Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-12
The Outlook Of the World Should
Stir Us with GladnesS.
1t Shows the Substitution of Diplomatic
Skill in the Place of Human
Butchery.
These Strange and Mysterious Things Which
Indicate that the Spiritual World
Is Not Far OF.
TIE SUNRISE

Rev. L. Dewitt TaImage, d. D., was
welcomed home to-day by an overflow
ing congregation. At the opening of the
service the hymn beginning
Welcome, sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise,
was sung with fine effect. DR.. Tai
mage's subject was: 1.-THE Sunrise,
and his text, "'The day is at hand. -
Romans xiii, u. He said:
Back from the mountains and the sea-
side, and the springs, and the farm
house, your cheek brOnZed and your.
spirits lighted, l hail you home again
with the words of GehaZi to the Shunam-
mite: sis it well with thee? Is ii well
with thy husband? Is it well with the
child?' On some faces / see the mark
of recent grief, but all along the track
of tears | see the story of resurrection
and reunion when all tears are done: thu
deep blowing of the keel, followed by the
flash of the phosphorescence.
Now that have asked you IN regard to
your welfare, you naturally ask how l
am. Very well, thank you. Whether
it was the bTacing air of the Colorado
mountains. II 900 feet above the level Of
Pacific coast, or bath in the surf Of
Long Island beach, or whether it is the
Joy of standing in this great group of
warm-hearted friends, or whether it is
new appreciation of the goodness of God,
l cannot tell. l simply know | am
grandly and gloriousiy and ineXpressibly
happy. 1t was said that John Mofatt,
the great Methodist preacher, occasion
ally got fast in his sermon, and to eXtri-
cate himself would cry Hallelujah.
[ am in no such predioament to-day. but
l am full of the same rhapsOdic eJacula-
ton Starting out this morning on new
ecclesiastical year, l want to give you the
keynote of my next twelve mouths
ministry I want to set it to the tune of
Antioch, Ariel and Coronation. Some
time ago we had a new stop put in this
great organ-a new trumpet stop-and l
want to put a new trumpet stop into my
sermons.
WE NEED THE ELEMENT OF GLADNESS.
In all our Christian work you and L
want more of the element of gladness.
That man had no right to say that Christ
never laughed. Do you suppose that
He was glum at the wedding in Cana
of Galilee? Do you suppose Christ was
unresponsive when the children clam
bered over his knee and shoulder at His
own invitation? Do you suppose that
the evangelist meant nothing when he
said of Christ: che rejoiced in spirit!
Do you believe that the divine Christ,
who pours all the water over the rocks
at Vernal falls, Yosemite, does not be-
lieve in the sparkle and Gallop and tu-
multuous joy and rushing raptures OF
human life? 1 believe not only that the
nd
tains laugh, and that the seas laugh,
and that the cascades laugh, but that
Christ laughed. Moreover, take
laugh and tear into an alembic,
and assay them, and test them, and
analyZe them, and you will often find as
much of the pure gold of religion in
laugh as in a tear. Deep spiritual JOY
always shows itself in facial illumination.
John Wesley said he was sure of good
religious impression being produced be-
cause of what he calls the great laughter
he saw among the people. Goddess mer-
riment is blasphemy anywhere, but ex-
preston of Christian joy is appropriate
everywhere.
Moreover, the outlook of the world
ought to stir Us to gladness. Astronomers
recently have disturbed many people by
telling them that there is danger of stel-
lar collision. We have been told through
the papers by these astronomers that
there are worlds coming very near to-
gether. and that we shall have plaques
and wars and tumults, and perhaps the
world 8 destruction. Do not be scared.
If you have ever stood at a rail-
road center, where ten or twenty
or thirty rail tracks cross each
other, and seen that 10y the move
ment of the switch one or two inches the
trains shoot this way and that, without
any colliding, then you can understand
how fifty worlds may come within an
inch of disaster, and that inch be as good
as a million miles. If a human switch
tender can shoot the trains this way and
that without harm. cannot the Hand that
for thousands of years has upheld the
universe keep our little world out of
harm s way? Christian biologists tell Us
that this world was millions of years in
building. Well, now, do not think
God would take millions of years to
build house which was TO last only six
thousand years. There is nothing in the
world or outside the world, ter
restrial or astronomical, to ex-
cite dismay. I wish that some stout Cos
pei breeze might scatter all the malaria
of human foreboding. The sun rose this
morning at about $3.50, and think that
is just about the hour in the world his
tory. "The day is at hand. -
THE WAR PERIOD IS PASSING AWAY.
The first ray OF the dawn 1 see in the
gradual substitution of diplomatic skill
for human butchery. Within the last
twenty-five years there have been inter
national differences which would have
brought a shock OF arms in any other
day, but which were peacefully adjusted,
the pen taking the place of the sword.
That Alabama question in any other
age of the world would have caused war
between the United States and England.
How was it settled? By men-of-war off
the Narrows, or of the Mersey? BY the
Gulf Stream of the ocean crossed by
gulf stream of human biood2 By the
pathway Of nations incarnadined? No.
a few wise men go into quiet room at
Geneva. talk the matter over, and tele-
graph TO Washington and to London:
/" All settled - Peace. Peace. Eng
land pays TO the United States the amount
awarded-pays really more than she
ought to have paid. But still, all that
Alabama broil is settled-settled forever.
Arbitration instead of battle.
So, the quarrel eight or nine years ago
about the Canadian fisheries in any