The age-herald., 1901-12-15

message of pathos and tragedy for both beaches! In one storm eighty fishermen perished off the coast of Newfoundland and whole fleets of them off the coast of England. God help the poor fellows at sea and give high seats in heaven to the Grace Darllngs and the Ida Lewises and the lifeboat men lowering around Good win sands and the Skerriesl The sea, owning three-fourts of the earth. pro- poses to capture the other fourth and is bombarding the land all around the earth. The moving of the hotels at Brighton Beach backward 100 yards from where they once stood, a type of what is going on all around the world and on every coast The Dear sea rolls today where ancient cities stood. Pillars of temples that stood on hills, geologists now find three-quarters under the water or altogether submerged. The sea, hay ing wrecked so many merchantmen and fotillas, wants to wreck the continents. and hence disastrous oceanic. Also for Galveston and other cities almost drown ed!
 A Wealth of Blessings.
 Look at the disasters epidemic. I speak not of the plague in the fourth century that ravaged Europe and in Moscow and the Neapolitan dominions and Marseiiles
  century, but I look at the yellow levers and the choleras and the diphtherias and the scarlet levers and the typhoids of our time From Hurdwar, India, where every twelfth year 100000 devotees congregate the caravans brought the cholera, and that one disease slew 11S000 in eighteen days in Bossorah. Twelve thousand in one summer slain by 1t in India and 25.000 in Egypt. Disasters epidemic. Some of the finest monuments In Greenwood and Laurel Hill and Mount Auburn are to doctors who lost their lives battling with southern epidemic.
 But now I turn the leaf in my subject and I plant the white lilies and the palm tree amid the nightshades and the myr- tie. This age no more characterized by wonders of disaster than by wonders of blessing-blessing of longevity; the aver age of human life rapidly increasing. Forty years new worth 400 years once. Now I can travel from Manitoba to New York in less than three days. In other times 1t would have taken three months In other words. three days now are worth three months of other days. The average of human life practically great CT now than when Noah lived with his $50 years, and Methuselah lived his 969 years.
 Blessings of intelligence: The Salmon P. Glasses and the Abraham Lincolns and the Henry Wilson's of the coming time will not be required to learn to read by pine knots or seated on shoemakers s bench, nor will the Fergusons have to study astronomy while watching the cat tie. Knowledge rolls it's ideas along every poor mans door. and his children may go down and bathe in them. If the philoso- phers of hundred years ago were called f1n fn n hnVG and girls, those old philosophers would be sent down to the foot of the class be- cause they failed to answer the ques- tiopsl Free libraries in all the important towns and cities of the land. Historical alcoves and poetical shelves and mag azine tables for all who desire to walk through them or sit down at them.
 InfideIlty DwndIlns.
 Blessings of quick information: News papers falling all around us thick as leaves in September equinoctial. News three days old rancid and stale. We see the whole world twice day-through the newspaper at the breakfast table and through the newspaper at the tea table, with an extra here and there be- tween.
 Blessing of gospel proclaim alton: Do you not know that nearly all the mis-
 
 hundred years and nearly all the Bible societies and nearly all the great philan- thropic movements? Christianity is on the march, while infidelity is dwindling into imbecility. While infidelity Is thus dwindling the wheel of Christianity is making about thousand revolutions in a minute. All the copies of Shakespeare and Tennyson and Disraeli and of any ten of the most popular writers of the day less in number than the copies of the Bible going out from our printing presses A few years ago in six weeks more than 100000 copies of the New Testament purchased-not given away, but pur- chased, because the world will have it. The most popular book today is the Bible, and the mightiest institution is the church, and the greatest name among the nations and more honored than any Is the name of Jesus.
 Wonders of self-sacrifice. A clergyman told me in the Northwest that for six years he was a missionary at the extreme North, living 400 miles from a postoffice and sometimes the thermometer 40 de- grees below zero, he slept out of doors in winter, wrapped in rabbit skins woven together. I said: "Is 1t possible? You do not mean 40 degrees below zero?' He said. 'I do. and I was happy" All for Christi Where is there any other being that will rally such enthusiasm? Mothers sewing their fingers off to educate their boys for the gospel ministry. For nine years no luxury on the table until the course through grammar school and col lege and theological seminary be opm- pleted. Poor widow putting her mite into the Lords treasury, the face of emperor or President impressed upon the coin not so conspicuous as the blood with which she earned 1t. Millions of good men and women, but more women than men, to Ehom Christ Is everything Christ first and Christ last and Christ forever.
 Why, this age is not so characterized by invention and scientific exploration as 1t Is by gospel proclamation. You can get no idea of 1t unless you can ring all the church bells in one chime and sound all the organs in one dispason and gather all the congregations of Christen- dom in one "Glora In Excelsis." Mighty camp meetings! Mighty Ocean Groves! Mighty Chautauquas! Mighty conventions of Christian workers! Mighty general as- semblies of the Presbyterian church. Mighty conferences of the Methodist church! Mighty associations of the Bap- tist church! Mighty conventions of the Episcopal church! There may be many years of hard work yet before the con summation, but the signs are to me so encouraging that would not be unbe- lieving if saw the wing of the apocalyp- tic angel spread for its last triumphal flight in this days sunset or if tomorrow morning the ocean cables should thrill us with the news that Christ the Lord had alighted on Mount Olivet to proclaim uni- versal domination.
 The Divine Purpose.
 All dead churches. wake upl Throw Lack the shutters of stiff ecclesiasticism