The Russellville Democrat., 1889-07-18

| firm here, we shall be glad to find restored
 to the most agile and vigorous immortal l ity there. If forty, or forty five, or fifty I years be the apex of physical and mental | life on earth. then the heavenly childhood will advance 10 that and the heavenly old
 age will retreat to that.
 When VIC join them in that family room
 we shall have much Go tell them. We
 shall want to know of them right away such things as these: Did you see us m this or that or the other struggleg Did
 you know when we lost our property and sympathize with usy Did you know we h ad that awful sieknesss Were you how ering any where around when we plunged into that memorable accidentf Did you know of our backsliding2 Did you know of that moral victory? Were you pleased
 when we started to Heaveng Did you celebrate the hour of our conversiong And then, whether they know 1t or Eot
 we win tell them all. But they will have more to tell us than we to tell them. Ten years on earth may be very eventfYl but what must be the biography of ten years in Heaven7 They will have to tel
 us the.story of coronations, story of news
 from all immensity, story of conquerors and hierarchs, story of wrecked or ran- somed planets st1ryt of angelic victory oyer s;;e .ss;e.;;75iiic revolts. of extnguished sIns, of obliterated cancellations, of new galaxies kindled and swung, of stranded comets, of worlds on fire, and story of Jehovah's majestic reign.
 If in that family room of our Fathers house we have so mnei to tell them q what We have r%-ssed through since we parted how much more thrilling and arousing that which they have to tell us of, what they have passed through since we parted. Surely that family room will be one of the most favored rooms in all our Fathers house. What long lingering there, for we shall never again be in a hurry. "Let me open window. !" said humble Chris tian servant to Lady Rallies, who, because of the death of her child, had shut herself up in dark room and refused to see any one; ''you have been many days in this dark room. Are you not ashamed 10 grieve in this manner, whom you ought to be thanking God for having given you the most beautiful child that ever was seen, and instead of leaving him in this world till he should be worn with trouble, has not God taken him to Heaven in all his beauty? Leave off weeping, and let me open a window" So to-day am try ing to open upon the darkness of earthly separation the windows and doors and rooms of the heavenly homestead. 'In my Fathers house are many rooms"
 How would it do for my sermon to leave you in that family room to-dayg I am sure there is no room in which you would rather stay than in the enraptured circle T ,T E,f1~ We might visit other rooms in our Fathers house. There may be picture galleries peneiled not with earthly art, but by some process unknown in this world, preserving for the next world the brightest'and most stupendous scenes of human history. And there may be lines and forms of earthly beauty preserved for heavenly inspection in something whiter and chaster and richer than Venetian sculpture ever wrought. Rooms beside rooms. Rooms over rooms. Large rooms. Majestic rooms, opalescent rooms, amethystine rooms. "In my Fathers house are many rooms."
 hope none of us will be disappointed about getting there. There is a room for us if we will go and take it, but in order to reach it it is absolutely necessary that we take the right way, and Christ is the way; and we must enter at the right door, and Christ is at the door; and we must start in time, and the only hour yoa are sure of is the hour the clock now strikes, and the only second the one your watch is now ticking. I hold i'll my hand a roll of letters inviting you all to make that your home forever. The New Testa- ment is only ar roll ofiletters inviting you, as the spirit of them practically says: My dying, yet immortal child in earthly neighborhood, l have built for you a great residence. It is full of rooms. I have furnished them as no palace was ever furnished. Pearls are nothing, emeralds are nothing, chrysophrasus is nothing; illumined panels of sunrise and sunset nothing; the aurora of the northern heavens, noth- ing-compared with the splendor with which I have garnitared them. But yon must be clean before you can enter there, and so I have opened a fountain where you may wash all your sins away. Come, nowl Put your weary but cleansed feet on the upward pathway. Do you not see amid the thick foliage on the heavenly hill tops the old family homestead:" sln my Fathers louse are many roOms,n