The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1907-01-04

royal house of harmony played day
after day. When the time came for
parting Mozart said to his little friend:
"Goodby, Princess Marie. l go now.
But when | am a grown man / will
come back and marry you" With that
Maria Theresa's daughter drew herself
up as she replied Mozart, are you a
king? Are you the son of king? am
a princess, and when l marry l must
marry a king. When | leave mammals
court as queen shall go to the court
of a king" Aye, the naughty young
princess, naughty even as child, had
set her heart upon throne. She reach
ed it. Her home was in the Tuileries.
But, oh, the suffering and the agony of
that palace! She reached the throne.
But, alas, that throne became the step
ping stone by which she mounted the
guillotine! Her lady in waiting was
changed for the executioner who touch
ed the fatal button and cut off her
head and made it the plaything of a
mob and the eXecrated object of cut
threats. oh, can it be that some of us
have set our hearts upon an earthly
throne? Like Marie Antoinette, are we
ready to mount it at any cost? Can it
be that for wealth or power or fame
we are ready to let our spiritual lives
become like the deserted farm lands of
California mesa, filed with the ser
penis of sin and the tarantulas of deg
radiation, which will sting us with the
poison of an eternal death?
Sacrificing the Higher Life.
In how many departments Of life,
alas, we see men and women who are
sacrificing the higher life and letting
their spiritual hopes go to waste and
to decay Charles Wadsworth in one
of his wonderful sermons gives a vision
Of an eastern city which was being
besieged The night before the at
tack a mighty magician changed the
whole city into stone. 'There stood
the paving war horse, with noStrils
distended, caparisoned for battle. There
stood the mailed champion ready to
spring to his seat and lay lance in
rest for the onset But, alas, the
strong arm was cold stone on the neck
of the petriied charger! There stood
the serried infantry, with armor and
plumes and DUPLICATING banners, but
each man cold, breathless, lifeless.
The eye had stony glare. Hand,
brow, lip, were frozen to marble"
When we go. through life we, too,
often find men with spiritual hearts
of stone and spiritual lips Of stone and
spiritual eyes of stone. Their spiritual
lives seem to be like the hard baked
clay of that deserted California mesa,
so hard and thick that it was an i'm
possibility to drive a stake into it to
hold down the pegs of our camp tents.
But as Charles Wadsworth saw the
changing a city into stone
may we today see Christ, by the power
Of the cross, changing the stony hearts
Of sin into the warm, loving, spiritual
hearts of Christ's disciples who are
ready to live for him and to die for
him. May we be ready to give up ev.
erything that stands between us and
Christ. Then for us indeed shall our
spiritual deserts rejoice and blossom
as the rose" 1t shall blossom abun-
dainty and rejoice even with joy and
singing. The glory of Lebanon shall
be given unto it. Carmel and Sharon
shall see the glory of the Lord and the
exceIlency of our God. Amen. So let
it be!
DOWNRIGHT. 1906 bv T,ouis E1opscb.1