The national leader., 1889-09-14

court houses, for the Judge of all the earth
may appear. Let all your legislative halls
be gilded, for the great Lawgiver may be
about to come. Drive off the thrones of
despotism all the occupants, for the King of
heaven and earth may be about to reign.
The darkness of the night is blooming
and whitening into the lilies of morning
cloud, and the lilies reddeding into the roses
of stronger day-fit garlands, whether white
or red, for Him on whose head are many
crowns. 1.-THE day is at handp
One more ray of the dawn I see in facts
chronological and mathematical. Come
now, do not let us do another stroke of
work until we have settled one matter
What is going to be the final issue of this
great contest between sin and righteous
ness? Which is going to prove himself
the stronger, God or Diabolus? Is this
Now let us have that matter settled. If
we believe Isainh and Ezekiel and Hosea
and Micah and Malachi, and John and
Peter, and Paul and Christ, we believe that
it is going to be all garden. But let us have
it settled. Let us know whether we are
working on toward success or toward a
dead failure If there is child in your
house sick, and you are sure he is going to
get well, you sympathize with present pains,
but all the foreboding is gone. If you are
in a cyclone off the Florida coast, and the
Naptain assures you the vessel is staunch
and the winds are changing for better
quarter, and he is sure he will bring
you safe into the harbor, you patient
" submit to present distress with the
thought of safe arrival. Now l want to
know whether we are coming on toward dis
may, darkness and defeat, or on toward light
and blessedness. You and | believe the lat
ter, and if SO, every year we spend is one
year subtracted from the worlds woe, and
every event that passes, whether bright
Il IL hvs,1c
happy consummation, and by all that
is inexorable in chronology and mathematics
l commend you to good cheer and courage.
If there is anything in arithmetic, if you sub
tract two from five and leave three, then by
every rolling sun we are coming on toward
a magnificent terminus. Then every winter
passed is one severity less for our poor world.
Then every summer gone by brings us nearer
unfading arborescence. Put your algebra
down on the top of your Bible and rejoice.
If it is nearer morning at 3 o'clock than it
is at 2 if it nearer morning at O'Clock
than it is at B. then we are nearer the dawn of
the worlds deliverance. Gods clock seems
to go very slowly, but the pendulum swings
and the hands move, and it will yet strike
noon The sun and the moon stood still once;
they will never stand still again until they
stop forever. If you believe arithmetic as
well as your Bible, you must believe we are
nearer the dawn. ''The day is at hand"
There is class of phenomena which makes
me think that the spiritual and the heavenly
world may after while, make demonstra-
ton in this world which will bring all moral
and spiritual things to climax. Now, am
no spiritualist; but every intelligent man has
noticed that there are strange and N.Y.
terious things which indicate to him thai
perhaps the spiritual world is not so far on
as sometimes we conjecture, and that after
while from the spiritual and heavenly world
A. n
for its betterment We call it magnetism,
or we call it mesmerism or we call it electric
ity, because we want some term to cover up
our ignorance | do not know what that is.
l never heard an audible voice from the other
world. / am pursuaded of this however:
that the veil between this world and the
next is getting thinner and thinner and that,
perhaps after while, at the call of Cod
not at the call of the Davenport brothers,
or Andrew jackson Davis-some of the old
scriptural warriors, some of the spirits of
other days mighty for Coda Joshua, or
\.eb. or David, or a Paul-may come
uown and help us in this battle against un-
Righteousness Oh, how would like to have
them here-him of the Red Sea- him of the
valley of Ajalon, him of Mars Hill. History
says that Robert Clayton, of the English cav
airy, at the close of war bought up all
the old cavalry horses lest they be turned out
to drudgery and hard work and bought
piece of ground at Naversmire
heath and turned these old war
horses into the thickest and richest
pasture to spend the rest of their days for
what they had done in other days One day
a thunder storm came up, and these war
horses mistook the thunder of the skies for
the thunder of battle, and they wheeled into
line-no riders on their backs-they wheeled
into line ready for the fray. And l doubt
me whether, when the last thunder OF this
battle for God and truth goes booming
through the heavens the old scriptural war
riors can keep their places on their thrones.
Methinks they will spring into the fight and
exchange crown for helmet, and palm branch
for weapon, and come down out of the King
galleries into the arena, crying: MAKE
room! must fight in this great Arranged
don"
My beloved people, I preach this sermon
because want you to toll with the sunlight
in your faces. | want you old men to under
stand before you die that all the work you
did for God while yet your ear was alert and
your foot feet is going to be counted up in
the final victories. | want all these younger
people to understand that when they toll for
God they always win the day; that all
prayers are answered and all Christian work
is in some way effectual, and that the tide is
setting in the right direction, and that all
heaven is on our side-saintly, cherubic,
seraphic, archangelic, omnipotent, chariot
and throne, doxology and procession, princi-
palities and dominion. He who hath the moon
under His feet, and all the armies of heaven
on white horses.
Brotherl brother! all 1 ana afraid of
is, not that Christ will lose the battle,
but that you and / will not get into it
quick enough to do something worthy
of our blood bought Immortality Oh.
Christ how shall I meet Thee, Thou of
the SCARED brow, and the SCARED back,
and the SCARED hand, and the SCARED foot,
and the SCARED breast if I have no
scars or wounds gotten in Thy serv-
ice? 1t shall not be so. l step out to-day in
front of the battle. Come on, you foes o.
God, l dare you to the combat. Come on
with pens dipped in malignancy. Come on,
with tongues forked and viperine and adder
Gus. Come on, with types soaked in the scum