The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-01-24


Tapestry trailing the snowy floors. Braek-
cts of light flashing on the lustrous sur
roundings. Silvery music ripping to the |
beach of the arches. The mere thought |
of it almost stuns my brain, and you say; |
sFOh, if 1 could only have walked over |
such floors! If | could have thrown my |
self in such chair! If 1 could have heard |
the drip and dash of those fountains !"
You shall have something better than
that if you only let Christ introduce you.
From that place He came, and to that
place He proposes to transport you, for
His garments smell of n1yrrh and aloes
and cassia out of ivory palaces"
Oh, what place Heaven must bel The
Tuileries of the French, the Windsor
Castle of the English, the Spanish Alham-
bra, the Russian Kremlin, dungeons COM
pared with it, Not so many castles on
either side the Rhine as on both sides OF
the river of God, the ivory palaces. One
! for the angels, insufferably bright; wing
| ed, fire-eyed; tempest-charioted one for
the martyrs, with blood-red robes, from
under the altar; one for the King, the
steps of His palace, the crowns OF the
| church militant; one for the singers, who
lead the one hundred and forty and four
thousand; one for you ransomed from
sin; one for me, plucked from the burn
ing. Oh, the ivory palaces!
To-day it seems to me as If the windows
of those palaces were illumined for some
great victory, and look and see climbing
the stair of ivory and walking on floors OF
ivory, and looking from windows of ivory,
some whom we knew and loved on earth.
Yes, know them. They are father and
mother, not eighty-two and seventy-nine
| Lea 1o1fh fh1a and
young as when on their marriage day, and
there are brothers and sisters, merr1er
than when we used to romp across the
meadows together. The cough gone. The
cancer cured. The erysipelas healed. The
heartbreak over. Oh, how fair they
are in the ivory palacesl And your
dear little children that went out from
you-Christ did not let one of them drop
as He lifted them. He did not wrench one
of them from you. No. They went as
from one they loved well to One whom
they loved better. If should take your
little child and press its soft face against
my rough cheek, l might keep it little
while; but when you, the mother, came
along it would struggle to go with you.
And so you stood holding your dying child
when Jesus passed by in the reom and
the little one sprang out to greet Him.
That is ALL Your Christian dead did not
go down into the dust and the gravel and
mud. Though it rained all that funeral
day, and the water came up to the wheels
hub as YOU drove out to the cemetery, it
made no difference to them, for they
! stepped from the home here to the home
there, right into the ivory palaces. All is
well with them. All Is well.
1t is not a dead weight that you lift when
} you carry q Christian out Jesus makes
the bed up soft with velvet promises, and
He says: i'Put her down here very gently.
: Put that head, which will never ache
: again, on this pillow of hallelujahs. Send
r up word that the procession is coming.
' Ring the bells: Ring! Open your gates,
t we ivory palaces" And so your loved
e ones are there. They are just as certain
}. ly there having died in Jesus, as that you
3 are here. There is only one thing more
1 they want. Indeed, there is one thing in
: Heaven they have not got. They want it:
e what is it? Your company. But, oh, my
b brother, unless you change your track you
1 can not reach that harbor. You might as
T well take the Baltimore & Ohio railroad
: expecting in that direction to reach Toron-
e to, as to go on In the way some of you are
5, going, and yet you expect to reach the
b ivory palaces. Your loved ones are
d looking out Of the windows of HEAVIER
S now, and yet you seem to turn your bach
z. upon them. You do not seem to know
J. the sound of their voices as we'll as yoT
: used to, or to be moved by the sight o.
d their dear faces. Call louder, We de
e parted ones. Call louder from the ivor!
g palaces. When think of that place, anC
rs think Of my entering it, | feel awkward;
IS feel as sometimes when I have been ex
e posed to the weather, and my shoes hav
lie been bemired, and my coat is soiled, ans
4, my hair is disheveled and / stop in from
l. of some fine residence where / have al
10 errand. feel not fit to go in as am ant
IT sit among polished guests. SO some of u
r feel about Heaven. We need to be washed
we need to be rehabilitated before we G
a into the ivory palaces. Eternal God, lie
lie the surges of Thy pardoning mercy rol
to over us. / want not only to wash m
Te hands and my feet, but, like some skille
m diver standing on the pierhead, who leap
j. into the wave and comes up at far dis
e. tant point from where he went in, so
e; want TO go down and so / want to com
i'd up. Oh, Jesus, wash me in the waves Q
as Thy salvation.
is And here | ask you to solve a myster
an that has been expressing me for thirt
es years. 1 have asked of doctors of divinit
In who have been studying theology half
at century, and they have given me no salts
G. factory answer. 1 have turned over a
re. the books In my library, but got no solu
lis ton to the question, and to-day com
yn and ask you for an explanation. By wha
cd logic was Christ induced to exchange th
re ivory palaces of Heaven for the crucifz
eh ion agonies of earth? l shall take th
en- first thousand million years in Heaven I
" study out that problem. Meanwhile an
be now, taking it as the tenderest and NIGH
de lest of all facts that Christ did come, thu
CHI He came with spikes in His feet, cam
with thorns in His brow, came with speal
ot in His heart, to save you and to save M
,- "God so loved the world that He gave H
10. only begotten Son, that whosoever b.
re lieveth in Him should not perish, butha1
a everlasting life.n o, Christ, whelm tn
nd audience with Thy compassion. Mo
IS: them down like summer grain with Il
~ harvesting sickle of Thy grace. Rio
Sc through to-day the conqueror, Thy ga,
en- ments smelling s'of murrh, and aloes, an
Use cassia, out of the ivory palaces"
lot o, sinner, fling every thing else ava
lat and take Christ! Take Him now, not t,
rot morrow. During the night following tn