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THE HESPERIAN STUDENT.
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season, walk in sunlight, and your own
lives will cak'h a gleam of a brighter,
even a heavenly light. When some gifted
one through your influence is sending out
1 thoughts that 1 lvathe, and words that
burn." docs not your heart swell in grntl
lude as you remember the word that
quickened those dormant powers into ac
tion? Little may you havedreamed that
uni were rousing a great soul, which now
like a giant moves the world.
When you see the smile come to the
eye and lip once shadowed with care,
and some weary one, bowed down with
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sorrow, urougm io mo origin sunugiii, isi
there not a reverent gratitude mixed with
your joy, that a work for which angels
might rejoice has been committed to you?
"When touched with the pure light of
heaven, how radiantly such pictures gbw.
Earth s brightest pictures will seem dim
compared with the light which radiates
from one good act. Fleeting, fading are
all things earthly; but the impressions on
the mind arc lasting as eternity.
Teachers, yours is a work of solemn
grandeur. Upon the sacred trusts com
mittcd to your care you are making im
pressions which time will not efface.
What traces arc you leaving upon that
immortal canvas? Those under your
cure will boon be called to the responsible
duties in life. Are you titling them for
(hat work? Are you teaching them sub.
lime lessons of patience, gentleness and
love ? Are you developing and ennobling
their powers by titling them to do and to
bear? Or are you defacing God's image,
leaving il darkly gleaming with passion,
malice and revenge? Those who are to
guide the allair.s of nations are under
jour control. Are you teaching them
lessons of loyalty to God and to man, or
are you sending forth traitor? Are you
painting pictures which, when held out
to view, call forth the admiration of the
world and which angels might love to !
look upon? Let us study well our pic-1
tuns, add each touch with great care, and I
forget not to piiint the sky and the clouds l
as well as the mountains, rivers and for-
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cms e may men rejoice mat, our pain.
nlg is indelible imperishable.
W. S. 15., State Normal School.
The Object ol' Temptation.
i.KNTKN THOUGHTS.
I. The object of this life, it seems clear,
is to afford us time to lay up capital, to
acquire power, and to gain every other
right qualification for the eternities be
fore us. It is not that wc may win fame,
or wealth, or anything else that we cannot
carry awaj with us, and is of no value be
yond the grave; but that in gentleness of
heart, in patience under the strain of
provocation and trial, in a ripe and pure
wisdom, in a full and polished intellect,
in calm trust of Providence, in deep ven
eration of law, and love, and justice, we
may attain to the utmost, all that our ca
pacities have been conferred to enable us
to attain. Whatever we can take away to
the future that is noble, and lovely, and ot
good report, will constitute the capital,
the Individual force, and, to a certain o.
tcnt, doflno the permanent status, of every
one of us. How do we reach this conclu
sion ?
II. The Biblo, tho conse-iiting testimony
of tlio Christian, Jho Mohammedan, and
the Pagan, and "our 'own interior comic
lion, nil tell us that thoro is somewhere a
better world than this. For that region
our restless hearts arc yearning, and every
soul knows the discontent that is insep
arable from alienation from heaven. Wc
are ever ready to better our condition, and
no condition can bo all that we desire,
until we have passed beyond the veils of
death.
Yet, if every one might enter heaven,
il would no longer be heaven. Unless we
carry with us the heavenly purity, the
heavenly temper, the heavenly obedience,
and the heavenly inlluence, we will em
broil all with whom we come in contact
A drop of poison in the system breeds
disease, and an evil-minded person amidst
the heavenly hosts would beget endless
confusion. We are consequently placed in
this world, to be tested; to see what can '
be made of Us; what we will do, under,
every variety of circumstance; and thus
determine, to the satisfaction of the uni
verse, and of ourselves, whether we legit-1
iniatcly belong in heaven or hell.
III. We are here, then, to be tempted,
tested and developed. God would have
a man select his own eternity; employ
his own free-will in every act and ques-,
tion of right or wrong; and by use of good ,
or evil means, make up his own character i
and enter into his self-chosen place of
future glory or shame. To this end, hu
man life is very brief; it rarely readies
and seldom overpasses seventy years. The
strain of temptation and misery on most
of us is so great, that God is unwilling to
punish us with it very long. Compared
with the deep and undying eternities, it
is as nothing. Yet what perilous issues
hang on every day's provocations and
trials!
To encounter temptation, then, Is our
business here. As Jesus was led up into
the wilderness to bo tempted of the devil,
so are we led about in the wilderness of
this world, expressly to come in contact,
and do battle, with evil inlluences, that
we may overcome them in the might of!
God, or, failing to Use appointed means,
bo overcome by them. We are tempted ,
and tested as to purity of thought and j
conduct; as to good and evil dispositions
towards others; as to integrity in trust;'
as to patience under provocation; as to'
vanity and pride; as to discreetness of
intluence; as to sincerity and truthful
ness; and in manifold other ways that
readily occur to all. There are unseen
agencies that tempt us, and we are tempted
by one another, when we are least expect
ing and prepared to resist. What wonder,
then, that monastery and convent walls
have been raised to break the force of the
ceaseless test to which we are exposed; to
bide men and women from each other, and
from the world; and to aid the weak to
an easier victory ! Hut, . stone and brick
walls cannot wholly light our battle; ev
ery man and woman must do something;
yet there is no doubt, that the less they
have to do with the world, the less fro.
quently tlioy expose themselves to evil
inlluences, tho bettor will be their own
inlluence, and tho less tierce their temp
tations. Men now-a-days arc striving to control
temptation, and to reform tho world, by
politics. Alas! this is no legitimate in
strument of reform. Our duty is "to keep
oursdecs unspotted from tho world," and,
like "a city sot on a hill," whose "light
cannot bo hid," our quiet and christian
lives will do moro to reform our commu
nity, than all the political action of which
we arc capable. Temptation cannot be
put down by might, it will cvor remain to
try tho metal of all who live on earth.
IV. Every question, every mode of
action, presented to us, lias two sides.
Here comes in the exercise of free-will.
Guided by personal motives, we will
either act out our own preferences, or we
will follow God's will, in every separate
case. Thus, by our own volition, wo arc
moulding our habits and characters be
yond the possibility of change, except we
are changed by the might of the Holy
Ghost. Every thought, every word, every
action, bears on the llnnl result, helps
predestinate us and oh, what a record of
though', word, and action, we all have
made! Hut while, in the exercise of free
will, wc predestinate ourselves, the judg
ment of God goes along with our action,
and fore-dooms us to that condition that
we justly and voluntarily earn. "God
wills not that any should perish, but that
all should come to repentance."
How clear all this seems! Everything
that is presented to us lias two sides. It
is always possible to do the contrary of
what we do. No man needs do wrong
unless his preference is for the wrong.
Wc must every one of us do always evil,
if our wills and methods are dearer to us
than God's commandment. The choice
of two. or more, things, is ever before us,
and we are forced to hourly decisions
about matters, which, at the time, may
seem trilling to us decisions as to tilings
of the home, and outside of the home; yet
in every one of these decisions, we place
ourselves on the side of the right, on God's
side, or wo do wrong, and cause sorrow
to others, and final shame to ourselves.
Y. If the heavenly world is an organ
ized society, as this world is, there must
be constant room for temptation there;
constant room for the exercise of undue
selfishness. To render that world happy,
and subordinate to God's sovereignly
how necessary that all who inhabit, il
thould have been in every way tested here,
and proved to be somewhat worthy of ad,
mission there ! Doubtless the angels, and
all morality capable beings, of elder ere
ations, have been subjected to moral and
religious tests, and have shown their lit
ness for their present stations. Happy
for us, if in llio proving which we are
now undergoing, we do not fail of the
great end for which we are here, for so
short a time! Under God, in Christ, our
destinies are in our own hands. For
temptations not resisted, we have the
Saviour's atonement; and in tho might
of the divine Spirit of our Lord, wo may
all do better hereafter. IJy temptations
overcome, we may so confirm right habits
in ourselves, that we will be acceptable
citizens of a world of love and peace.
0. C. Dakk.
The Judgment-Day is Coining.
We noticed, some time since, an article
entitled: "The Judgment DayonNatu
nil Principles," in which many of the
proofs were derived from false data; some
of the founding principles, the axioms of
that theme, were deduced from old by.
potiioses now entirely abandoned. Hut if
the very basis of one article on this sub-
ject is false, wo are very apt to conclude
too hastily, that there are no scientific and
natural principles which can account for
tho coming day of judgement. Therefore
that day must be a special act of God
nnothcr miracle of the Creator.
Now, although tho groundwork of one
or oven two such articles is false, it does
not necessarily prove that there is no by.
pothesis or theory that will account for Us
coming; on the contrary there are many
reasons why phenomena now appeariii"-
and that have appeared wi'.l cause an end
to all living tilings en the earth. Hut few
people doubt that the end will come, and
many think it will lie soon, even before
the close of this year. Some think it w ill
be a special act of the Creator on purpose
to destroy the work of his hand, because
angry with his subjects on account ol
their disobedience. Others, again, the
more Ignorant, believe that a coat-bed
will take fire and burning, form a gas
which will expand, blowing the earth In
atoms, each atom burning, set on fire h
the flrlction of the particle passing through
space with so great a velocity. Such an
some of the theories advanced; but none
of these nor any others were founded
on principles acting at the time. Until tin
ministry all ovei the land began to dream
of, and the people to see with the clairvo .
ant eye, ' The Judge lrrnl-Day," did sci
entists payed no attention to its coming,
and not before the last your did any oni
account for it from true and set principles.
God's laws are the laws of Nature. Hut
since Nature's laws lead to conclusions
that are marked out tor her, and as the
always follow the same path, wo must
Infer that God prefers to work out all bis
plans upon principles already acting, in
stead of accomplishing the same thing
by a special move. We do not doubt thai
the Creator is able by a single act to sepa
rate the world into its former elements,
leaving all (as it is now) without form
and void. Foreighteen hundred years ve y
little lias been done but that can be traced
to the laws of Nature as the catisi .
Hence the end will not be brought abi tit
directly, but indirectly.
What are those forces at work, then,
that will bring the end? At the close of
the Carboniferous time great oscillation
were going on which resulted in y.
lifts, faults, consolidation, metamorpliisiu
and outflow of lava, and ending in the eh
vation of the Appalachian Mountains
This was going on, on the eastern coast (
America, while on the western only small
changes of level took place. Now, again,
during the Cretaceous age, and at itsvud,
revolutions and changes were die mostn
markafile, ending with the raising of the
Hooky Mountains to their present heigh',
while cast of tho Appalachian chain, fis
sures, through which was forced lava,
were formed with slight change-, of level
While tlie.se changes were going on in
the United States, similar disturbances or
revolutions went on all over our globe.
Thus we observe that changes far more
decided were going on between Mcsozoic
and Cenozoic time than at any previous
epoch. Hence greater forces w ere acting
in the Cretaceous up-liftings than in anj
former age. Now, since these forces did
increase with time, they will continue to
increase un'il the crust of the earth again
gives way whin there will be another
great revolution. Hesidos the crust is ev
er increasing in thickness, hence, for thi
reason, if for no other, will it takogrcutti
force to break through. Hut when it doi-
break, the up-lieaving, and fissures, and
lava thrown out will be compnrativeh
greater. So much lava will be poured
out that the stream from the oust will meet
that from the west, thus submerging the
earth in a fiery mass. Hence the heaven
will be darkened, the earth's surface on
tire, as it wore to carry destruction to ev
ery living thing.
Now this change in tilings of the earth
is not far distant. Geologists generally
hold that the period of time between the
Appalachian revolution and the Jtoi-kj
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