Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1888-10-04

sold h:s s.Vicar of Wakefield" for 9
few pound, in order 10 keep the baiiif out
Of the door; and the vast majority Of men
In all occupations and pr fessions are not
fully paid for their work.
You may sag nothing, but life to you is
q hard push; and when you sit down with
your wife and talk over the expenses, you
both rise up discouraged. You abridge
here, and you abridge there. and you get
things snug for smooth sailIngs, and lol
suddenly there is large doctors bill to
pay, or you haze lost your Iocketbook, OF
some creditor has ia led. and you are
thrown abeam end. Well, brother, you
are in glorious company. Christ owned
not the house in which He stopped, or the
colt on which He rode, or the boat in which
He sailed. He lived in borrowed house
He was buried IN borrowed grave. Elk
posed to all kinds of weather, yet He had
only one suit OF clothes. He breakfasted
in the morning, and no one could possibly
tell where He could get any thing to eat
before night He would have been pro-
nounced financial failure. He had to per-
form a miracle to get money to pay tax
bill Not a dollar did He own. Privation
Of domesticity; privation OF nutritious
food; privation of a comfortable couch on
which to sleep; privatlon Of all worldly re-
sources. The Kings Of the world had
chased chalices out of which to drink; but
Christ had nothing but PLAIN cup set be-
fore Him. and it was very sharp, and 1t
was very sour. He TOOK the vinegar.
There also is the sonrness of bereavement.
There were years that passed along before
your family circle was invaded by death,
but the moment the charmed circle was
broken every thing seemed to dissolve.
Hardly have you put the black apparel in
the ward robe before you have again to
take it out. Great and rapid changes in
your family record. You got the house
and rejoiced In it, but the charm was gone
as soon as the Grape hung on the door bell.
The one upon whom you most depended
was taken away from you. A cold marble
slab lies on your heart to-day.
Once, as the children romped through
the house. you put your hand over your
aching head and said: %, if could only
have it still" O, it is too still now. You
lost your patience when the tops and the
strings and the shells were left amid floor;
but o, you would be willing to have the
trinkets scattered all over the floor again
if they were scattered by the same hands.
With what a ruthless plowshare bereave-
ment rips the heart. But Jesus knows all
about that. You can not tell HIM
any thing new in regard to be-
reavement. He had only a few
friends, and when He lost one it
brought tears to his eyes. Lazarus
had often entertained Him at his house.
Now Lazarus is dead and buried, and
Christ br eaks down with emotion-the con-
vulslon of grief shuddering through all the
ages of bereavement Christ knows what
it is to go through the house missing a
familiar inmate. Christ knows what it is
to see an unoccupied place at the table.
Were there not four of them-Mary and
Martha, and Christ, and Lazarus! Four
of them. But where is Lazarus! Lonely
and afflicted Christ, His great loving eyes
filed with tears, which drop from eye to
cheek, and from cheek to beard, and from
beard to robe, and from robe to floor. o,
yes, yes. He knows all about the loneli-
ness and the heartbreak. He took the
vinegar.
Then there is the sourness of the death
hour. Whatever else we may escape, that
acid sponge will be pressed to our lips. l
sometimes have a curiosity to know low
will behave when come to die. Whether
will be calm or exclted-whether l will
be filed with Renaissance or with aLtici-
patton. l can not say. But come to the
point, must and you must. In the 5000
years that have passed only two persons
have got into the eternal world without
death, and do not suppose that God is 60
ing to send q carriage for US with horses
Of flame to draw US up to the sleeps OF
Heaven; but suppose we will have to 60
like the preceding generations.
An officer from the future world will
knock at the door of our heart and serve
on US the writ of ejectment, and we will
have to surrender. And we will wake up
after these autumnal and wintry and vern.
al and summary glories have vanished from
our vision-we will wake up into a realm
which has only one season, and that the
season of everlasting love. But you say:
1don't want to break out from my present
associations. 1t is SO chilly and so damp
TO go down the stairs OF that vault. l don't
want any thing drawn SO tightly over my
eyes. If there were only some way of
brea king through the partition
between worlds without tearing this
body all to shreds. l wonder If the
surgeons and the doctors can not COM
pound mixture by which this body
and soul can all the time be kept together?
Is there no escape from this separation"
None; absolutely none. So l look over this
audience to-day-the vast majority of you
seeming in cool health and spirits-and
yet realize that in a shortstime all OF US
will be gone-gone from earth and gone
forever.
A great many men tumble through the
gates Of the future, as it were, and we do
not know where they have gone, and they
only add gloom and mystery to the passage;
but Jesus Christ so nightly stormed the
gates of that future world, that thew have
never since been closely shut. Christ
knows what it Is to leave this world, Of
the beauty Of which He was more appre-
ciative than we ever could be. He knows
the exquisiteness of the phosphores-
cence of the sea: He trod it. He knows
the glories of the midnight heavens; for
they were the spangled canopy Of His will
derness pillow. He knows about the lilies:
He twisted them into His sermon. He
knows about the fowls Of the air; thew
whlrred their way through His discourse.
He knows about the sorrows of leaving
this beautiful world. Not a taper was kim
died in the darkness. He died physician
less. He died in cold sweat and dizziness
and hemorrhage and agony that have put
Him in sympathy with all the dying. He
goes through Christendom and He gathers
up the stings out of all the death pillows and
He put them under His own neck and head.
He gathers on His own tongue the burning
thirst of many generations. The sponge is
soaked in the sorrows of all those who
have persisted in icy or fiery martryrdom.
The sister of Herschel the astronomer,
used to help him in his work. He got ali
the credit; she got none. She used to