River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1909-08-05

fame upon the
earth. Let us
make us a name" expresses their pur-
pose in building both city and tower.
The expression unto Heaven" does
not mean Unto Heaven" Whose top
may touch the sky" expresses the
meaning. In our modern speech we
would say a "skyscraper." The same
thought is expressed in Deut. 1928,
when the cities of the Canaanites are
said to have been great and walled
up to heaven" Their walls were SKY
scrapers."
The iniquity of this city and tower
building was in the fact that they
built only for themselves. Let US
make US a name, lest WE be scat
tered" gives the motive which reveals
the moral quality of the purpose.
They would, like Cain, build city
and a civilization without altar or
temple. They would eliminate God.
They are self-centered, self-sufficient
and self-satisfied.
But God will not be left out He
thrusts himself upon nations, COM
munities and individuals who would
leave him out of their lives and plans.
1.-THE Lord came down to see the city
and the tower which the children of
men builded" They would erect
monuments to man, but no temple to
God. Humanity was their God. Their
creed was that man is the highest ex-
preston of God and, therefore, needs
no other god. They deified self. But
God will not be ignored
He saw the evil which would re-
suit from their self-deifying course
and struck the note of warning. "This
they begin to do and now nothing
will be restrained from them which
they have imagined to do" Evil, if
left alone, will grow worse and worse.
Imagination" says Napoleon, rules
the world and evil imagination is
mighty power against God and right
eousness. To let sin alone is to Gull
tivate it. 1t is wild weed which
grows without attention. 1t is fire
which, once started, is hard to put
out.
1.-THE Lord did there confound the
language of all the earth" When
men leave God out of their thoughts
and plans his method is to confound
their language and thus break up
their federation of unbelief. The in
fidelity of one age destroys the in
fidelity of another age. A few years
ago agnosticism was popular in the
world of unbelief now it is almost ex-
tinct, destroyed by another cult of UNI
belief, which asserts that everybody
can easily know God, for everything
is God. When a new infidel fad arises
in any quarter, you only have to wait
awhile to see another infidel fad arise
and destroy it. Babel builders of all
ages are thus COMPOUNDED in language
and scattered. The selfish ambition
of one soon conflicts with the self-in-
terest of another and the result is
alienation. Self-seeking brings con-
fusion. 1t leads to misunderstanding
and divisions.
We are all building babels or tenn
pies. A temple is a structure built for
God, dedicated to God in every part
and used only for God. A Babel is a
structure built for self, dedicated to
self and used for self. Is our BUSH
ness a temple for God or a babel for
self? Is our home temple or ba-
bel? Is our single purpose to glorify
Christ or would we like to share the
glory with him? Is it, then, half tenn
pie and half Babel we are building?
May these questions search our hearts
in such a way as to result in every
life's becoming a temple for God
Napoleon III. of France decided that
Rosa Bonheur, the famous painter of
animals, was worthy Of the cross of
the Legion of Honor, but he hesitated
about giving it, for no other woman
had been thus honored One day the
empress visited Rosa in her studio
and found her in soiled working garb,
no little embarrassed by this sudden
appearance of royalty in her work
shop, and the embarrassment was in
creased when the empress gave her an
affectionate kiss. But after the en-
press had departed, imagine the sur
prise of the artist when she saw,
pinned on her soiled jacket the cross
of the Legion of Honor. 1t came when
she was busy with her routine duties,
doing the next thing the best she
could. And so Gods "well done"
comes to the humblest of his servants
while they are busy with the hum
drum work of carving stones out of
daily duties and placing them in Lies