St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-05-08
panions may laugh at us, and we may be

hell; but God forbid that we should ever
come to the fulfillment of the prophecy
against the rejectors of the truth: 81 will
laugh at your calamity" But, my friends,
all Of us who reject Christ and the pardon
of the Gospel must come under that tre-
mendous bombardment. God wants US all
to repent He counsels, He coaxes. He
importunes, and he dies for us. He comes
down out of Heaven. He puts all the
worlds sin on one shoulder, He puts all the
worlds sorrow on the other shoulder, and
then with that Alp on one side and that
Himalaya on the other, he starts up the
hill back of Jerusalem to achieve our sal.
walton. He puts the palm of his right foot
on one long spike, and he puts the palm of
his left foot on another long spike, and
then, with hands spotted with his own
blood, he gesticulates, saying: "Look!
look and live; with the crimson veil of my
sacrifice I will cover up all your sins; with
my dying groan will swallow up all your
groans. Look, live!" But some of
you this morning turn your back
on that, and then this voice
of invitation turns to a tone di.
vinely ominous that sobs like simeon
through the first chapter of Proverbs: "Be-
cause have called and we refused have
stretched out my hand, and NO man re-
garded; but ye have set at naught all my
counsel and would none OF my reproof: /
also will laugh at your calamity" Oh,
what laugh that is! deep laugh;
long reverberating laugh; an overwhelm-
ing laugh. God grant we may never hear
it! but in this day of merciful visitation
yield your heart to Christ that you may
spend all your life ON earth under his
smile and escape forever the thunder of
the laugh of Gods indignation.
The other laughter mentioned in the
Bible, the only one / shall speak of 10
heavens laughter or the expression Of
eternal triumph. Christ said to his dis.
ciples: "Blessed are ye that weep now,
for ye shall laugh" That makes me know
positively that we are not to spend our
days In heaven singing long-meter psalms.
The journalistic and stiff notions of heaven
that some people have would make me
miserable. l avn glad to know that the
heaven of the Bible is not only place Of
holy worship but of magnificent sociabil-
ity. "What," say you, twill the ringing
laugh go around the circles of the savedw
say yes; pure laughter; cheering laugh.
ter; holy laughter. It will be a laugh of
generalization. When we meet q friend
who has suddenly come to fortune or
who has got over some dire sickness, do
we not shake hands? do we not laugh with
him? And when we get to heaven and
see our friends there, some of them having
come up out of great tribulations, why,
we will say to one of them: "The last time
I saw you, you had been suffering for six
weeks under a low, intermittent fever"
or, to another we will saw: "You for ten
years were limping with the rheuma-
tism, and you were full Of complaints
when we saw you last. / congratulate
you on this eternal recovery" We shall
laugh-yes, we shall congratulate all those
who have come up out of great finans
cial. embarrassments in this world be-
cause they have become millionaires in
heaven.
Ye shall laugh. I think George Whit"
field and John Wesley will have laugh
of contempt for their earthly collisions;
and Toplady and Charles Wesley will have
a laugh of contempt for their earthly mis-.
understandings; and the farmers who
were in a lawsuit all their days will have
laugh of contempt over their earthly dis
turbances about line-fence. Exemption
from all annoyance. Immersion in all
gladness. Ye shall laugh. Christ says SO.
Ye shall laugh.
Yes, it will be laugh of triumph. Oh,
what a pleasant thing it will be to stand
on the wall Of Heaven and look down at
Satan and hurl at him defiance and see
him Gagged and chained and we forever
laugh Of royal greeting. You know how
the Frenchmen cheered when Napoleon
came back from Elba; you know how the
English cheered when Wellington came
back from Waterloo; you know how Amer
leans cheered when Kossuth arrived from
Hungary; you remember how Rome
cheered when Pompey came back victor
over nine hundred cities. Every cheer was
a laugh. But oh, the mightier greeting.
the gladder greeting, when the snow-white
cavalry troop of Heaven shall go through
the streets and, according to the book Of
Christ, in the red coat, in ths
crimson coat, on white horse and in all
the armies Of Heaven following ON white
horses! Oh, when we see and hear that
cavalcade we shall cheer, we shall laugh.
Does not your heart beat quickly this
at the thought of the great jubilee
upon which we are soon to enter? pray
God that when we get through with this
world and are going out of 1t we may have
some such vision as the dying Christian
had when he saw written ali over the
clouds in the sky the letter "W;" and they
asked him, standing by his side, what he
thought that letter "W" meant. "Oh," he
raid, "that stands for welcome" And
20 may it be when we quit this world.
'W" on the gate, "W" on the door of the