Milford chronicle., 1888-12-07
the ivory nalncesi

the ivory palaces!
Today it seems 10 mo as II the windows Of
those palaces were illumined for some great
and l look and see climbing the
stairs Of ivory, and walking on floors Of
ivory, and looking from the windows Of
ivory, some whom we knew and loved on
earth. Yes, 1 know them. There are
father and mother, not s. years and 40
years, as when they left us, but blithe and
young as when on their marriage day. And
there are brothers and sisters, merrier than
when we used to romp across the meadows
together The cough gone. The cancer
cured. The erysipelas healed. The heart
break over. Oh, how fair they are in the
ivory palaces And your dear little children
that went out from you-Christ did not let
one Of them drop as he lifted them. He did
not wrench one Of them from you. No. They
went as from one they loved well to one
whom they loved better. If / should take
your little child and press its soft face against
my rough cheek, l might keep it little
while; but when you, the mother, came along,
it would struggle TO 60 with you And so
you stood holding your dying child when
Jesus passed by in the room, and the little
one sprang out to greet him. That is all.
Your Christian dead did not godown into the
dust and the gravel and the mud. Though it
rained all that funeral day, and the water
came up to the wheels hub as you drove out
to the cemetery, it made no difference to
them, for they stepped from the home here to
the home there, right into the ivory palaces
All is well with them All is we'll.
1t is not a dead weight that you lift when
you carry a Christian out. Jesus makes the
bed up soft with velvet promises, and he
that head which will never ache again, on
this pillow of hallelujahs. Send up word
that the procession is coming. Ring the
bells Ringl Open your gates, ye ivory pal
aces" And so your loved ones are there.
They are just as certainly there, having died
in Christ, as that you are here There is My
one thing more they want. Indeed, there is
one thing in heaven they have not got.
They want it. What is itl Your com
pany. But, oh, my brother, unless you
change your tack you cannot reach
that harbor. You might as well take
the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, ex-
pecting n that direction to reach Toronto,
as to 80 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 win
dows 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, ye departed
ones. Call louder from the ivory palaces.
When l think of that place, and think Of my
entering it, feel awkward; feel as some
times when l have been exposed to the
weather and my shoes have been bemired
and my coat is soiled and my hair is
disheveled and l stop in front of some
fine residence where 1 have an errand
feel not fit to go in as l am
and sit among polished guests. So
some Of us feel about heaven. We need to be
washed; we need to be rehabilitated before
we go into the ivory palaces. Eternal God,
let the 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
wave and comes up at a far distant point
from where he went in, so want to go down
and so l want to come up. Jesus, wash
me in the waves Of thy salvation.
THE MYSTERY OF CHRgsT's DIVINE Rx-
CHANGE,
And here l ask you to solve a mystery that
has been expressing me for thirty years.
have asked it of doctors of divinity who have
been studying theology half a century, and
they have given me no satisfactory answer l
have turned over all the books in my library,
but got no solution to the question, and today
1 come and ask you for an explanation. By
what logic was Christ induced to exchange
tho ivory palaces of heaven for the cruel
1xion agonies Of earthl shall take the first
thousand million years in heaven to study out
that problem. Meanwhile and now, taking il
as the tenderest and mightiest of all facts that
Christ did come, that he came with spikes in
his feet, camo with thorns in his brow, came
/ with spears in his heart, to save you and tc
save me. "God SO loved the world that he
/ gave his only Degotten Son, that Whos9eYeI
/ believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.n Christ, whelm this au
dience with thy compassion. Now then
/ down like summer grain with the harvest
ing sickle of thy grace. Ride through
today the conqueror, Thy garments smelling
i'of mYrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of th'
ivory palaces"
oh sinner, ding everything else away anC
take Christ Take him now, not tomorrow
During tho night following this very day
there may be an excitement in your dwelling
and a tremulous pouring out Of drops from
an unsteady and afRrighted hand, and befor
tomorrow morning your chance may b
gone.