ea a torch; and while
the Alps, the Pyrenees, and Himalayas turn into a live coal, blown
redder and redder by the whirlwind breath of a God omnipotent, what
will become of your refuge of lies?
"But," says some one, "you are engaged in a very mean business,
driving us from tower to tower." Oh, no. I want to tell you of a
Gibraltar that never has been and never will be taken; of a wall that
no satanic assault can scale; of a bulwark that the judgment
earthquakes can not budge. The Bible refers to it when it says: "In
God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting arms." Oh,
fling yourself into it! Tread down unceremoniously everything that
intercepts you. Wedge your way there. There are enough hounds of death
and peril after you to make you hurry. Many a man has perished just
outside the tower, with his foot on the step, with his hand on the
latch. Oh, get inside! Not one surplus second have you to spare.
Quick, quick, quick!
Great God, is life such an uncertain thing? If I bear a little too
hard with my right foot on the earth, does it break through into the
grave? Is this world, which swings at the speed of thousands of miles
an hour around the sun, going with tenfold more speed toward the
judgment-day? Oh, I am overborne with the thought; and in the
conclusion I cry to one and I cry to the other: "Oh, time! Oh,
eternity! Oh, the dead! Oh, the judgment-day! Oh, Jesus! Oh, God!"
But, catching at the last apostrophe, I feel that I have something to
hold on to: for "in God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the
everlasting arms." And, exhausted with my failure to save myself, I
throw my whole weight of body, mind, and soul on this divine promise,
as a weary child throws itself into the arms of its mother; as a
wounded soldier throws himself on the hospital pillow; as a pursued
man throws himself into the refuge; for "in God is thy refuge, and
underneath thee are the everlasting arms." Oh, for a flood of tears
with which to express the joy of this eternal rescue!
ALL THE WORLD AKIN.
"And hath made of one blood all nations of men."--ACTS xvii: 26.
Some have supposed that God originally made an Asiatic Adam and a
European Adam and an African Adam and an American Adam, but that
theory is entirely overthrown by my text, which says that all nations
are blood relatives, having sprung from one and the same stock. A
difference in climate makes much of the difference in national temper.
An A
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