Connecticut western news. [volume] (Salisbury, Litchfield Co., Conn.) 1871-1970, 1901-05-09


and from the highest towers have flung
tianity now, from the observatories at
Albany and Washington, stretches out
its hand toward the opposing scientific
weapon, crying, There is none like
that; give it mel" l was reading of
Herschel, who was looking at meteor
a telescope, and when it came
over the face of the telescope it was so
powerful he had to avert his eyes. And
it has been just 50 that many an as
tronomer has gone into an observatory
and looked up into the midnight heay-
ems, and the Lord God has, through
some swinging world, famed upon his
vision, and the learned man cried out:
who am 1? Undone! Unclean! Have
mercy, Lord God!'
Let Christians Travel.
Again, l remark that the travelling
disposition of the world, which was ad-
verse to morals and religion, is to be
brought on our side. The man that
went down to Jericho and fell amid
thieves was a type of a great many
travellers. There is many a man who
is very honest at home who when he
is abroad has his honor filched and his
good habits stolen. There are but very
few men who can stand the stress Of
IN expedition. Six weeks at water
ing places have ruined many a man. In
the olden times God forbade the travel
ing of men for the purposes of trade
because of the corrupting influences
it. A good many men now
cannot stand the transition from one
place to another. Some men who seem
TO be very consistent here in the way
of keeping the Sabbath when they get
into Spain on the Lords day always
go out to see the bulltights. Plato said
that no city ought to be built nearer to
the sea than ten miles lest it be tempt
ed to commerce. But this travelling dis
position of the world, which was adj
verse to that which is good, is to be
brought on our side. These mall
rains-why, they take our Bibles;
these steamers, they transport our mis-
these sailors, rushing from
city to city all around the world, are
to be converted into Christian heralds
and go out and preach Christ among
the heather nations. The gospels are
infinitely multiplied in beauty and
power since Robinson and Thompson
and Burckhardt have come back and
talked to us about Sloan and Caper-
naum and Jerusalem, pointing out to
US the lilies about which Jesus preach
ed, the beach upon which Paul was
the fords at which Jor-
dan was passed, the Red sea bank on
which were tossed the carcasses of the
drowned Egyptians. A man said: Il
went to the Holy Land an infidel
came back a Christian. / could not
help it."
1 am not shocked, as some have been,
at the building of railroads in the Ho-
ly Land. l wish that all the world
might go and see Golgotha and Bethle-
hem. How many who could not afford
muleteers now easily buy tickets from
Constantinople to Joppa. Then let
Christians travel! God speed the rail
trains and guide the steamships this
night painting across the deep in the
wake of the shining
feet of him who from wave cliff to
wave cliff bestormed Tiberius. The
Japanese come across the water and
see our civilization and examine our
Christianity and go back and tell the
story and keep that empire rocking till
Jesus shall reign
Where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run
And the firearms with which the in
f1del traveller brought down the Arab
horseman and the jackals of the des-
ert have been surrendered to the
church, and we reach forth our hand,
crying, There is none like that; give
it mep
Religion Good For All.
So 1t has also been with the learning
and eloquence of the world. People
say, Religion Is very good for aged
women, it is very good for children,
but not for men," But we have In the
roll of Christ's host Mozart and Han
del in music; Canova and Angelo in
sculpture; Raphael and Reynolds in
painting; Harvey and Boerhaave In
medicine; Cowper and Scott in poetry;
Grotius and Burke in craftsmanship;
Boyle and Leibnitz in philosophy;
Thomas Chalmers and John Mason in
theology. The most brilliant writings
of worldly nature are all aglow with
Scriptural illusions. Through senate
rial speech and through essayist's dis
course Sinai thunders and Calvary
speaks and Sloan sparkles.
Samuel L. Southland was mighty In
the courtroom and in the senate cham
Der, but he reserved his strongest elo-
quence for that day when he stood be-
fore the literary societies at Princeton
commencement and pleaded for the
grandeur of our Bible. Daniel Web
ster won not his chief garlands while
responding to Hayne nor when he open
ed the batteries of his eloquence on
Bunker Hill, that rocking Sinai of the
American Revolution, but on that day
when, in the famous Girard will case,
he showed his affection for the Chris
tian religion and eulogized the Bible.
The eloquence and the learning that
have been on the other side come over
to our side. Captured for God! There
is none like that; give 1t mev'
So, also, has it been with the picture
making of the world. We are very anx-
ious on this day to have the printing
press and the platform on the side of
Christianity, but we overlook the en-
graver's knife and the painters pencil.
The antiquarian goes and looks at pic
tured ruins or examines the chiseled
pillars of Thebes and Nineyeh and
Pompeii and then comes back to tell
us of the beastliness of ancient art,
and 1t is factnow that many of the fin
est specimens, merely artistically con-
sidered, of sculpture and painting that
are to be found amid those ruins are
not fit to be looked at, and they are
locked up. How Paul must have felt
when, standing amid those impurities
that stared on him from the walls and
The pavements and the baZaars Of Cor
NTH, he preached of the pure and holy