The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-12-21

no. His laughter will ring out from the So
loon SO that you hear it as you pass by, but
IL Is hollow laughter; In ii Is the swapping Of
heart strings and the rattle Of prison gates.
Happy that young man happyi Let him oil
high the bowl, he cannot drown an upbraid-
ing conscience. Let the balls roll through
the bowling alley; the deep rumble and the
sharp crack cannot overpower the voices of
condemnation. Let him whirl In the dance
of sin and temptation and death. All the
brilliancy of the scene cannot make him for
get the last look of his mother, as he left
home when she said to him: snow, my son,
you will do right, | am sure you viii do
right; you will, won't your That young
man happyi Why, across every night
there fits shadows of eternal dark
ness; there are adders coiled up In
every cup; there are vultures of
despair striking their iron beak into his
heart; there are skeleton fingers of grief
pinching at the throat. | come in amid the
clicking of the glasses and under the flashing
of the chandeliers, and cry: "Woel woei
The way of the ungodly shall perish. There
is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
The way of transgressors is hard" Oh, my
friends, there is more joy in one drop of
Christian satisfaction than in whole rivers of
sinful delight Other wings may be
drenched of the storm and splashed of the
tempest, but the dove that comes in through
the window Of this heavenly ark has wings
like the dove covered with silver, and her
feathers with yellow gold
Again | remark, religion is an adornment
in the style of usefulness into which it in
ducts a man. Here are two young men. The
one has fine culture, exquisite wardrobe,
plenty Of friends, great worldly success, but
he lives for himself His chief care is for his
own comfort He lives useleSsly. He dies
uuregretted. Here is another young man.
His apparel may not be so good, his educa-
ton may not be so thorough. He lives for
others His happiness is to make others
happy. He is as self denying as that dying
soldier, falling in the ranks, when he said:
Colonel, there is no need of those boys tir-
ing themselves by carrying me to the hos,
pital; let me die just where am" So this
young man of whom ! speak loves God,
wants all the world to love him, is not
ashamed to carry bundle of clothes up that
dark alley to the poor. Which of those
young men do you admire tho bettera The
one sham, the other prince imperial
Oh, do you know of anything, my hearer,
that is more beautiful than to see a young
man start out for Christi Here is some one
falling; he lifts him up Here is vagabond
boy; he introduces him to mission school
Here is family freezing to death; he carries
them scuttle Of coal There are eight hun.
dred millions perishing in midnight heather
darkness; by all possible means he tries to
send to them the Gospel. Ho may be laughed
at, and he may be sneered at and he may be
caricatured, but he is not ashamed to 60
everywhere, saying: 81 am not ashamed of
the Gospel of Christ 1t is the power of God
and the wisdom of God unto salvation" Such
a young man can go through everything.
There is no force on earth or in hell that can
resist him.
SIGNIFICANT sPECTACLES IN HISTORY.
show you three spectacles. Spectacle the
first: Napoleon passes by with the host that
went down with him to Egypt, and up with
him through Russia, and crossed the cont
nent on the bIeeding heart of which he set
his iron heel, aud across the quivering flesh
of which he went grinding the wheels of his
gun carriages-in his dying moment asking
his attendants to put on his military boots
for him.
Spectacle the second: Voltaire, bright and
learned and witty and eloquent, with tongue
and voice and stratagem Internal, warning
against God and poisoning whole kingdoms
with his infidelity, yet applauded by the
clapping hands of thrones and empires and
continents-his last words, in delirium sup
posing Christ standing by the bedside-his
last words, Crush that wretchr'
Spectacle the third: Paul-Paul insignifi-
cant in person, thrust out from all refined as
ISOLATION, scourged, spat on, bounded like
wild beast from city to city, yet trying to
make the world good and heaven full; an
nouncing resurrection to those who mourned
at the barred gates of the dead; speaking con.
solutions which light up the eyes of widow
hood and orphanage, and want with glow of
certain and eternal release: undaunted be-
fore those who could take his life, his cheek
flushed with transport and his eye on heaven;
with one hand shaking defiance at all the
foes of earth and all the municipalities of hell
and with the other hand reckoning messen-
ger angels to come and bear him away, as he
says: ~ am now ready to be offered, and
the time Of my departure is at hand; have
fought the good fight, have finished my
course, | have kept the faith; henceforth
there is laid up for me crown of righteous
ness which the Lord, the righteous Judge,
will give me-
Which of t, o three spectacles do you most
admire. When the wind of death struck
the conqUeror and the infidel they were
tossed !.Se sea gulls in a tempest, dreG!ched of
the wave and torn of the hurricane their
dismal voices heard through the everlasting
storm; but when the wave and the wind of
death struck Paul, like an albatross, he made
throne of the tempest and one day foated
away into the calm, clear summer of heaven,
brighter than the dove, its wings covered
with silver and its feathers with yellow gold.
in low m l;rrin
religion that can do so much for a man while
he lives, and so much for man when he
comes to diei | suppose you may have no
ticed the contrast between the departure of a
Christian and the departure of an infidel.
Deodorus dying in chagrin because he could
not compose joke equal to the joke uttered
at the other end of his table Zeuxis, dying
in a fit of laughter at the sketch of an aged
woman-a sketch made by his own hand.
Mazarin, dying playing cards, his friend
holding his hands because he was unable to
hold them himself All that on one side,
compared with the departure of the Scotch
minister, who said to his friends: 81 have no
interest as to whether live or die, if die
shall be with the Lord, and il live the Lord
shall be with me-" Or the last words of
Washington: as it we'll" Or the last word
of Mcintosh, the learned and the great
"Happyr Or the last word of Hannah
More, the Christian poetess: "Joyr Or
those thousands of Christians who have
gone, saying: "Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly"
80 DEATH where is thy stings gravel
where is thy victoryr Behold the con
trast Behold the charm of the one, he
hold the darkness of the other Now,
know it is very popular in this day for young
men to think there is something more charm
ing in skepticism than in religion. They are
ashamed of the old fashioned religion of the
cross, and they pride themselves on their free
thinking on all these subjects My young
friends want to tell you what know from
observation that while skepticism is q beauti
FIJI land at the start, it is the great Sahara
Desert at the last.
A STORY WITH MORAL.
Years ago a minister's son went off from
home to college. At college he formed the
acquaintance of a young man whom l shall
call Ellison Ellison was an infidel. Ellison
scoffed at religion, and the minister's son soon
learned from him the infidelity, and when he
went home on his vacation broke his fathers
heart by his denunciations Of Christianity.
Time passed on and vacation came, and the
minister's son went off to spend the vacation,
and was on a journey and came to a hotel.
The hotel keeper said: 81 am sorry that TO-
night shall have to put you In a room ad
joining one where there is very sick and
dying man. can give you no other accom-.
nodati0n - tIOh said tho voupu cOllaoa