is nothing so transparent in a crystal as in our holy religion. It is a trans parent region. 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