The Farmville herald. [volume] (Farmville, Va.) 1890-1934, 1901-09-06

/ lNuuUtI. nt WHICH - now
quite well explained by the electri-
clans, was the overpowering mystery
Of the ancients, and standing among
those mysteries Job exclaimed: "Lo,
these are parts of His ways. But how
little a portion is heard of Him?
SO, also, all systems of theology
try TO tell us what is omnipresence-
that is, Gods capacity to be every
where at the same time. "Where is
God?" said a heather philosopher to
a Christian man. The Christian an
swered: Let me first ask you where
He Is not?" The child had il right
when asked how many Gods are there
and he answered: "One." "How do
you know that?" he was asked again.
He answered.; "There is only room
for one, for He fills earth and Heay-
en-" An author says that if a man
were set in the highest heavens he
would not be any nearer the essence
of God than il he were in the center
of the earth. I believe IL. II this
Divine essence does not reach all
places, what use in our prayer, for
prayers are being offered to God on
the other side of the earth as well as
here. and God must be there and here
TO take supplications which are of
fered thousands of miles apart.
Ubiquityl No one has il but God.
And what an alarm TO wickedness, an
everywhere present Lord, and what a
reinforcement when we need helpl
God on the throne and God with the
kneeling child saying its evening
prayer at his mothers lap. God
above you, God beneath you. God on
the right of you, God on the left of
you, God within you. No pantheism,
for that teaches that all things are
God, but Jehovah possesses all things,
as our souls possess our bodies. God
at the diameter and circumference OF
everything, as close to you as the
food you put to your lips, as the coat
you put upon your back, as the sum
light that shines in your face. APP
probation of that, if through Jesus
AHIiHis lHt hAOniuh DhNiDhAf We oAC
right with God. ought to give us
serenity, a tranquility, that nothing
could upset. Would 1t make us
gloomy? No, for God is the God OF
Joy and will augment our happiness.
God in full possession of us is a
thought out of which you ought to
make anthems and entwine garlands
and kindle Examinations.
So every system of theology has
attempted to describe and define the
Divine attribute of love. Easy
enough is 1t to define fatherly love,
motherly love, conjugal love, frater-
nal love, sisterly love and love of
country, but the love of God defes
all vocabulary. For many hundreds
of years poets have tried to sing 1t
and painters have tried TO sketch it,
and ministers of the Gospel to preach
it and martyrs in the fire and Chris
tians on their deathbeds have ex-
tolled it, and we can tell what it is
like. but no one has yet fully told
what IL is.
Only glimpses of God have we in
this world, but what an hour it will
be when we first see Him, and we will
have no more fright than | feel when
now see you. 1t will not be with
mortal eye that we will behold Him,
but with the vision of a cleansed. for
given and perfected spirit. OF all the
auintilion ages of eternity to us the
most thrilling hour will be the first
hour when we meet Him as He is.
This may account for something you
have all seen and may not have un-
derstood. Have you not noticed that
after death the old Christian looks
young again or the features resume
the look of 20 or 30 years before?
The WEAKNESS is gone out of the face;
there is something strikingly restful
and placid; there is a pleased look
where before there was a disturbed
look What has wrought the change?
think the dying Christian saw God.
At the moment the soul left the body
what the soul saw left its impression
on the countenance. l think that is
what gave that old Christian face
after death the radiant and triumph
ant look. The bestormed spirit has
reached the harbor; the hard battle
of life is ended in victory. The body
took that look the moment Heaven |
began. and the curtain was completely
lifted and the glories of Jehovah's
presence rushed upon the soul. The
departing spirit left on the old mans
face a glad good-by, and that first
look gave the pleased curve TO the dy-
ing lips and smoothed out the wrin-
kles and touched all the lineaments
with an indescribable radiance.
Last summer we journeyed thou
sands of miles TO see the midnight sun
from North Cape, Norway. We stood
on deck in the arctic seas, our watches
in our hands, and il was II o'clock /
a night, but light as an ordinary
MONDAY Then it was half past IL
o'clock at night. then it was Is min
utes OF 70, but a long, wide, thick
cloud hung over the sun. Are we to
be disappointed as thousands have
been and the journey here a failure? }
Ten minutes OF -, and the sun is still |
hidden. But about five minutes OF ~
the cloud lifted. and the midnight sun,
the most wondrous spectacle of all
the earth, appeared, pouring forth a
refulgence that turned the arctic sea
into 20 miles Of pearls and rubies and
ain-nnnds and emeralds and Overpnw-