Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-04


and when he came to the next line there
were scores of voices uniting:
where saints immortal reign"
The song was caught up all through the
fields among the wounded, until it was said
there were at least 10, 900 wounded men re-
uniting their voices as they came to the
verse:
"Tbere everlasting spring abides,
And never-witherinC flowers;
Death like a narrow stream divides
l. That heavenly land from ours"
Oh, it is a great religion to live by, and it
is a great religion to die by. There is only
one heart-throb between you and that re-
ligion this morning. Just look into the
face of your pardoning God and surrender
yourself for time and for eternity, and He is
yours and heaven is yours and all is yours.
Some of you, like the young man of
the text, have gone astray. L
know not the history, but you
know it, you know it. When a young man
went forth into life, the legend says, his
guardian angel went forth with him, and,
getting him into a field, the guardian angel
swept a circle clear around where the young
man stood. 1t was a circle of virtue and
honor, and he must not step beyond that
circle. Armed foes came down, but were
obliged to halt at the circle-they could not
pass. But one day a temptress with dia-
monded hand stretched forth and crossed
that circle with the hand, and the tempted
soul took it. and by that one fell grip was
brought beyond the circle and died. Some
of you nave stepped beyond that circle.
Would you not like this day by the grace
of God to
STEP BACK?
This, 1 say to you, is your hour of saliva
ton. There was in the closing hours of
Queen Anne what is called the clock scene.
Flat down on the pillow in helpless sick
ness she could not move her head or move
her hand. She was waiting for the hour
when the ministers of state should gather
in angry contest, and worried and worn out
by the coming hour, and in momentary ab-
sence of the nurse, in the power, the strange
power which delirium sometimes gives one,
She arose and stood in front of the clock,
and stood there watching the clock when
the nurse returned. The nurse said: "Do
you see anything peculiar about that
clock?" She made no answer, but soon
died. There is a clock scene in every his
tory. If some of you would rise from the
bed of lethargY and come out from you
delirium of sin and look on the clock of
your destiny this morning you would see
and hear something you have not seen or
heard before, and every tick of the minute,
and every stroke of the hour, and every
swing of the pendulum would say: "Now,
now, now, nowr' Oh, come home to your
Fathers house. Come home, oh, prodigal,
from the wilderness. Come home, com
home!
But 1 notice that when the prodigal came
there was the fathers joy. He did not greet
him with any formal "How do you do?"
He did not come out and say: "You are
unfit to enter; go out and wash in the
trough by the well, and then you can come
in; We lave had enough trouble with you"
All no. When the proprietor of that estate
proclaimed festival, it was an outburst of a
fathers love and a fathers joy. God is
your father. l have not much sympathy
with that description of God 1 sometimes
hear, as though He were
A TURKISH SULTAN,
hard and unsympathetlc, and listening not
to the cry of His subjects. A man told me
he saw in one of the eastern lands a king
riding along, and two men were in a~lterca-
ton, and one charged the other with having
eaten his rice; and the King said: Then
STAY the man, and by post mortem examina-
ton find whether he has eaten the rice"
And he was slain. All! the cruelty of a
scene like that. Our God is not a Sultan,
not a Gar, not a despot, but a father
kind, loving, torgiying, and he makes all
heaven ring again when a prodigal comes
back. 81 have nc pleasure, He says, "in
the death of him that dieth."
If a man does not get to heaven it is be-
cause he will not go there. No difference
the color, no difference the history, no DIFF
ference the antecedents, no difference the
surroundings, no difference the sin. When
the white horses of Christ's victory are
brought out to celebrate the eternal triumph
you NAV ride one of them, and as God is
greater than all, His joy is greater. and
when a soul comes back there is in His
heart the surging of an infinite ocean of
gladness, and to express that gladness it
takes all the rivers of pleasure, and all the
thrones of pomp, and all the ages of eter-
nifty. 1t is a joy deeper than all depth, and
higher than all height, and wider than all
width, and vaster than all immensely. 1t
overtops, it undergirds, it outweighs all the
united splendor and Joy of the universe.
Who can tell what Gods joy is?
You remember reading the story of
king, who on some great day of festivity
scattered silver and gold among the people,
and sent valuable presents to his courtiers;
but methinks when a soul comes back, God
is SO glad that to express His joy He filings
new worlds into space, and kindles up
new suns, and rolls among the whIte-robed
anthems of the redeemed a greater hallelu-
iah, while with a voice that reverberates
among the mountains of frankincense and
is echoed back from the everlasting gates,
He cries: This, my son., was dead, and
HE is ALIVE AGAIN."
At the opening of the Exposition in New
Orleans | saw a Mexican ~flutist, and he
PLAYED the solo, and then afterward the
eight or ten bands of music, accompanied
by the great organ, came in; but the sound
of that one flute, as compared with all the
orchestra, was greater than all the combined
iov Of the universe when compared with the
.resounding heart of Almighty God.
For ten years a father went three times a
day to the depot. His son went off in ag-
gravating circumstances, but the father
said: "He will come back" The strain was
much, and his mind parted, and three
times a day the father went. In the early
morning he watched the train, its arrival,
The stepping out Of the passengers, and then
.he departure of the train. At noon he was
here again watching the advance of the
rain, watching the departure. At night,
here again; watching the coming, watching
he going for ten wears. He was sure his
would come back. God has been watch
ng and waiting for some of you, my broth
10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years,
80 vears-waiting, waiting, watch
ng, watching; and if this morning the
should come home, what a scene of
and festivity, and how the great
heart would rejoice at your coming
You will come, some of you, will
Tou not? You will, you will!
l notice also that when a prodigal comes
lome there is the joy of the ministers of re-
igion. Oh, it is a grand thing to preach
his gospel. 1 know there has been a great
leal said about the trials and the hardships
e the Christian ministry. wish somebodY