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VOL. LXXXVII. R1CHMON!
A Visior
Once we were but the sport of every wind,
Of every wave, of every circumstance,
And wild uncertainty of wanton chance,
A feeble reason and a fettered mind.
And yet there came into the darkened soul
A vision here, a vision there, anon,
That lo! a coming victory would be won.
The haven of an unexpected goal.
From whence the dream? Perchance we may not
tell.
For in the land ot dreams what friendly guide.
What minister of wisdom, may abide
The timely magic of a mystic spell.
To lead the Race where destiny aspires
Forever from the clod to cleave the sky,
That when the ages shall have journeyed by
The soul shall kindle with celestial ilres.
They know no height who have not seen before,
And have not sounded the abysmal deep;
Who have not labored up the rugged steep,
And hold tho toil in memories of yore.
A vision came in some prophetic hour;
A sudden light that flashed upon the way;
A star that heralded a better day;
A gift of wisdom and a birth of power.
And thus we spurned fhe prehistoric gloom;
The cavern den; the rude, unpolished guise;
Inhuman manners and ferocious cries;
The deep despair and elemental doom.
For out of darkness rose the golden sun
Of universal knowledge, and the hour.
The day, the age of intellectual power,
Of Hr,?vo " 1 V. - J .
? - ..wFu nun aoi/iiailUU, X1UU UUgllll.
The Pre-eminent Roy;
BY T1IF RKV. H KNR>
History has the story of many victorious monarch
8, and the vast empires under their control.
Kgypt was palpably conspicuous under the Pharnnlio
ai il __ i ?'
:v,.,a ui me t'igiiweuui una me mnetccntli uy"asty,
to the latter of which belonged Rameses 11,
'he masterful Pharoah of Hebrew oppression.
A half millennium later we have the mighty conquerors
of Assyria, Sargon and Sennacherib; and
? quarter millennium thereafter Nebuchadnezzar
brings Babylon triumphantly to the forefront of
nations. A succeeding world-power is that of
Persia; and conspicuous among her rulers are
Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes. Persia ultimately
submitted to the Macedonian phalanxes led by
Alexander; and Macedon, with much of the territory
mastered by Alexander, came eventually
11 ?? .1 _ _ i%
" MitM- the dominance of Home. From Charlemagne,
A. D. 800, we date the widely extended
?nd long continued Western Empire; and in our
(nvn day the boast is made that the sun never
on tin* possessions of England, and that the
"rum beat of her martial forces is heard around
the world.
D. NEW ORLEANS, ATLANTA, SEPTI
1 ^
And yet to you and me the vision lends
Rut a brief hour from out tho infinite,
The wider range, the persevering flight
Of time, and then the troubled journey ends.
It ends for us beneath the setting sun;
Anrl thhn tho nio-ht ononoo on/1 thon WA Co ??
...... ? ??/ v vmouvo, uti\t tuca nc taic
'Tis but an idle question bow or where
When we may trust the larger life begun.
Yea, in the wider confidence we deem
That all the pathos of this fleeting life,
The bitter anguish, the unceasing strife.
Is but the portal of a brighter dream.
There is no night so dark but tbat the sky
Beyond the curtain of a melting cloud.
And life beyond a momentary shroud.
Expands in vast and glorious majesty.
And thus my soul expands beyond the bar
Of unavailing time and spurns the earth,
The transient cradle of a nobler birth
That in a wider world shall wend afar.
Nor limits of an incidental time.
Nor bonds of incompleteness, bar its flight;
Beyond the stars there never comes the night
To nmr the glory of the world sublime.
Ah, blessed be the vision and the day
When we can hearken to that wondrous lore,
That vanished loved ones, who have gone before,
Have only hastened from the world away.
Though near or far our listening hearts may hear
The dulcet tones of tenderness and love,
And there are many mysteries which prove
mm ins me ueauuiui, me neaven, id near.
alty of Jesus My Lord
t" T. STROLL, I), i).
(J rent were these empires and kingdoms, and
eoimnendably conspicuous their best rulers; but
far greater and far more enduring the kingdom
of .lesus my Lord. He had a people of his own
possession before Barneses II was enthroned; the
present boundaries of His kingdom on earth are
now greater than those of any historic worldpower:
and the honored sovereign of Great Britain
and Ireland is professedly a subject of Christ
Jesus, and confessedly holds his throne Del grali.i.
Jesus my Lord is the rightful and regnant King
of kings: and his dominion is predestined to Ik.
world-wide, and age-long. To Him the heathen
have been given for an inheritance, and the uttei most
parts of the earth for His possession; and
the time cometh when "all kings shall fall down
before Him, and all nations shall serve Him.'!
But this earthly dominion is only a very email
part of ITis realm. Jules Verne makes one of
his characters go: Around the World in Eighty
Days. It was subsequently circled hy Miss Nelly
Rly m about 72 days. In 1907 Lieutenant Colonel
Burnley made the circuit in 40 days, 19 1-2 hours.
t^c-c: 7TOA/P>of= <?L\/-7-rr>/A 1
' w / uru V 9 /IL.WU/ f lm
il Presbyter/an <
hern pres&yte/pm/*
tMBER 24. 1913. NO. 3&- 3 j
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amin C. ">aw
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I saw a mount of glory, and, alou ^
A godlike form who gathered in ?* *t hour
Unto himself the majesty of power,
And sat unchallenged on a royal throne.
Below there rolled the elemental strife
Athwart a weary world, that languisheth
Beneath a shadow that is whispered, "Death!"
But He who sat the golden throne was Life.
The shadow passeth, yet the ages flow
Along the lengthened mystery of pain,
While Death is gloating o'er the myriad slain,
The vast and universal overthrow.
We cannot either boundary survey:
Our momentary space the narrow earth,
And swift the journey from a feeble birth
Until we vanish from the world awnv
And yet we see the transitory gloom
Of night retreating when the radiant sun
Proclaims again another day begun,
And brings the time of universal bloom.
Before the world was the eternal grace
Of glorious Life adorned the distant skies.
Filled all the heaven with its argosies,
And bade the stars begin their heavenly race.
Shall you or I repine if Life ordain
For us the wider worlds, the endless years,
And for the loss of unrelenting fears
writes to our record the eternal gain?
Yet must llie better destiny arise
From out the pain of fcide experience.
That we may win the nobler affluence,
And gain the riper wisdom of the wise.
Savannah, Va.
This record was badly broken during the past
year, and Messrs. Scott and Allen are credited
with ai-- ~I~L- . * *
?.i.. ^uuiiiig tm: gioin: in uvcniy-cignt days. At
this remarkable world's record for conlinu ? is
travel, it would take about eight years to journey
round the sun; and the sun is under the control
of Jof us my Ix>rd.
This sun is distant from us 92,800,000 miles,
and light speeds through the intervening space
in eight and one-third minutes. It has, however,
been computed that it takes light four years to
reach us from Alpha Centauri, eight years to
reach us from fit Cygni, twenty years from Hot a
Cassiopeia, and forty-seven years to reach us from
the well known Pole Star. And all these stars.
mid many others still more distant, are under
the control of Christ; for by Hini they were
created, and by Him all things consist. Tinder
ITis all-powerful, wise and holy governance multitudinous
suns and their attendant planets move
through the sky in orderly majesty; and not a
sparrow fallcth that has not come within the scope
oi rns masterful providence. Jesus my Lord
rules with marvelous wisdom over big and little;
ealletb by name the starry hosts, and numbereth
the very hairs of our beads.
East "Palmyra, N". Y.