Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-21

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| come down upon ones home making rs
DEVASTATING WORK
as the day when Ziklag took ire. There
are families in nv congregation whose
| homes have been broken up. No1batter-
| ingram smote in the door, no iconoclast
| crumbled the statues, no fame leaped
amidst the curtains; but 20 far as all the
| JOY and merriment that olfce belonged to
/ that house are concerned, the home has
departed. Armed diseases came down
/ upon the quietness of the scene-scaTlet
fevers, or pleurisies, or consumption, or
underlined disorders came and seized upon
some members Of that family, and car
ried them away. Ziklag in ashes? Ard
! you go about, sometimes weeping and
/ sometimes enraged, wanting to get back
| your loved ones as much as David and
his men wanted TO reconstruct their
/ despoiled households. Ziklag in
ashes! Some of you went
! off from home. You counted
| the days of your absence. Every day
! seemed as long as a week Oh, how glad
! you were when the time came for You TO
| 20 aboard the steamboat or rail car and
/ start for home! You arrived You went
up the street where your dwelling was,
and in the night you put your hand on
with the signal of bereavement, and you
| found that Amalekitish Death, which has
devastated thousand other households,
had blasted yours. You go about weep
ing amidst the desolation of your once
happy home, thinking of the bright eyes
closed, and the noble hearts stopped and
the gentle hands folded, and you weep
until you have no more power TO weep.
Ziklag in ashesi
A gentleman went TO friend of mine
in the city of Washington and asked that
through him ne might get a consulship to
some foreign port. My friend said to
him: g What do you want to 90 away
from your beautiful home for into
foreign port?'' ooh, " he replied, ''ny
home is gone. My six children are dead.
I must get away, sir. can t stand it in
This country any longer" Zlklag in
ashes.
Why these long
SHADOWS OF BEREAVEMENT
across this audience? Why Is it that in
almost every assemblage black is the pre-
dominant color of apparel? Is it because
you do not like saffron or brown or violet?
Oh, no. You say: FThe world is not so
bright to us as it once was; and there is
a story of silent voices, and of still feet,
and of loved ones gone, and when you
look over the hills, expecting only beauty
and loveliness, you find only devastation
and woe. Ziklag in ashes.
In Ulster county, n. Y, the vii
lage church was decorated until the fra
GRANGE of the flowers was almost bewil-
dering The maiden of the village had
emptied the place of flowers upon one
marriage altar. One of their
own number was affianced to a
come to take her to his home With
hands joined, amidst a congratulatory
audience, the vows were taken. IN three
days from that time one Of those who
stood at the altar exchanged earth for
heaven The wedding march broke down
into the funeral dirge. There was not
enough flowers now for the coffin lid, be-
cause they had all been taken for the
bridal hour The dead minister of
Christ is brought to another vllags He
had gone out from them less than a week
before in his strength; now he comes
home lifeless. The whole church be-
walled him. The solemn procession
moved around 10 look upon the still face
that once had beaned with messages OF |
salvation. Little children were lifted upd
TO look at him. And some of those whom |
he had comforted in days of sorrow, when |
they passed that silent form, made the |
place
DREADFUL WITH THEIR WEEPING.
Another village emptied of its flowers
some Of them put in the shape of cross |
to symbolic his hope, others put in the |
shape of 81 crown to symbolic his tri- |
umph. A hundred lights blown out in |
one strong gust from the open door of d
sepulchre. Ziklag in ashes!
Oh
want to rally you, as David rallied his
men, for the recovery of the loved and
the lost. / want not only to win heaven,
but l want all this congregation to go
along with me. l feet that somehow [
have responsibility in your arriving at
that great city. | have on other Sabbaths
used other inducements. / mean to- day
for the sake of variety, hoping to reach
your heart, to try another kind of in
ducement. Do you really want to Join
the cOmpaniOnship of your loved ones
who have gone? Are you as anxious to Join
them as David and his men were to ioin
their families? Then I am here, in the
name of God, to say that you may, and
10 tell You how.
/ remark in the first place, if YOU
want to join your loved ones in glory.
you must travel the same way they went.
NO sooner hdU the 0aII ueau Egyptian
been resuscltated than he pointed the
way the captors and the captives had
gone, and David and his men followed
after. So our Christian friends have
gone into another country, and if we
want TO reach their companionship we
must take the same road. They re-
pented; we must repent They PRAYED:
We must pray. They trusted in Christ:
we must trust in Christ. They lived a
religious life; we must live a religious
life. They were in some things like our
selves. know, now that they are gone,
here is halo around their names: but
hey had their faults. They said and
lid things they ought never to have said
u done. They were sometimes rebel
ious, sometimes cast down They were
ar from being perfect. So ! suppose
hat when we have gone, some things in
Is that are now only toleTable may be
ALMOST RESPEENDENT.
But as they were like US ia deficiencies
We ought TO lie like them in taking n super
nj Christ to make up for the deficits.
lad it not been for Jesus they would
ave all persisted; but Christ confronted
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