Cherokee scout. [volume] (Murphy, N.C.) 188?-1961, 1904-02-23


Now, in. trying to find some solution OF
this question, want TO say frankly that
4, cannot pretend to make the mystery all
clear, SO that it will give you ne more
trouble; because | cannot put a girdle
around the werld In forty minutes, and
alse because full solution must depend
greatly on our own dissolution. believe
also, that the man who thinks he has left
nothing Unexplained, in the mystery of
providence and life, has rather explained
nothing. I listen to him, if am in trou.
bile, and then go home and break my heart
only not cleared up the mystery, but that
he does not know enough about it to
trouble him. The "Pfincipia" and the
Single Rule of Three are alike simple and
Rule of Three And SO I cannot be sat-
Ssfed with the last words which some later
hand has added to the book that holds this
sad history, They tell us how job has all
his property doubled, to the last ass and
hamel-has seven sons again and three
daughters, has, entire satisfaction of all
his accusers, lives hundred and forty
years, sees fouf generations of his line and
then dies-satisfed.
Need I say that this solution will not
stand the test of life, and that if life, on
the average, came out SO from its most
trying ordeal, there would be little need
for our sermons. For Them; every life
would be an open; self-eontained proTi-
dence and the last page in time would vim;
dictate the first. Men do not SO live and
die; and such cannot have been the primi-
tive conclusion of the history. 1t has
deeper meaning and sublimer justifca-
ton, or it had never been inspired by the
Holy Ghost.
And this assure to- suggest itself to you
as you read the stSkS,, that JOB, in his
gained very much if h@ had not been SC i'm.
patient in coming to- the. conclusion that
God had left him, that life was mare
apple of Sodom, that he had backed UP to
great walls of fate and he had not friend
left on the earth. His soul, looking through
ems were dark. The nerve, quivering at
the gentlest touch, 1nistook the ministra-
tion of mercy for a blow. He might have
found some cool shelter for his agony; he
preferred to sit on the ashes in the burn:
ing sun. He knew net where the next
robe was to come from; this did not deter
him from tearing to shreds the robe that
was to shelter him from the keen winds.
It was a dreadful trial at the best; it was
worse for his way of meeting it; and,
when he was at once in the worst health
Rnd temper possible, he said: "Why is
flight given to man whose way is hid?"
Us not this now, as it was then, one of the
most serious mistakes that can be made?
4 try to solve great problems of provi-
Hence, perhaps, when l am SO unstrung as
tn be entirely, untitled to TOUGH their
more subtle, delicate and far reaching har=
monies. As well might you decide on some
Exquisite anthem when your organ is
broken, and conclude there is no music:
in it because you can make no music Of
it, as, in such condition of life and such
great harmonies of God. When am in
trouble, then, and darkness comes down
on me like pail, the first question ought
to be, "How much of this unbelief about
providence and life, like Cowper's sense
Pf the unpardoneble sin. comes from the,
darkness I feel in the soul, or is it on the
Windows through which the soul must
see?" Then, clear on this matter, the
pnan tried SO will endeavor to stand at the
first, where this sad hearted man stood
ar the last, in the shadow of the Almighty,
if he must stand in shadow, and hold on
to the confidence that somewhere within
all this trial is the eternal, the shadow of
a great rock IN weary land. Friends
speculate all about the mystery, and their
conclusions from their premises are entirely
correct; but they have forgotten to take
i'm the separate sovereign will Of, God, as
working out q great purpose in the mans
life, by which he is to be lifted into
grander reach of. insight and experience
than ever he had before. Job said: I
suffer, / am in darkness and disappoint-
4sais heee'ase i "a fate Jobs
friends slid: mo, you suffer because you
have shines. Rushes never grow without
mire." They were both wrong, and all
wrong. He suffered because that was the
divine way of bringing him out of his
sleek, well satisfied content; and when
through suffering this was done he said: Il
have heard OF Thee with mine ears. but
now mine eye seeth Thee"
II had never gone into darkened rooms,
where the soul stands at the parting of the
worlds; or sat down beside widows and
nh Txybn he of
eyes was taken away with a stroke. or
grasped the hands Of strong men. when
all they had toiled for was gone, nothing
left but honor; or ministered to men
mangled on the battlefield beyond all tells
ing; and heard in all these places where
darkness was on the way, melodies, melo-
dies that ] never heard among the com
monplaces of prosperity, could not be so
sure as / am that God often darkens the
way so that the melody may grow clear
and entire in the soul.
There is a story in the annals of science
touching this principle, that We cannot
struggle faithfully with these things and
leave them as we found them. Plato,
piercing here and there with his wonderful
Greek eyes:
Searching through all, he felt and saw
1 he springs Of life, the depths of awe,
To reach the law within the law"
was impressed by the suggestive beauty of
It's full meaning, but died without the
sight. A century and half after Plato,
Appolonius came, was arrested in the
same way, took up the question where
Plato left it, tried to find out its full
meanings, and died without the sight.
And so, says a fine writer. for eighteen
centuries. some of the best minds were
fascinated by this problem, drew from it
strength and discipline; and yet, in all this
time, the problem was an abstract form,
beautiful or painful speculation. It did
not open out into any harmonious prin-
ciple There was light on the thing, but no
light on the way. In the full time, Kepler
came; sat down to the study; and by what
we cali the suggestion of genius, but ought
to call the inspiration of the Almighty,
elliptical, and he died. Then Newton was
born, took up the problem where Kepler
had laid it down, made all the established
facts the base of his miEhtier labors; and,
when he had done. he lad shown that this
spellbound through the ages, is prime
element in the law of universal gravifation
lat once the most beautiful theory and
the most absolute conclusion of science.
Then men could see how it was, because.
God had made the light shine on the
thing, that the way was found. From New
ton back to Plato, in true apostolic order.
every man, bending over this mystery CT
a light where there was no way, and Wrest-
Jung faithfully with 1T, had not only grown
more noble in his own soul in the struggle,
but had done his share toward the solution
found by this greatest and last, who was
also "born under the law that they might
receive the adoption of sons"
So, j tell you, is this restless search for a
condition that shall answer to our concep-s
ton; this fascination, which compels us
the geometric certainty underlying the
apparent eceentricity. And every struggle
to find this certainty; every endeavor to
plumb the deepest causes of the discord