Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1888-12-13

'f ivory, and looking from the windows
d. ivory, some whom we knew and loved
n earth. Yes, l know them. There are
father and mother, not eighty-two years
and seventy-nine 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 cry
sipelas healed. The heart-break over. o,
how fair they are in the ivory palaces!
And the 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
frcm you. No. They went as from one
they loved well to One whom they loved
better. IL 1 should take your little child
and press its soft face against my rough
cheek, might keep it a little while; but
when you the mother, came along, il
would struggle to go with you. And 50
you stood holding your dyiag child when
Jesus passed by In the room, and the littls
one spraeg out to greet Him. That is all.
Your CHRISTIAN dead did not 60 down into
the dust and the gravel and the mud
Though st rained all that funeral day, and
the water came up to the wheels hub as
you drove out to the cemetery, it made ne
difference to them, for they stepped from
the houre here to the home there, right in
to the ivory palaces. All is well with
them. All is we'll.
1t rs not dead weight that you lift
when you carry q Christian out. Jesus
makes the bed up seft with velvet prom
ises, and He says: "Put her down here
very gently. Put that head, which will
never ache again, on this pillow of halle
lujHhs. Send up word that the procession
is coming Ring the bells. Ring! Open
your gates, We ivory palaces" And so
your loved ones are there. They are just
rs 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 it? Your company.
But, o, my brother, unless you change
your tack you can not reach that harbor.
You might as well take the Baltimore
81 Ohio railroad, expecting in that di-
rection to reach Toronto, as to go on
In the way some of you nrs going
and yet expect to reach the ivory pal
aces. 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 departed ones. Call louder
from the ivory palaces. When 1 think OF
that place and think of my entering it, l
feel awkward; l feel as sometimes 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
stop in front of some residence where !
have an@errand. feel not fit to go in as /
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 livery palaces.
Eternal God, let the surges of Thy par
doningi mercy roll over us. / want not
only to wash my hands and feet, but like
some skilled diver standing on the pier
head, who leaps into the wave and comes
up alta far distant poixt from where he
went in, so l want to go down and so
want to come up. o Jesus, wash me in the
waves of Thy salvation.
And here l ask you to solve a mystery
that has been expressing me for thirty
years. l have asked doctors of divinity
who have been studying theology half
century, and they have given me no salts
factory answer. l have turned over all
the books in my library, bit got no solu-
ton to the question, and to-day 1 come
and ask you for an explanation. By what
logic was Christ induced to exchange the
ivory palaces of Heaven for the cruel
fxion agonies of earth? 1 shall take
the first thousand million years in
Heaven to study out that prob
lem. Meanwhile and now, taking it
as the tenderest and mightiest of all
facts that Christ did come, that He came
with spikes in His feet, came with thOrns
in His brow. came with spears in His heart,
to save you aud to save me. 'God SO loved
the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whatsoever 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
con9ueror, Thy garments smelling of
myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the
ivory palaces.
o, sinner, fling every thing else eway
and take Christ! Take Him now, not to-
morrow. During the might following this
very day there may be an excitement in
your dwelling, and a tremulous pouring
out of drops from an unsteady and af-
frighted hand, and before Tomorrow
morning your chance may be gone.