St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1901-01-26

go on and down. There are in many
lives riddles that have never been solved
mysteries that have never been ex.
planned, heartbreaks that have never
been healed. Go to that man or that
woman with philosophic explanation
and you will make matters worse in
stead of making them better. But let
the oceanic tide of the text roll in that
soul. and all its worriments and losses
and disasters will be submerged with
blessing, and the sufferer will say: 81
cannot understand the reason for my
troubles. but I will some day under
stand. And they do not come by acci.
dent. God allows them to come, and
God is love-"
But for this divine feeling I think
our world would long ago have been
demolished. Just think of the organ
lied wickedness of the nations! See
the denominations continental. Behold
the false religions that hoist Moham-
med and Buddha and Confucius! Look
at the Koran and the Shastra and the
Zend-Avesta that would crowd out of
the world the Holy Scriptures! Look
at war, digging its trenches for the
dead across the hemispheres! See the
great cities, with their holocaust of
destroyed manhood and womanhood! !!
What blasphemies assail the heavens.
What butcheries sicken the centuries!
What professions of crime and atrocity
and woe encircle the globe. If justice
had spoken, it would have said: "The
world deserves humiliation, and let
humiliation come" If immutability
had spoken, it would have said: Il have
always been opposed to wickedness and
always will be opposed to it. The world
is to me an affroEt infinite, and away
with it." If omniscience had spoken,
it would have said: Il have watched
that planet with minute and compre-
hensive inspection, and / cannot have
the offense longer continued" ftruth
had spoken, it would have said: Il de-
clare that they who offend, the law
must go down under the law" But di-
vine love took different view of the
worlds obduracy and pollution. 1t
said: Il pity all those woes of the
earth. / cannot stand here and see
no assuagement of those sufferings. ]
will 60 down and reform the world.
its frenzy. l will wash off its pollu-
tion. / will become incarnated. i will
take on my shoulders and upon my
brow and into my heart the conse-
quences of the worlds misbehavior.
start now, and between my arrival at
Bethlehem and my ascent from Olivet
| will weep their tears and suffer their
griefs and die their death. Farewell.
my throne, my crown, my scepter, my
angelic environment, my Heaven. till
/ have finished the work and come
back!" God was never conquered but
once, and that was when He was con-
quered by His own love. God is love-"
In this day, when the creeds of
churches are being revised. let more
emphasis be put upon the thought of
my text. Let it appear at the beginning
of every. creed and at the close. The
ancients used to tell Of great mill
tary chieftain who, about to go to bat
tie. was clad in armor, helmet on head
and sword at side, and who put out
his arms to give farewell embrace to
his child, and the child, affrighted at
his appearance, ran, shrieking. away.
Then the father put off the armor that
caused the alarm, and the child saw
who he was and ran into his arms and
snuggied against his heart. Creeds
must not have too much iron in their
make up, terrorizing rather than at
tracing. They must not hide the smil-
ing face and the warm heart of our
Father, God. Let nothing imply that
there is a sheriff at every door ready to
make arrest. but over us all and around
us all mercy that wants to save. and
save now.
If one paragraph of the creed seems
to take you, like child, out of the
arms of a father, let the next paragraph
put you in the arms of mother "As
one whom his mother comforteth, so
will l comfort you" Oh. what a
mother we have in God! And my text
is the lullaby song to us when we are
i'll. or when we are maltreated. or when
we are weary, or when we are trying
to 90 better, or when we are bereft.
or when we ourselves lie down to the
last sleep. We feel the warm cheek
of the mother against our cheek, and
there sounds in it the hush of many
mothers: God is love-"
This was the reason the Bible was
written. The world needs no inspired
page to tell it that God will chastise
sin. for that is proved in the life Of
many an offender. You can lock
through the wicket of any prison and
see the fact which the world under
stood thousands of years before Solo
mon wrote it: THE way of the trans
gressor is hard" The world needed
no Bible to tell it that God is omnipo-
tent. for anyone who has seen Mont
Blanc or Niagara or the Atlantic ocean
needed no Bible to tell it Of Gods wis
dom. for everything. from spiders
web to the upholstery of summer's
sunset. from the globe of a dewdrop
to the rounding of world. declares
that. But there was one secret about
God that was wrapped up in scroll of
parchment, and it staid there until
apostolic hand unrolled that scroll
and let out upon the world the start
ling fact, which it could never have
surmised, never guessed. never expect
ed. that He loved our human race Sd
ardently that He will pardon sin and
subdue the offender with Divine kiss
and turn foaming malefactors into
before the throne. Oh. /
am SO glad that the secret is out and
that ii can never again be veiled. Tell
it to all the SHINING. suffering. dying
race; tell it in song and sermon, on can
vas and in marble, on arch and pillar;
tell it all around the earth-"God is
love-"
Notice that the wisest men of the ma
tions for thousands of years did not,
amid their idolatries, make something
to represent this feeling, this emotion.
They had Jove, representing might;
Neptune. the god of the sea; Minerva,