St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1885-12-12

John Wesley stands to-day before all
Christendom, his name mightier than any
other name except tthe nama that is above
every other name," the name of Christ.
And can you expect to escape hardship
and assault and abuse and sslanderf You
will not. ES#SI
Again / commend the behavior Of these
disciples to the bereaved. AS | stand here
Sabbath by Sabbath, and I look off upon
this audience, howl many signals of mourn
ing do behold! God has his own way of
breaking up the family. The emigration
from this world to the next is SO vast an
enterprise that God only can conduct it.
That emigration from earth to eter-
nifty keeps three-fourths of the fam
lilies Of the world in desolation. The child
that lay near the mothers heart is taken
to lie in the cold and in the darkness. The
laughter freezes to the girls lip and the
rose scatters. The boy comes in from
the harvest fields of Shunam saying:
s'My head, my headw and dies on
the lap Of his mother. Widowhood stands
with tragedy of woe struck into the pallor
Of the cheek, and orphanage cries in vain
for father and for mother.
Sometimes when we have sorrow our
friends comes in, and they try to sympa-
thize with us to certain extent, but they
can not understand it altogether. But,
blessed be God! Christ knows. He has
been all through the trouble and all
round about it. He has counted the
tears, and counted the groans; and
| before the tears started and before
| the groans began he saw the
hiding place of the sorrow. Bone of
| our bone! Flesh of our feshl Heart of
our heart! Sorrow of our sorrow! AS
long as he remembers Lazarus tomb he
viii stand beside us in the cemetery. AS
long as he remembers his own heart breaks
he will stand with you in the laceration of
your affections. When he forgets his foot
sore way, and his lonely nights, and his
weary mind, and his exhausted body, and
his awful cross, and his solemn grave, then
will he forget you; but not until then.
| Sometimes, when we have trouble, our
| friends are far away from us. We write
letter, saying, "Come right away" or we
| telegraph to them, saying, stake the next
| train: come immediately but it may
take hours, it may take days, before
they can reach us in our trouble.
But I have to tell you this morning
| Of one who is near to help, ever near,
near before you, behind you, within
| you-nearer than the staff on which you
lean, nearer than the cup you press to your
| lip, nearer than the handkerchief with
| which you wipe away the tears. Ipreach
him-an ever present Jesus. Sometimes,
| when we have trouble, our friends come,
| and they do all they can for US; but they
can not relieve all the trouble, they can not
disentangle our finances, they can not cure
our sick, they can not raise our dead.
+ Blessed be God? the one to whom these
| disciples went has all power in Heaven and
on earth, and he win, at just the right
time, balk our calamities, and at just the
right time, in the presence of an applaud
| ing earth and resounding heaven,
will raise our dead o. I preach
him, an almighty Christ The past
sword will leap from the scabbard of
omnipotence and the last resource of in
finite God be exhausted before God win al
low one Of his children to cry for comfort
and not get it. I heard of child who
went to sea with her father, a sea captain,
and when the first storm came, in the mid
night, the little child awakened kpd rushed
out in great fright, and cried: Where's
father Where's father2'' Then they told
her the father was on deck, and that he
was guiding the ship and he was watch
ing the storm, and she said: sWell, if
fathers on deck, then III go'to Sleep" So
she went to sleep. 5
Il Oh! We who are tossed in the storms of
this life, Iswant TO tell yon the Lord is
guiding the ship; your Father is on deck,
and he will bring you through into
the harbor. OH We whose cheeks
are wet with the night dew OF
the grave, ye whose hearts are tried with
a siroceo In the name of "a religion which
can wipe every tear, and lift every burden,
i and deliver every captive and illumine
every darkness, Iimplore you, go and tell
Jesus. If you win not, if You try and carry
your sins and burden yourself, tell you,
my brother, plainly, your life will be
failure, your death win be a. disaster, and
eternity calamity; but if you wiz go to
/. Christwitla all Your sins and all your sor-
rows to- day, your foot win strike the up
ward path, and the shining messengers
who tell above what is done here win make
the arches of God resound with the tidingt
that you have gone to tell Jesus.
Well, I look over this audience and
wonder whether you will carry your owr
burdens; whether yon are going to be SC
foolhardy as to take the consequences o.
your own sin when there is a balm,
balsanl, for all wounds and pardon for all
transgressions. Soon you will be gone
and gone forever. You remember how
Xerxes felt when he looked at his army
1900, 600 men-perhaps the greatest army
ever marshaled. Xerxes rode along that
army and reviewed it. Two million men
And after he had reviewed the troops ht
came to hill, and he looked off upon the
: q Il l. (An,n.