The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1901-06-06

/ Whlch IS four grains The dealer puts the
diamond or the pearl on one side of the
scales and the carat on the other. and tells
you the weight. But we need something
more dehcatelv constructed to weigh Chat
wonderful Quality of faith which am glad
to know will be recognized and rewarded
for all time and all eternity.
The earthly weighman counterpoises on
metallic balances the iron, the coal. the ar
tlcles OF human food, the solids of earthly
merchandise, but he cannot test or an
nounce the amount of things spiritual
Put also into those royal scales the am
bltlous spirit. Every healthy man and
woman has ambition. The lack of it is
sure sign of idiocv or immortality. The
only question is, What shall be the style
OF our ambition? To stack up stupen-
dous fortune, to acquire a resounding
name. to sweep everything we cam reach
INTO the whirlpool of our own selfishness-
that Is debaslng, ruinous and deathfuI. II
IN such spirit we get what we start for.
we only secure gigantic discomfort. No
man was ever made happy by what he got
1t all depends upon the spirit with which
we get it and the spirit with which we
keep 1t and the spirit with which we dis
tribute it, Not since the world stood has
there been any instance of complete hap
pluess from the amount of accumulation.
Give the man IF worldly ambition sixty
years of brilliant successes. He sought for
renown. and the nations speak his name;
he sought for affiuence, and he is put to
his wits end to find out the best stocks
and bonds in which he may make his In
vestments; he is director in enough banks
and trustee in enough institutions and
president of enough companies to bring on
paresis. of which he is now dying. The
royal balances are lifted to weigh the am
bition which has controlled him a lifetime.
What was the worth of that ambitlo1y
How much did it yield for usefulness and
heaven? Less than a scruple, less than
grain of sand. less than an atom, less than
nothing. Have a funeral a mile long with
carriages: let the richest robes of ecclesi-
astics rustic about the casket; caricature
the scene by choirs which chant BLESSED
are the dead that die in the Lord" That
mans life is failure. and if his heirs
scuffle in the Surrogate's court about the
incapacity Of the testator to make a last
will and testament it will only be pro-
longaton of the failure. The son, through
dissipation, spent his share of the fortune
before the father died. and so was cut off
with dollar; the daughter married against
his will. and she is disinherited; relatives
whom he could never bear the sight of
will put in their claim, and after years of
litigation so much of the estate as the law
yers have not appropriated to themselves
will go into hands which the testator
never once thought of when in his last
days he babe fearful farewels to the
houses and lands and government securi-
ties he could not take along with him into
the sepulcher.
l Go not know the intermediate chapters
of the volume of that young mans life,
but I know the first chapter and the last
chapter. The first chapter is made of high
resolve in the strength of God, and the
last chapter is filed with the rewards of
noble ambition As his obsequies pass out
to the cemetery the Door will weep because
thew will lose their best friend.
Many in whose temporal welfare and
eternal salvation he bore a part will hear of
it in various places and eulogize his mem
orv and God will say to the ascending
spirit, ITO him that overcometh will L
give to eat Of the tree of life. which is in
the midst of the paradise of God" In the
hour of that souls release and enthrone-
ment there will be heavenly acclamation
as in the roval balances "the Lord weigh
eth the spirits"
But if our character and behavior as
nation are reversed and good morals give
place to loose living and God is put away
from our hearts, and our schools and CIR
homes and our people and our literature
be debauched, and anarchism and athe-
ism have full sway. and our American
Sabbath becomes a Partisan Sabbath, and
infamous laws get a place on our statute
books, and the marriage relation becomes
a joke instead of a sanctity, and the God
to 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 Congress
with prayer shall in our national future
be insulted and blasphemed, then it will
not be long before we will need another
Edward Gibbon to write the decline and
fall of the United States republic. and 1t
will not be another case of destruction by
the Goths and Huns and Tartars and Tam
erlanes and Attlas or foreign opposition
and hate, but it will be a case of world as
founding national suicide.
The wish of this sermon is to empha-
size the invisible, to show that there are
other balances besides those made of brass
and platinum and aluminium and set IN
earthly storehouses: that the spirit is the
most 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 Cineas,
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 Siclty" Then
we will pass over to Africa and take Car.
thage, which cannot long withstand us.
''When these are conquered, what will you
next attempt" "Then we will fall in
upon Greece and Macedonia and recover
what we have lost there" "Well, when
all are subdued what fruit do YOU expect
from all your victories?" Chen said
the king, eve will sit down and enjoy our
selves" "Sir" said Cineas, may we not
do it now? Have you not already king
dom of your own? And he that cannot
enjoy himself with kingdom cannot with
the whole world"
say to you who love the Lord the
kingdom is within you. Make more of the
invisible conquests; study peace which
the world has no bushel to measure, no
steelyards to weigh. As far as possible
we should make our balances like to the
divine balances.
What a world this will be when it is
weighed after its regeneration shall have
taken place Scientists now guess at the
number of tons our world weighs, and they
put the Apennnes and the Sierra Nevadas
and Chimborazo and the Himalayas in the
scales. but if weighed as to its morals at
the present time in the royal balance the
heaviest things would be the wars, the