Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1888-12-22

when YOU carry Christian out. Jesus makes
the bed up soft with velvet promises, and
He says: ssPut her down here very gently,
Put that head which will never ache again,f
on this pillow Of halleluiahs Send up WORD
that the procession is coming. Ring the tells:
Ring Open your gates, ye ivory galacesl"
And so your loved ones are there. They are
lust as certainly there having died in Christ,
as that you are here. There is only one thing
more they want Indeed, there is one thing
in heaven they have not got. They
want it What is its Your company.
But, oh, my brother, unless you change
your tack you cannot reach that harbor.
You might as well take the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad, expecting in that direction to
reach Toronto. as TO go on in the way some
OF you are going and yet expect to reach the
ivory palaces Your loved ones are looking
out Of the windows Of Heaven now, and
yet you seem to turn your back
upon them. You do not seem to
know the sound of their voices as
well as YOU used to, or to be moved by the
sight of their dear faces. Call louder, we de-
parted ones. Call louder from the ivory
palaces When l think of that place, and
think Of my entering IL, fesl awkward;
feel as sometimes when have been exposed
to the weather, and my shoes have been be-
mired, and my coat is so led and my hair is dis
heveled, and stop in front of some fine resi-
to go in as am and sit among polished guests
So some Of us feel about heaven. Weneed tote
washed-we need to be rehabilitated before we
go into the ivory palaces. Eternal God. let TIE
surges OF Thy pardoning mercy roll over US.
/ want not only to wash my hands and my
feet. but, like some skilled diver, standing
on the pier-head who leaps into the waves
and comes up at a far-distant point from
where he went in. so want to go down an d
so want to come up. O Jesus, wash me
in the waves OF Thy salvation.
And here ask you to solve a mystery that
has been expressing me for thirty years. Il
have asked it of doctors of divinity who have
been studying theology half century, and
they have given me no satisfactory
answer. have turned over all the
books in my library, but got no solution to
the question, and to-day l come and ask you
for an explanation. BY what logic was
Christ induced to exchange the ivory palaces
l shall take the first thousand million years
in heaven to study out that problem.
Meanwhile and now, taking it as the tender.
est and mightiest of all facts that
Christ did come. that He came with the
spikes in His feet, came with thorns in His
brow, came with SPEARS in His heart,to save
you and to save ma. "God SO loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that wbosoever believeth in Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life" o Christ,
whelm this audience with Thy compassion.
Now them down like summer grain with the
harvesting sickle of Thy grace Ride through
to-day the conqueror, Thy garments smelling
''of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out Of the
ivory palaces"
o, sinner, fling everything else away and
take Christi Take Him now, not tomorrow.
During the night following this very day
there may be an excitement in your dwelling,
and tremuous pouring out of drops from
an unsteady and affrighted hand, and before
tomorrow morning your chance may DO
gone