The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1889-02-15

face Of your pardoning God, and surren.
der yourself for time and eternity, and He
Is yours, and Heaven Is yours. and all II
yours. Some Of you, like the young man
OF the text have gone far astray. know
not the history, but you know it. you
know it. When Q 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
Q 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 circls-thsy 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, I say to you,
10 your hour Of salvation.
There was in 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. Shc 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
absence of the nurse, in the power, the
strange power which delirium some times
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 any thing peculiar
about that clock?" She made no answer,
but soon died. There is q clock scene in
every history. II some of you would rise
from the bed of lethargy and come out
from your 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
will say: "Now, now, now nowW O.
come home to your Fathers house. Come
home, o, prodigal, from the wilderness.
Come home, come home!
Second-But 1 notice that when the
prodigal came there was the fathers Joy.
He did not greet him with any formal
"How do you dos" He did not come out
and say: "You are unfit to enter; 60 out
and wash in the trough by the we'll 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 fathers
love and a fathers joy. God is your
Father. have not much sympathy with
that description of God l sometimes hear,
as though He were Turkish Sultan, hard
and unsympathetic and listening not to
the cry of His subjects. A man told me
T. Is L. l.
riding along and two men were in alterca-
ton and one charged the other with hav.
ing eaten his rice, and the King said:
''Then slay the man and by post mortem
find whether he has eaten
the rice" And he was slain. All! the
cruelty of a scene like that.
Our God is not Sultan, not q Gar, not
a despot, but Father-kind, loving, for
giving, and He makes all Heaven ring
again when a prodigal comes back. 81
have no pleasure" He says, 'in the death
of him that dieth." If man does not get
to Heaven. it is because he will not 60
there. No difference the color, no differ
ence the history, no difference the ante
cedents, no difference the surroundings,
no difference the sin. When the white
horses of Christ's victory are brought out
to celebrate the triumph, you may ride
one of them, and as God is greater than
all, His joy is greater, and when 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 eternity. 1t is a
joy deeper than all depth, and higher
than all height, and wider than all width,
and vaster than all immensely. 1t over
tops, 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
silver and gold among the peo-
pie, and sent valuable presents to his
but methinks when a soul comes
back, God is SO glad that to express His
Joy He filings out new worlds into space,
and kindles up new suns, and rolls among
the white robed anthems Of the redeemed
a greater hallelujah, while with a voice
that reverberates among the mountains of
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. I saw a Mexican fiutist. 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
II that one flute as compared with all the
orchestra was greater than all the com.
oined joy of the universe when compared
with the resounding heat OF Almighty
God.
For ten wears a father went three times
. day to the depot His SON went of in
circumstances, but the father
,aid, HE will come back.n The strain
was too much. and his mind psrted. and
three times a day the father went In the
,arly morning he watched the train. its
rr;voI tho stenn;ro ont ~ the n.s,.,na.,