The Russellville Democrat., 1888-07-19

DlllS run up the wages seem 10 run down. But you are not the only one who has no
 been paid for hard work. The great Will kie sold his celebrated piece, "The Blind Fiddler" for fifty guineas, although aft erwards it brought it's thousands. The world hangs in admiration over the sketch of ainsborough, yet that very sketch hung for years in the shop-window be- cause there was not any purchaser. Oliver Goldsmith sold his "Vicar of
 Wakefield" for few pounds, in order to keep the baliff out of his door; and the vast majority of men in all occupations and professions are not fully paid for their work. You may say nothing, but life to you is a hard push; and when you sit down with your wife and talk over the expenses, you both rise up discouraged. You abridge here, and you abridge there, and you get things snug for smooth sail = ing and 10! suddenly there is a large doc- tors bill to pay, or you have lost your pocketbook or some creditor has failed ', and you are thrown abeam end. Well, brother, you are in glorious company. Christ owned not the house in which He stopped, or the colt on which He rode, or the boat in which He sailed He lived in a borrowed house; He was buried in Q borrowed grave. Exposed to all kinds of weather, yet He had only one suit of clothes. He breakfasted in the morning, and no one could possibly tell where He could get any thing to eat before night He would have been pronounced finan- cial failure. He had to perform a miracle to get money to pay tax bill. Not dol- lar did He own. Privation of domesticity; privation of nutritious food; privation of . comfortable couch on which to sleep; privation of all worldly resources. The kings of the earth had chased chalices out of which to drink, but Christ had nothing but plain cup set before Him, and it was very sharp, and it was very sour. He took the vinegar.
 There also is the sourness of bereave- ment. There were years that passed along before your family circle was in vaded by death; but the moment the charmed circle was broken every thing seemed to dissolve. Hardly have you put the black apparel in the wardrobe before you have again to take it out Great and rapid changes in your family record. You got the house and rejoiced in it, but the charm was gone as soon as the crape hung on the door-bell The one upon whom you most depended was taken away from you. cold marble slab lies on your heart day. Once, as the children romped through the house, you put your hand over your aching head and said: "Oh, if could only have it still" Oh, it is too still now. You lost your patience when the tops and the strings and the shells were left amid the floor, but oh, you would be willing to have the trinkets scattered all over the floor again, if they were scattered by the same hands. With what ruthless blow share bereavement rips up the heart. But Jesus knows all about that You can not tell Him any thing in regard to bereavement He had only few friends, and when He lost one 1t brought tears to His eyes. Lazarus had often entertained Him at his house. Now Lazarus is dead and buried, and Christ breaks down with emotion--the convulsion of grief shuddering through all the ages of bereavement. Christ kn ows what 1t is to go through the house missing familiar inmate. Christ knows what it Is to see an unoccupied place at the table. Were there not four of them Mary, and Martha, and Christ, and Lazarus? Four of them. But where is Lazarus? Lonely and afflicted Christ, His gre at loving eyes filled with tears. which drop from eye to cheek, and from cheek to beard, and from beard to robe, and from robe to floor. Oh, yes, yes, He knows all bout the loneliness and the heartbreak. H took the vinegar
 Then there IS the sourness of the death hour. Whatever else we may escape, that acid sponge will be pressed to our lips. sometimes have a curiosity to know how Twill behave when I come to die. Whether I will bs calm or excited; whether I will be filled with "reminiscences ol with an- ticipation. l can not say. But come to the point, l must and you must In the six thousand years that have passed, only two persons have got into the eternal world without death, and do not suppose that God Is going to send a carriage for us with horses of flame, to draw us up the steeps of Heaven; but l suppose we will have to go like the preceding generations. An officer of the future world will knock at the door of our heart and serve on us the writ of eiectment, and we will have to surrender. And we will wake up after these autumnal, and wintry and vernal, and summery glories have vanished from our vision-we will wake up into realm which has only one season, and that the season of everlasting love. But you say:
 s'I don't want to break out from my
 
 so damp to go down the stairs of that vault. don't want any thing drawn so tightly over my eyes. If there were only some way of breaking through the parti- ton between worlds without tearing this body all to shreads. I wonder if the sur geons and the doctors can not compound a mixture by which this body and soul can all the time be kept togethery Is there no escape from the separation;"
 None; absolutely none. So look over this audience to- day-the vast majority of you seeming in good health and spirits -and yet l realize that in q short time all of.us will be gone-gone from earth and gone forever. A great many men tumble through the gates of the future, as it were, and we do not know where they have gone, and they only add gloom and mys- tery to the passage; but Jesus Christ so nightly stormed the gates of that future world that they have never since been closely shut Christ knows what it is to leave this world, of the beauty of which He was more appreciative that we ever could be. He knows the eXquisiteness of the phosphorescence of the sea; He trod it. He knows the glories of the midnight Heavens, for they were the spangled canopy of His wilderness pillow. He knows about the lilies He twisted them into His sermon. He knows about the fowls of the alr; they whirred their way through His discourse He knows about the sorrows of leaving this beautiful world. Not taper was kindled in the darkness. He died physiclanless. He died in cold sweat and dizzmess, and hem orrhage, and agony that have put Him in sympathy with all the dying. He goes through Christendom, and He gathers up the stings out of all the death pillows, and He puts them under His own neck and head. He gathers on His own tongue the burning thirsts of many generations. The sponge is soaked in the sorrow of all those who have died in their beds as well as soaked in the sorrows of all those who perished in icy or fiery martyrdom. While Heaven was pltying, and earth was mock ing, and hell was deriding, He took the