Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1885 — RELIGOUS MATTERS. [ARTICLE]

RELIGOUS MATTERS.

BY REV. T. C. WEBSTER.

Begin the day with prayer and meditation on divine things, it will help you through all its hours of toil. Fill a sack full of pure wheat, and there will be no room for chaff. 11 you let God fill your heart with his grace and love, -there will be no room for sin. Martin Luther was heard to say: “I have a great deal of hard work to do to-day, and I must spend a great deal of time in prayer ;” and it was said,- by those who knew him best, the more he had to do, the more time he spent in communion with the Lord* Oh! that every one would learn this lesson.. Our intellects are the gift of God, and no hand but his can brush away the mists. The human mind cannot comprehend the immensity and grandeur, of the wonderous works of the Almighty, in the realm of nature. Look, if you will, on the sun, moon and stars, as they march through the fields of light; trace the measuring line of the divine power, Which goes throughout the earth; go down to the shore of the sounding sea, and gaze with awe upon God’s wonders in the mighty deep; listen to the hymn of praise, lifted up by that mysterious main, whose goings forth are unto the ends of the earth, and whose secret chambers no eye hath seen.. Go, stand under the shadow of the great mountains, and think of the mighty power that piled the rocky mass above the clouds, and ‘-sunk their sunless 'pillars deep in the earth.” Look out over the green landscape, and see the grazing flocks, as they find pasturage upon a thousand hills: inhale the fragrance of the flowers, “bright alphabet of angels, whereby-God writes mysterious trift-hs on mountain, hill and plain:” listen to

the hum of wings and the voiee of song, warbled forth by the birds of the air; look upon the fleecy vapors of the morning as they wander like flocks in mid air, see them as they increase in power and volume, until we behold clouds of thick .darkness, and hear the trumpetings of the storm; and when the warring tempest has swept the plains of heaven with its “wild artillery,” God hangs out his how of peace upon the retiring cloud, and bids us look upon the token oi his covenant with all flesh. The air, the .water and the earth team with myriad forms of life. The systems of worlds-extends so far over the immensity of -space,- as to sweep beyond our loftiest calculations, and-stagger human thought. But as. we Come to sound the deeper and more awful mysteries of our spiritual and Immortal.being, wo pass over depths and abysses, where no measuring lines of thought or reason cam find- a shoal' or a shore.. But if these things in nature, all about us, are so fa" above our comprehension, how much more astounding a e the marvelous plans and provisions of God, in tire higher and purer realms of giace Mau was created in the-image of* the Infinite One. endowed with faculties of vast com pre-hen-ion, blest with the glorious privilege of cloudless communion with his Maker; and surrounded with every, thing to make him happy: but in the face of.all this, of his own will, and by , his own act, be forfeited this higr, estate, and became a rebel against the divine government.. Notwithstanding ■ all this, God stoops in mercy to his. vile abode, besfows'hiis best gift upon the fallen wretch, to win him back from ; siu to gives his grace to j sustain and keep -him in the way of j peace, sends his angels to guard him j in the way, and gives unto him the | Holy Spirit to lead Mm into ail truth. When lih heart is treed from sin, and bis whole being is filled with light and ; peace, he sets before him still greater' I riches of grace, and graciously invi.es him to partake of the feast of everlasting love. Oh, ■ wondrous grace! Oh, matchless love! No wonder, Paul said: i “Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard. 1 nei.her bath it entered into the heart of J man to conceivu o! the things that God hath prepared for them that love him.” And yet, blessed 'thought; we may kn >w i‘. well enough to enjoy al? tlia pur hearts arc capable of conti-inii g. and bs abundantly satisfied.