The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1880-03-10

cutin old style, and you find yourself mus
UNCOVER the past, and you think how, bare
fooed, you battered along through the fur
rows your father turned up, and of the hay.
rack loaded with golden sheaves and of the
brook that you waded for pebbles, and of
your mother seated at the evening stand,
LOOKING up at you through her spectacles.
Yes, you remember the Sabbath morning
when they took you to church,
| fitted out in garments knit or woven, or
fashioned by her own hand You remem-
Der just how the hand looked, the roughness
at The end OF the finger from the touch of the
needle, the color the blue veins on the back
of ihe hand. Alas that hand still forever.
And you remember the house of God. You
remember Just how the tombstones looked
around the old meeting house as you went in,
and the hum of the bees amid the clover-tops
about the grave. You remember the man
of God in the pulpit. Those psalms and
| hymns are floating in your memory to-day.
You remember the family altar where your
| parents knelt, sometimes With their SORROWS
and their anxieties, tarrying longer than you
could have wished. You remember the eve
ming PRAYER that was taught YOU. Can il be
| you have forgotten it2 You remember the
morning when you left home to seek your
own fortune. You remember as you came
/ to the last turn of the road and looked back
tthe old farmhouse just how it looked, and
wished you could cry and have no one know
/ it. Obi that old scene, that home scene;
/ YOU will never forget it. You may have
been out in the world 40 years, so years;
/ you can never forget it. God was in
that home. Your parents loved Him. They
consecrated you to Him at the altar in
| baptism. They remembered you in their
| dying prayer. 1t was their great desire that
! you might be good and Christian and use
| full. When they bowed their heads in the
| grave, it was in the hope of lifting it up
| again in the resurrection of the righteous
and joining you in the great home-circle Of
the saved. Do you think that you will meet
them there? Do you pray as much now, at
this time, as you did when you were FIVE
years of age, six years of age, seven years
| of age? Have you walked in the path that
they marked out for your? Sometimes when
you can not sleep, do you think of an early
example and the prayers offered for your sal
vation? o Lord God, of a Christian ances-
| try, have mercy on US.
But / remark again, that when man goes
away from God he is very apt to 60 away
from Christian associations. 1t was so with
| the young man of the text; it is so with
many. There was time when you regular
ly attended the house of God You were
surprised at the words of the chapter this
morning, they were so very familiar to you.
There was some Presbyterian, or Methodist,
or Baptist or Episcopal church where the
faces were all familiar to you. But somehow
you have been wandering away from Chris
tian associations. Your friends are not, per-
haps, those who love God and keep His COM
mandments. You are not as much shocked
mt profanity as you used to be. Perhaps
you occasionally indulge in it. Perhaps
you have been to places where you once
could not have been persuaded to
90, or you have been floating away-you
squarely face the fact this morning, my
brother, that you have been floating away
from God and His people. If you wanted
some one to pray for you, you would hardly
know whom to ask. If YOU were sick and
dying, and you wanted some one to implore
mercy on your soul, you could not ask your
riends-they do not know how to pray. If
your little child were dying, and you must
fold its little hands over the silent heart, and
close the long lashes over the bright eyes,
and you wanted some one to talk of Jesus
and the resurrection, they could not do it.
They have no hope of resurrection. Rather
than all their wit and their brilliancy, you
would send for some plain Christian man
who, knowing nothing else, knows how to talk
with God. They can laugh with you, they
can sing with you, they can drink with you,
but they can not weep with you and they
can not comfort you. OH have you not
been floating away from your family altar,
floating away from the altar of baptism,
floating away from Chistian associations,
away from God and away from Heaven.
But, l remark again, when a man goes
away from God he goes away from happiness.
Now, my friends, what l have already said
may be inappropriate to some of you for the
reason that you had no early Christian sur
roundings; but this remark is true of every
one in the house. Going away from God,
you go away from happiness. There is no
peace in life of impiety. Now, my brother,
be frank and just confess that when you COM
pare your life as it now is with your life as it
once was you are not happy.
Do you have any calm contemplation of
the grave, in which your body must soon
molder, and of the eternity into which your
spirit must soon fly? As intelligent men, as
common-sense men, You know what short
and uncertain thing life is. Your business
partner fell suddenly and fatally sick. Your
friend dropped under apoplectic stroke.
Walking as you do on the edge of perils,
without one item of preparation for the great
eternity, are you happy2 No. No. No. This
world can not make man happy. Tanner
lane conquered half of it, and yet he could
not conquer his own spirit. Hannah is
wretched because Mordecai will not bow to
him. Herod is in agony because child is
born in Bethlehem. Ahab goes to bed sick
because Naboth will not sell his vineyard.
Felix trembles because a plain minister of
the Gospel will preach righteousness, tenn
perancs, and judgment to come. Henry
VIII. is in a rage at Thomas Beckett.
Alexander, wanting more worlds to conquer,
is drowned in his own bottle. From the
time of Louis XII. to Louis XVIII. there
was not straw-bottomed chair in France
that did not stand more firmly than the
throne on which they reigned. The frivol-
titles of this life can not silence a disturbed
conscience, its voice crying, al am immortal.