The national leader., 1889-02-16


you have found that out-Alexander
longing for other worlds to conquer,
and yet drowned in his own bottle;
Byron whipped by disquietudes around
the world: Voltaire cursing his own
soul, while all the streets of Paris were
applauding him; Henry II, consuming
with hatred against poor Thomas
Becket-all illustrations of the fact
that this world cannot make a man
happy, The very man who poisoned
the pommel of the saddle on which
Queen Elizabeth rode, shouted in the
street: s'God save the Qneen!" One
moment the world applauds, and the
next moment the world mathematics.
Oh, come over into this greater joy,
this sublime solace, this magnificent
beatitudel The night after the b 'ttIeof
Shiloh, and there were thousands Of
wounded on the field, and the ambu-
lances had not come, one Christian SOL
dier lying there under the starlight be-
gan to sing:
"There is land of pure delight"
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 ten thou
sand wounded men reuniting their
voices as they came to the verse:
s'There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers;
Death like a narrow stream divides
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 religion this morning.
Just look into the face of your pardon
ing 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 far astray. l know
not the history, but you know it, you
know it! When young man went
forth into life, the legend says his guar
dian angel went forth with HIM, and
getting him into field, the guardian
angel swtpi .'ircle around where the
young man SLUU /. 1t was
A CIRCLE OF VIRTUE
and honor, and he must not step be-
yond that circle. Armed foes came
down, but were obliged to halt at the
circle-they could not pass. But one
day temptress with diamonded 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 have stepped beyond that
circle, Would you not like, this day,
by the grace of God. to step back?
This, say to you, is your hour of sal
vat on.
There was i'll the closing hours of
Queen Anne what is called the clock
scene. Flat down on the pillow in
helpless sickness, she could not move
her head or move her hand. She was
waiting for the hour when the minis
tiers of state should gather In angry
contest, and, worried and worn out by
the coming hour, in momentary absence
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 Pc
culiar about that clock?" She made
no answer, but soon died. There is
A CLOCK SCENE IN EVERY HISTORY.
If some of you would Iise from the bed
of lethargy, and come out from your
delirium Of sin, and look ON the clock
of your dest ny 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, now!"
Oh, come home to your Fathers housed
Come home, 0 prodigal, from the will
dernes>l Come home, come home!
II. But notice that when the pro-
dgal came, there was the father s Jog.
H did not greet him with any formal
"IIow do you doP" 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
have 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.
1 have not much sympathy with that
description of God l sometimes hear,
as though He were a Turkish Sultan,
hard and unsympathetic, and listening
not to the cry of His subjects. A man
told me he saw in one of the Eastern
lands king riding along, and two men
were in alteration, and one charged
the other with having eaten his rice;
and the king said: ''Then slay the
man, and by post.mortem examination
find whether he has eaten the rice"
And he was slain. Ahl the cruelty of
a scene like that. Our God is not a
Sultan, not Gar, not despot, but
Father-kind, loving, forgiving, and
He makes all heaven ring again when
prodigal comes back. II have no
pleasure" He says, ''in the death of
him that dieth.n
If man does not get to heaven it IS
because he will not go there. No diff
ference the color, no difference the
history, no difference the antecedents,
no difference the surroundings, no diff
ference the sin. When the white horses