The Nevada County picayune., 1910-10-14
Enoch, Man Who
 Walked With God
By REV. C. A. s. DWIGHT. D. D.

Text t--And Enoch walked with God.l and he was not: for God took him.-~Gen.l 5:4
 |, God has many distinguished serv- ants whose dignity is all derived from their heavenly Master The names and histories of many of these. as portrayed in the Scriptures, are coupled with tell-tale epithets or brief characterizations, which have now become familiar as household words. that are significant of the peculiar aptitudes and achievements of the men to whom they are applied. Of one man in the Bible phrase is used (aprlied elsewhere to one other. Noahl which is strangely suggestive and wonderfully inspiring-for it Is said of Enoeh that he walked with God" All men, good and bad, walk in the sight of God, and all good men may be said to walk before or Tn the pres ence of God-guided by his eye. shone upon by his glory, and sur rounded by tokens of his love-but Of that primal. pre-eminent man of an early rude age it is declared that he walked with God" which must mean something very illustrious, and denote a nightly almost, if not quite. unex- ampled in the whole course of human history.
 The character of Snoch, as viewed through the heightened vistas of the varying ages, seems to shine with a pure white light almost, if not quite. unearthly. Its gleam was never light ened on man-made altars, the sheen is not dimmable by earth-horn mists or garish glare or historic contraven- tions. We cannot know just what [ were the psychologic qualities of this holy, happy man, but. we may be sure of one thing, that his character was sirgularly pure, far above that of his fellows, or the unexampled honor of walking with God" and of being translated without hint or hurt of death would never have been given to him. Be ye holy, for l am holy" must have been fulfilled in marvellous de- gree in Enoch's case. He was sinner. as were others of his contemporaries. but somehow, in close contact with the fires of the Divine holiness, the dress of his own humanity was burn- ed away so that even before he was caught aawy to paradise. he became detached from earth and filled with
 the very spirit of heaven
 Enoch walked with God it appears, as prophet. God may have revealed to him in quiet tender converse many wonderful secrets of his plans. What did Enoch see in prophecy? Who knows but that in those ecstatic 300 years there may have passed be- } fore his vision, revealed by the di- rect will and wish of Jehovah, the outlines of redemption--the coming history of the ages, exhibited as 1t , were, in an elongated panorama. all illustrating the wonders of grace and centering about the cross, whose dis
 tant gleam Enoch's quickened eyes , may have clearly seen? Paul. in a : later age, was taken up into the third l heaven - why may Enoch not have
 been granted the vision of a redeem r ed earth? We cannot saoy that 1t was ' so-but We may wonder whether such : dreams and visions did not come to } that holy and unique man.
 We are told. at any rate, in the [ epistle of Jude, of a wonderful vision l which Enoch had of the consumma- { tion of human history, when the Lord : will come with ten thousand of his
 angels to visit a dire punishment on r ungodly mein-a message which seems 9 to have been a quotation from or an 3 adaptation of. a prophecy in the Book of Enoch, which last is collection of l apochryphal stories regarding mony
 matters in nature and in life which I the chruch has declined to introduce I into the canon. and does not receive 3 as veritable Scripture. The general l truth holds good at all events that : the nearer one walks with God and l the more transparent is the moral
 nature of any believer the broader
 and grander Is the vision which such
 a one enjoys of eternal things-for in the highest ranges of Christian ex perience being is seeing.
 , There is need today for the trans
 parent, guileless, reverept. meditative
 Enoch-like type of character-a frame
 or fashion of moral being which may
 seem, indeed quite foreign to the "zeitgeist" or prevailing spirit of the
 times Yet in rushing age more. if anything. than in any other. ra men , need the close converse with their Maker to kep them poised amid so- cial agitations steadily against the , assaults of temptation. and clear
 eyed amid the whirl and ewirl of
 numbe, .ess worldly distrae .ens. 1t
 should not be thought, because Enoch lived in a simple age. that, therefore.
 he enjoyed exceptional opportunities for being religious. while in this char acteristically worldly day 1t is quite , out of the question to maintain a
 spiritual frame. The fact Is that
 Enoch lived in an age that was rude.
 riotous and coarse. wher vice was
 npant, when the sanctions of so- ! -..,, irrnlf ,rnrn Ia runlv lacking when