The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-03-23

strains us for wise ends, and If 1t loses
its hold on mankind, the bounded waters
shall lift their bosoms higher than their
shores, and make a sop OF all this solid
globe. Strength shall be lord of i'm
beciity, and the rude son would strike
his father dead. Force shall be right. or
rather right and wrong, between whose
endless foe justice resides). shall lose
their names, and so would justice, too.
Then every thing includes itself in pow
err, power into will, will into appetite;
and appetite, an universal wolf, so doubly
seconded with will and power, must make
perforce an universal prey. and lost eat
up himself.
II wish to call attention to the pow
CTS this man lost The first is the power
in words. There is certain use Of Ian
guage where nothing is required more
than an intelligent placing Of words and
they carry their own meaning; there is
d certain other use of language where the
words depend upon the very hearts blood
OF the one who speaks them. In this
latter sense a man and his words are
things apart, and 1t matters not how
clear may be the speech the purpose of
the speaking will not be accomplished
until the one enters into the other. The
message Lot was to deliver was simple,
clear and Ineligible, yet II failed utter
ly of accomplishing the end for which
II was aimed. Words make the medium
by which that which is all clear In one
mind becomes clear to some other mind
where there Is darkness; but there is
this stfangeness about them, that 1t mat
tiers not how well they may be chosen
and spoken, sometimes they fail of maxi
ing things understood. In the first chap
ter of Johns Gospel Christ is spoken Of
as the Word and Faith. There was
scheme In the mind of God whereby He
would save the race, and He wrote the
word understood by man. God puts Him
self into the word, and the power of the
gospel is not that it makes known the
most beautiful life. but that God was In
human form as sacrifice for sin. That
gives the gospel a power that no other
teaching has. A chemist may hold be-
fore your eyes two vessels containing per-
fectly transparent fluids; he pours the
one into the other and Immediately
precipitate is formed before your eyes,
something that gives coloring. So there
is something in His words. something
of the man himself that makes them
glow with a warmth and sink into the
understanding with a weight that is lr-
resistable. In the early history Of this
country, when brave men hesitated be-
cause uncertain of the issue of their
deeds, there rose on one occasion an old
man who said: There Is a tide I'm the af-
fairs of men which when taken at Its
food leads on to fortune. Such time is
upon us now; he who will not subscribe
to that document before us, which insures
immortality to its author, is unworthy
the name of freeman. As to myself. OF
property, | have some. of reputation |
have more; that property is pledged and
that reputation is staked on the success
of this issue And though / know these
grey hairs must soon descend to the sep
ulcher, / would infinitely rat'er for them
tc descend thither at the nand of the
executioner than to desert my country at
this sacred hour 1t was not the speech
alone. but the man and the speech In
Continued on Sixth Paae).