Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-02-14

| more exhausting. l have seen ministers
kept on miserable stipends by parsimon-
ious congregations who wondered at the
dizziness of the sermons, when the men OF
God were per picked almost to death by
questions of livelihood, and had not
| enough nutritious food to keep any
fire in their temperament No'fuel, no
fire. have sometimes seen the inside OF
the life of many of the American clergy
men-neve- accepting their hospitality,
because they can not afford it; but have
seen them struggle on with salaries OF 800
! and $50 a year-the average less than
that-their struggle well depicted by the
| Western missionary who says IN letter:
THANK YOU fer your last remittance; I'M
til it came we had not any meat in our
house for one year, and all last winter,
although it was a severe winter, our chill
dren wore their summer clothes" And
these men of God 1 find in different parts
of the land, struggling against annoyances
and exasperations innumerable; some OF
| them week after week entertaining agents
who have maps to sell and submitting
themselves to all styles of annoyance, and
yet without complaint and cheerful OF
soul. How do you account for the fact
that these life insurance men tell us that
ministers as class live longer than any
others? 1t is because of the joy of their
work, the joy of the harvest field, the joy
| of greeting prodigals home to their
| Fathers house.
| We are in sympathy with all innocent
hilarities. We can enjoy hearty song
| and we can be merry with the merriest;
| but those of us who have toiled in the SER
! vice are ready to testify that all these joys
| 20, mill no cfo ion
of seeing men enter the kingdom of God.
| The great eras of every minister are the
outpourings of the Holy Ghost, and thank
Col have seen eighteen of them. Thank
| God, thank God!
FOURTH notice also when the prodigal
comes back ali earnest Christians rejoice.
If you stood on Montauk Point and there
was a hurricane at sea, and it was blowing
toward the shore, and vessel crashed in
to the rocks and you saw people get ashore
in the life boats and the very last man got
on the rocks in safety, you could not con-
| troll your joy. And it is glad time when
the church of God see, men who are tossed
on the ocean of their sins plant their feet
on the rock Christ Jesus.
o, when prodigals come home just hear
those Christians sing. just hear those
Christians pray. 1t is not stereotyped
| supplicatiou we have heard over and over
again for twenty years, but a putting Of
the case in the hands of God with on inn
Fortunate pleading. No long prayers.
Men never pray at great length unless
they have nothing to say and their hearts
are hard and cold. All the prayers in the
Bible that were answered were short pray
| ers: God be merciful to me a sinner"
Lord, that l may receive my sight"
Lord save me OF l perish" The longest
prayer, Solomon's prayer at the dedca-
ton of the tempel, was less than eight
minutes in length, according to the ordi-
nary rate of enunciation.
And just hear them pray now that the
prodigals are coming home. Just see
them shake hands. No putting forth OF
| the four tips of the fingers in formal
way, but hearty grasp, where the mus
Giles of the heart seem to clinch the fingers
of one hand around the other hand. And
then see those Christian faces, how illu-
| minated they are. And see that old man
get up and with the same voice that he
| sang fifty years ago in the old country
meeting house, say: Now, Lord, lettest
Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for
mine eyes have seen Thy salvation"
There was a man of Keith who was
hurled into prison in time of persecution,
and one day he got off his shackes and he
came and stood by the prison door, and
when the jailer was opening the door,
with one stroke he struck down the man
who had incarcerated him. Passing along
the streets he wondered where his family
was. He did not dare 10 ask lest he excite
suspicion, but passing along little way
| from the prison he saw Keith tankard, a
| cup that had belonged to the family from
generation 10 generation-be saw il in
a window. His family, hoping that
some day he would get clear, came
and lived as near as they could to
the prison house. and they set that
Keith tankard in the window, hoping he
would see 1T; and he came along and saw
it and knocked at the door and went in,
and the long absent family We're all to-
getler again. o. if you would start for
the Kingdom of God to-day l think some
of you would find nearly all your friends
and nearly all your families around the
holy tankard of the holy communion
fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, around
that sacred tankard which commentaries
the love of Jesus Christ our Lord o, it
will be great communion day when your
whole family sits around the sacred tank
| ard-one on earth, one in Heaven.
Fifth-Once more l remark that when
the prod gal gets back the inhabitants of
Heaven keep festival. l um very certain
of it. If you have never seen telegraphic
chart, you have no idea how many cities
are connected together and how many
! lands Nearly all the neighborhoods of
| the earth seem articulated, and news flies
| from city to city and from continent to
continent. But more rapidly go the It'd
| ings from earth to Heaven, and when a
| prodigal returns it is announced before
the throne of God. And if these souls
this morning should enter the kingdom
there would be some one in the heavenly
kingdom to say: That's my father"
That's my mother" That's my son."
That's my daughter That's my friend"
That's the one l used to pray for"
That the one for whom wept SO many
tears" And one soul would say,
''Hosannaw and another soul would say,
'Hallelujahw
PLEASED with the news the saints below
In songs their tongues employ,
Beyond the skies the tidngs go,
And Heaven is filed with joy.
"Nor angels can their joys contain,
But kintile with the fire;
The sinner lost is found, they sing,
And strike the sounding Tyre"
At the banquet of Lucullus sat Cicero,
| the orator; at the Macedonian festal sat
Philip, the conqueror; at the Grecian ban
quet sat Socrates, the philosopher; but at
| our Fathers table sit all the returned
prodigals, more than conquerors. The
| table is so wide its leaves reach across
seas and across lands. Its guests are the
redeemed of earth and the glorified of