The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-05-28

NaC Sn1AL uVNS VI ~ INV u
right given on Mount Sinai and the Law
OF love given on the Mount of Beatitudes.
oae day out Of the week observed not in
reveiry, but in holy ~convocation, mar
riage honored in ceremony and in fact,
blasphemy silenced in all the streets, high
toned systems OF morals in all parts OF
our land, then our institutions will live,
and all the wondrous properties Of the
present are only 4 faint hint Of the
greater properties TO come. Richer har-
vests will rustic in the fields, n higher
style OF literature will turn its leaves in
our Libraries, nobler men will adorn our
state and national legislatures, and there
will be Washingtons and Hamiltons and
Patrick Henrys and John Marshalls and
Abraham Lincolns in the future quite
equa to those Of the past And the last
day Of the worlds existence will find
our free American institutions permanent
as the mountains before they begin to
fail n glorious as the seas before they
begin to die.
Keep the National Life Pure.
But if our character and behavior as o
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 atheism
have full sway and our American Sab
bath becomes a Partisan Sabbath and
Infamous laws get a place On our statute
books and the marriage relation becomes
q joke instead of a s~anctity and the GOO
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 con
gress with prayer shall in our national
future be insulted and blasphemed, ther
it will not be long before we will need
another Edward Gibbon to write the de
cline and fall of the United States re-
public, n it will not be another case Of
destruction by the Goths and Huns and
Tartars and Tamerlanes and Attilas OF
foreign opposition and hate, but it will
be a case Of world astounding national
suicide.
The wish Of this sermon is to empha
size the invisible-to show that there are
other balances besides those of brass and
platinum and aluminium and set in earth.
ly storehouses; that the spirit is the mos,
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 Gin
cas-, 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
Sicily?" Then we will pass over t.
Africa and take Carthage. which cannni
long withstand u.s." when these are
conquered, what will you next attempt?'
"Then we will fall in upon Greece and
Macedonia and recover what we AVE LOST
there" well, when all are subdued
what fruit do you expect from all you:
victories?" Then" said the king, ave
will sit dow and enjoy ourselves" "Sir,'
said Cineas. may we not do it now:
Have o not already a kingdom Of YOU
own, and he that cannot enjoy himsel.
with a kingdom cannot with the whole
world" I say to you who love the Lord
the kingdom is within you; make more OF
the invisible conquests. Study a peac.
which the world has no bushel to meas
ure, 10 steelyards to weigh. AS far as
possible we should make our balances like
to the divine balances.
The Uniform
By joint resolution Of congress-, in 1896
the treasurer of the United States was
ordered to send a complete set Of the
standard weights and measures adopted
by the national government to the gov
errors Of all the states, so that there
might be uniformity and accuracy, and
that distribution was made. So, now.
the Ruler of earth and heaven, having es.
tablished forever the right standard
sends to us all and to all people a copy Of
that standard-the standard by which
"the Lord ~weigheth the spirits"
What a world this will be when it Is
weighed after it's 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 C~himborazo and the Hima
layas in the scales. But if weighed as t.
its morals at the present time in the roya
balance the heaviest things would be the
wars, the international hatreds, the
crimes mountain high. the moral disas
tiers that stagger the hemispheres on their
way through immensely. But when the
gospel has g~ardenized the earth, as it will
yet gardenize it. and the atmospher,
shall be universal balm and the soil viii
produce universal harvest and fruitagt
and the last cavalry horse shall be unsad
died and the last gun carriage unwheel
| ed and the last fortress turned into a mu
scum to show nations in peace what
| horrid thing war once was, then thu
world will be weighed, and as the oppo
site side Of the scales lifts as though il
was light as a feather the right side Of
the scales will come down. weighing NOR.
than all else those tremendous value:
that st. Peter enumerated-faith. virtue
knowledge, temperance, patience, godli
ness, brotherly kindness. charity.
God forbid that it should ever be writ
ten concerning US as individuals or com
munities or nations as it was written OF
the wall OF Belshazzar's banqueting hal
the hour when Daniel impeached th'
monarch and translated the fiery word!
which blanched the cheeks of the ~reveler.
and made them drop their chalices brin
ming with wine. Thou art weighed il
the balances and found wanting"
Copyright. 1901, by Louis Klopsch. n. VI