The age-herald., 1902-01-19

This evening 1t will set ct o'clock ana r minutes. The day enlarges very little and the reign of sunlight is not much increased but do not despise the minute of increasing light each day of this Jan
 uary, and do not despise the fact that mora light is coming for the church and the world, though it come slowly. As we are now in this season gradually going to-
 ward the longest day of next sum mmer, so our world is moving forward toward
 the long day of emancipation and Christ | ly dominion. It may now in the state and | the church and the world be January cold, but we are on the way to July har- l vests and September orchards.
 Do not read your almanac backward Do not go out and ask the trees hung with icicles by January storm whether they will ever again blasson in May and l leaf in June. We are moving toward the
 worlds redemption. The frozen tears will
 melt the river of gladness will resume its | flow the crocus will come up at the edge l of the snowbanlS, the morning star will 1 open the door Tor the day and the armies l of the world will ground arms" all | around the world. The January of frost
 will be abolished and the balm and radi- ance of a divine atmosphere will fill the l nations. If you do not see it and hear it yourself, I think at the utmost your
 
 heavens will take part in the conflict between righteousness and sin, and that will settle 1t, and settle it aright, and settle it forever.
 In this very month of January, 16f3, two months after a great battle had been fought between the army of the king and the army of parliament shepherds and travellers between F and o'clock at night heard the battle repeated in the elri Nf c1o nf arms, the groans of dying men and then | the withdrawal of the scene into com | plete silence. These shepherds and travel l CTS repeated in the neighboring towns what they heard, and large numbers 1 of people, expecting that all was a de- l ception, went out on the following night
 and they heard the same uproar and 1 tum ult in the heavens-the two armies
 in battle. The kind hearing of this 1 seeming combat in the heavens, sent em- l bassadors to inquire Into the mystery. In
 the night they also heard the conflict
 and came back to the king and took | solemn oaths as ta this mysterious oc-
 currence.
 l Whether those shepherds and travellers 1 and ambassadors of the king were in de- 1 fusion I cannot say, but this I know 1 that the forces of God and the forces l of Satan are now in combat, the heav- | ems as well as the edTln III SLruBgle as
 to who shall win this world for bless
 edness or woe and, as the armies of God 1 are mightier than the armies diabolic,
 we know who will triumph, and we have | right to shout the victory through our l Lord Jesus Christ. The King of Kings 1 the Lord of Hosts, the God of Joshua l and Havelocs leads in the conflict. have no fear about the tremendous issue. My
 only fear is that we will not be found
 in the ranks and fully armed to do our
 part in thls campaign of the eternities. Again. I remark that the month of Jan- l uary has seen many of the most stu ] pendous events in the worlds history
 and a rocking of cradles and the dig 1 ging of graves that have affected nations | In this month American independence was declared followed by Lexington and l Bunker Hill and Monmouth and Valley l Forge and Yorktown. January saw the l proclamation that abolished American slavery. Though at the time there were 1 two mighty opinions and they were ex- ] actly opposed-those who liked the doc ument and those who disliked it-there Is but one opinion now, and if 1t were put to vote in all the States of the South
 Shall slavery be reinstated?' there l would be an overwhelming vote of ''Now | The pen with which the document was
 signed and the inlkstand which contained the ink are relics are sacred and valua-
 ble as the original Declaration of Inde-
 pendence, with all it's ensures and in-
 terlineations. The institution which for
 seventy or eighty years kept the nation
 in angry controversy has disappeared,
 and nothing is left to fight about The
 North and the South today are in as com plete accord as ever were flute and cor
 net in the same orchestra. The North
 has built it's factories on the banks of the Chattahoochee and the Roanoke, and the South has sent many of its ablest l attorneys into our Northern courtnouses,
 its most slillful physicians into our sick
 rooms, its wisest bankers into our ex-
 changes its most consecrated ministers
 into our pulpits-all this the result of
 the proclamation of January 1, 1863.
 Birthdays of Great Men.
 l Furthermore. notice that January has been honored with the nativity of some of 1 the greatest among the nations. Edmund l Burke was born this month, the marvel
 and glory of the legal world; Fenelon of the religious world, Benjamin Franklin
 of the philosophic world, William H.
 Prescott of the historic world. Sir John 1 Moore of the military world, Robert Burns of the poetic world, Polycarp of the martyr world the Peter the Great
 of the kingly world, Chrysostom of the sacred rhetoric world. Daniel Webster of the statesman world.
 1 In this month, at Hampton court, 1904.
 a new translation of the Holy Bible was 1 ordered. There were Bibles of all kinds | abroad, some of them translations from Hebrew and Greek by incompete ent men, and the church and the world cried out for a Bible translated by a group of the good and the learned. King James dis liked the Bibles abroad and appointed a commission of fifty-four men, afterward reduced to forty-seven. Those men pre- sented the world with a Bible that held mighty sway among the nations for more than 250 years the revision of the Bible thirty years ago being founded on that revision, which began under King James of 1904 The old translation, made more than two and half centuries ago, sus- tained the martyrs in the fire, illumined the homesteads of many generations, was the book that was read aloud at the em- barkation of the forefathers from Delft Haven, cheered the weary voyagers on the Mayfower, comforted them in the wilds of America. was the book on which the first American Congress as we'll as the last, took the oath, and with which all the Presidents of the United States have solemnized their entrance into of- flee, is the book that has advanced the worlds civilization as no other book ever could and which now lies on the table of more homes than any book that was ever printed since Johann Gutenberg bor- rowed money of Martin Brother and John Faust to complete the art of printing What a January in the worlds history the January that gave the ages book like that!