Sharp County record., 1888-04-05

the old Scotch minister, used to put
nlaid across his bed on cold nights, and
some one asked him why he put that
there. He said, ooh, sometimes in the
night want TO sing the praise OF Jesus,
and to get down and pray; then | just
take that plaid and wrap it around me,
to keen myself from the cold" Songs III
the night! Night of trouble has come
down upon many Of you Commerclal
losses put out one star, slanderous ABUSE
put out another star, domestic bereave.
ment has put out a thousand lights, and
gloom has been added to gloom, and
chill to chill, and sting to sting, anu one
midnight has seemed to borrow the
fold from another midnight to wrap
itself in more unbearable darkness;
but Christ has spoken peace TO your
heart, and you can sing:
Jesus, lover Of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly
While the blllows near me roll,
While the tempest still is high
Hide me- 0, my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm OF life is past;
Safe into the haven guide
Oh, receive my soul at last
Songs in the night! Songs in the
night. For the sick, who have no one to
turn the hot pillow, no one to put the
taper on the stand, no one to put ice on
the temple, or pour out the soothing ano'
dvne, or utter one cheerful word-yet
songs in the night! For the poor, who
freeze in the winters cold, and swelter
in the summers heat, and MUNICH the
hard crusts that bleed the sore gums, and
shiver under blankets that can not any
longer be patched, and tremble because
rent day is come and they may be SET out
on the sidewalk, and looking into the
starved face of the child and seeing
famine there and death there, coming
home from the bakery and saying, in the
presence of the little famished ones: "Oh,
my God, -four has gone upn Yet songs
in the night! Songs in the night! For
the widow who goes to get the
back pay of her husband, slain
by the "sharpshooters, and knows it is
the last help she will have, moving out Of
a comfortable home in deSolatiOn, death
turning back from the exhausting cough
and the pale cheek, and the lusterless eye,
and refusing all relief. Yet songs in the
night For the soldier in the field hospital,
no surgeon to bind up the gunshot tract
ure, no water for the hot lips, no kind
hands to brush away the flies from the
fresh wound, no one to take the loving
farewell, the groaning of Others poured
into his own groan, the blasphemy of
others plowing up his own spirit, the con.
densed bitterness Of dying away from
home among strangers. Yet songs in the
night Songs in the night! "AhW said
one dying soldier: "Tell my mother
that last night there was not one cloud
between my soul and Jesus" Songs in
the night. Songs in the night!
The Sabbath day has come. From the
altars of ten thousand churches has
smoked up the SAVIOR Of sacrifice. Min
listers of the Gospel are now preaching in
plain English, in broad Scotch, in fow-
ing Italian, in harsh Choctaw. Gods
people have assembled in Hindoo temple,
and Moravian church, and Quaker meet
ing-house, and sailors bethel, and Kings
chapel, and high lowered cathedral.
They sang, and the song foated off
amidst the spice groves, or struck the ice-
bergs, or foated off into the Western
pines, or was drowned in the clamor of
the great cities. Lumbermen sang it, and
the factory girls and the children in the
Sabbath elias and the trained choirs in
great assemblages. Trappers, with the
same voice with which they shouted yes
terday in the stag hunt, and mariners,
with throats that only a few days
ago sounded in the hoarse blast
of the sea hurricane, they sang
it. One theme for the sermons. One bur-
den for the song. Jesus for the invoca-
tion. Jesus for the Scripture lesson.
Jesus for the baptismal font Jesus for
the sacramental cup. Jesus for the bene.
diction.
We sing His birth-the barn that shelter
ed Him, the mother that nursed Him, the
cattle that fed beside him, the angels that
over the midnight hills. We sing His
tears He wiped away from
the eyes of the orphans, the lame men
that forgot their crutches, the damsel
who from the bier bounded out into the
sunlight, her locks shaking down over the
flushed cheeks; the hungry thousand
who broke the bread as it blossomed into
larger loaves-that miracle by which
10y with five loaves and two fishes be-
came the sutler for a whole army. We
sing His sorrows-His stone bruised feet,
His aching heart, His mountain lone mess,
His desert hunger, His storm-pelted body,
the eternity of anguish that shot through
His last moments, and the immeasurable
ocean of torment that heaved up against
His cross in one foaming, omnipotent
surge, the sun dashed out and the dead,
shroud-wrapped, breaking open their
and rushing out to see what
was the matter. We sing His resurrection
the guard that could not keep Him, the
sorrow of His disciples, the cloud piling
up on either side in pilared splendors as
He went through treading the painless
air, higher and higher, until He came to
the foot of the throne, and all Heaven
kept jubilee at the return of the Con-
queror.
| say once more, Christ is the everlast-
ing song. The very best singers some.