The Russellville Democrat., 1889-02-14
where salnt, lmmortnl reIpn


 they came to the verse:
 There everlasting spring abides,
 And never-withering howersi
 Death like q narrow stream divides That Heavenly land from ours
 Oh, it is great religion to live by, and 1t is great religion to die by. There is only one heart throb between you and i that religion this morning. Just look Into the face of your pardoning God, and sur
 render yourself for time and eternity and He fs yours, and Heaven is yours, and all is yours. Some of you, like the young l man of the text, have gone far astray. know not the Il fstory, but you know it, you know it. When a young man went | forth into life, the legend says, his guard- 1 ian went forth with him and getting him into field the guardian angel swept
 a circle clear around where the young
 man stood. It was a circle of virtue aud 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 q temptress, with diarnonded 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 1 by the grace of God to step baekt This, l say to you, Is 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. She was waiting for the hour when l the ministers Of state should gather in
 angry contest, and, worried and hsv ba Ira and in rnomentary absence of the nurse,
 in the power, the strange power which de- lirium sometimes gives one. she arose
 and stood in front of the clock, and stood there watching the clock when the purse
 returned. The nurse said: "Do you see
 any thing peculiar about that clook?" She 1 made no answer, but soon died. There is a clock scene in every history. If some | of you would rise from the bed of lethargy | and come out from your delirlnm ot sin,
 and look on the clock of your destiny this
 morning. you would see and hear some- 1 thing you have not seen or heard before, | and every tick of the minute, and every 1 stroke of the hour, and every swing Of the l pendulum would say: "Sow, now, now, 1 now" Oh, come home to your Fathers house. Come home, oh, prodi2al from l the wilderness. Come home, come home! !! g. But I notice that when the prodigal came there was fathers joy. He did not greet him with any formal "How do you | dor Hs did not come out and say: "Yon
 are unfit to enter; go out and wash ia the ] trough by the well, and then you can come in; we have had enough trouble with | you" An! DO. Whom the proprietor of that estate proclaimed festival, it was
 an outburst of fathers love and 8 fathers joy. God is your father. have not much sympathy with that description
 of God 1 sometimes hear, as though Hs were a Turkish Sultan, hard and unsympa~ thefic, and listening not to the cry Of his subjects. 4 man told me hs 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 Klng said: ''Then slay the
 man. and by post-m0rtem examination l find whether he has eaten the riee.n And
 he was slain. Ahi the cruelty Of scene 1 like that. Our God Is not Sultan, not 8
 Czar, not despot, but a Father-hnd, 1 loving, forgiYing and He makes all Heav-
 en ring again when a prodigal comes
 back. q have no pleasure" !" He says, "in the death Of him that dietl.."
 If a man does not get to Heaven # is be-
 cause he will not go there. No difference 1 the color, no difference the history. no 1 difference the antecedents, no difference the surroundings, no difference the sin. ! When the white horses Of Christ's victory are brought ont 10 celebrate the eternal l triumph you may ride one of them, and as l God is greater than all, His joy is greater, and when soul comes back there is in | His heart the gurging of aa infinite ocean of giadness, and to express that gladness 1 Ii takes all the rivers Of pleasure, and all the thrones of pomp, and all the ages of 1 eternity. IL is joy deeper than all depth, l and higher than all height aud wider l than all width, and yaster than all i'm mensity. It oyertops, it undergirds, it ] outweighs all the unIte3 spleudor and joy Of the universe. Who can tell what Gods joy isf
 You remember reading the story of a King who on some great day Of festiYity
 scattered silver and gold among the peo- ] pie, and sent valuable presents to his courtiers; but netbinks when a soul
 comes back, God is so glad that to ex-
 press 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 halls-
 luian, while with q voice that reYerber-
 
 censs and is echoed back from the eyer- lasting gates, He cries: ''This, my son, was dead, and he is alive a2ain.0
 At the opening Of the Exposition in New Orleans, saw a Mexican futist, and he played the solo, and then afterward the eight or ten bands Of music, accom- panied by the great organ, came ia; but the sound of that one flute as compared with all the orchestra was greater than all
 the combined Joy of the universe shen
 compared with the resoanding heart Of
 Almighty God.
 For ten years a father went three times
 day to the depot His s0n went off ia
 aggraysting circumstances. but ths fa-
 ther said. He will come back" The
 strain was too much, and his rniud parted and three times day the father went Tn
 the early morning he watched the train
 it's arrival, the stepping @lt Of the pas sengerE, and then t8e de partare Of the train. At noon be was tbere again,
 watching ffe advance 0t the train, watch ing the departure. A night there again,
 watching ths coming. watching the goiD z
 for ten years. He was sure his son would come back. God has been watching and
 waiting for some Of you, my brothers,
 ten years twenty years, thirty years,
 forty years, perhaps fifty years--waiting
 waiting, watching, watching, and 4 this
 morning the prodigal should come home,
 what a scene Of gladness and fesDyity,
 and how the great Father's heart would
 rejoice at your coming home. You win come some Of you, will you n0ts You
 will, you will
 8 l notice also that when a pr0digal
 comes home .hsFe is the joy Of the mints-
 ters of religion. Oh, it is a grand thing
 to preach this gospel. l knog thsre has
 been a great deal said about the trials aud
 hardsnips 0f lhe Christian ministry. ]
 wtsh somebody would write a good rous- ing book about the joys of the Christian
 ministry. Since ] entered tse profession
 l have seen more of the goodness of God
 than i will be able tg celebrate in s3l