Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1901-09-26
New Dlspensation of GeniaIity.

New Dispensation of GeniaIity.
My hearers, you know and | know
We are far from that state of things
But why not inaugurate a new dispen-
sation of geniality If we cannot have
a millennium on large scale, let us
have it on a small scale and under our
own vestments. Kindness II this
world is ever brought to God, that is
the thing that will do it. You cannot
fret the world up, although you may
fret the world down. You cannot scold
it into excellence or reformation or
goodness.
The east wind and the west wind
were one day talking with each other,
and the east wind said to the west
wind: Don't you wish you had my
power? Why, when | start they hail
me by storm signals all along the
coast. l can twist off ships mast
as easily as a cows hoof cracks an
alder. With one sweep of my wing
have strewn the coast from Newfound-
land to Key West with parted ship
timber. / can lift and have lifted the
Atlantic ocean. | am the terror of all
invalidism, and to fight me back for
ests must be cut down for fires, and the
mines OF continents are called on to
the nations crouch into sepulchers.
Don't you wish you had my power?"
said the east wind. The west wind
made no answer. but started on its
mission, coming somewhere out OF the
rosy bowers Of the sky, and all the
rivers and lakes and seas smiled at its
coming. The gardens bloomed, and the
orchards ripened, and the wheatfields
turned their silver into gold, and
health clapped its hands, and Joy
shouted from the hilltops, and the ma
lions lifted their foreheads into the
light, and the earth had a doxology
for the sky, and the sky an anthem for
the earth, and the warmth and sparkle
and the gladness, and the foliage, and
the flowers, and the fruits, and the
beauty, and the life were the only an
swer the west wind made to the in
science of tie east winds interroga-
ton.
And while we take this matchless
kindness from God may it be found
that we have uttered our last bitter
word, written our last cutting para
graph, done our last retaliatory action,
felt our last revengeful heart throb.
And it would not be bad epitaph for
81 hu hn of cd
this time forth we lived such benefi-
cent lives that the tombstone's chisel
could appropriately cut upon the plain
slab that marks our grave a sugges-
ton from the text, HE showed us no
little kindness" But not until the last
child Of God has got ashore from the
earthly storms that drove him on the
rocks like Mediterranean Euroclydons,
not until all the thrones of heaven are
mounted, and all the conquerors
crowned, and all the harps and trum-
pets and organs of heaven are thrum-
med or blown or sounded and the ran
somed of all climes and ages are in
full chorus under the jubilant swing of
angelic baton, and we shall for thou
sands of years have seen the river
from under the throne rolling into the
"sea of glass mingled with fire." and
this world we now inhabit shall be so
far in the past that only stretch of
celestial memory can recall that 1t ever
existed at all, not until then will we
understand what Nehemiah calls 'the
great kindness" and David calls ''the
marvellous Kindness" and Isaiah calls
''the everlasting kindness" of God.