The national leader., 1889-07-11

morning and evening you know, that is the
place we now meet Though every member
Of the household have separate room
in the family room they all gath
er and joys and sorrows and expert
ences of all styles are there rehearsed Sa-
cred room in all our dwellings! Whether it
be luxurious with ottomans and divans and
books in Russian lids standing in mahogany
case, or there be only a few plain chairs
and cradle. So the family room on high
will be the place where the kinsfolk assem-
BILE and talk over the family experiences of
earth, the weddings, the births, the burials,
the festal days of Christmas and Thanksgiv-
ing reunion Will the children Departed re-
main children there? Will the aged remain
aged there? Oh, no: everything is perfect
there. The child will go ahead to glorified
maturity and the aged will go back to glo-
rified maturity. The rising sun of the one
will rise to meridian and the descending sun
of the other win return to meridian. How
ever much we love our children on earth we
would consider it a domestic disaster if they
stayed children and so we rejoice at their
growth here. And when we meet in the
family room of our Fathers house, we will
be glad that they have grandly and glorious
ly matured; while our parents who were
aged and infirm here, we shall be glad to find
restored to the most agile and vigorous inn
mortality there. If forty or forty-five or fif-
Ly years DC JHe apex OF puySlCal ana menLal
ifeon the EARTH then the heavenly child
hood will advance to that and the heavenly
old age will retreat to that.
When we join them in that family room
we shall have much to tell them We shall
want to know of them right away such
things as these: Did you see US in this or that
or the other struggle? Did you know when
we lost our property and sympathize with us?
Did you know we had that awful sickness?
Were you lowering anywhere around when
we plunged into that memorable accident?
Did you know of our backsliding? Did
you know of that moral victory? Were
you pleased when we started for heaven? Did
you celebrate the hour of our conversion?
And then, whether they knowit or not, we
will tell them all. But they will have more
to tell us than we to tell them. Ten years on
earth may be very eyentful, but what must
be the biography of ten years in heaven?
They will have to tell us the story
OF coronations, story of news from all
immensity, story of conquerors and
somed planets, story of angelic victory
over diabolic revolts, of extinguishcd suns, of
obliterated consultations, of new galaxies
kindled and swung, of stranded comets, of
worlds on fire, and story of Jehovah's ma
jestic reign. If in that family room of our
Fathers house we have so much to tell them
of what we have passed through since we
parted, how much more thrilling and arous-
ing that which they have to tell us of what
they have passed through since we parted.
Surely that family room will be one of the most
favored rooms in all our Fathers house.
What long lingering there for we
shall never again be in hurry.
humble Christian servant to Lady Rallies
who, because Of the death of her child,
had shut herself up in dark room
and refused to see any one; ''you have
been many days in this dark room
Are you not ashamed to grieve in this
manner, when you ought to be thanking
God for having given you the most beauti-
Iul enid that ever was Seen and instead of
leaving him in this world till he should be
worn with trouble, has not God taken him to
heaven in all his beauty? Leave off weeping
and let me open window" So to-day am
trying to open upon the darkness of earthly
separation the windows and doors and rooms
OF the heavenly homestead. ''In my Fathers
house are many rooms"
How would it do for my sermon to leave
you In that family room to-day? lam sure
there is no room in which you would rather
stay than in the enraptured circle of your as
cended and glorified kinSfolk. We might
visit other rooms in our Fathers house There
may be picture galleries penciled not with
unknown in this world, preserv-
ing for the next world the bright
est and most stupendous scenes of human his
tory. And there may be lines and forms of
earthly beauty preserved for heavenly in
spection i'll something winter and chaster and
richer than Venetian sculpture ever wrought
Rooms beside rooms. Rooms over rooms.
Large rooms. Majestic rooms, opalescent
rooms, amethystine rooms. linn Fathers
house are many rooms"
I hope none of us win be disappointed
about getting there. There is room for us
if we VIII go and take it. but IN order to reach
it it is absolutely necessary that we take the
right way; and Christ is the way: and we
must enter at the right door, and Christ is
the door; and we must start in time and the
only hour you are sure of is the hour the clock
now strikes and the only second the one your
watch is now ticking. / hold in
my hand a roll of letters inviting you all
to make that your home forever. The New
Testament is only roll of letters inviting
you, as tho spirit of them practically says:
my dying yet immortal child in earthly
neighborhood, have built for you a great
residence. 1t is full of rooms. 1 have,
furnished them as no palace was ever fur
nished. Pearls are nothing, emeralds are
nothing, chrysophrasus is nothing; illu-
nothing; the aurora of the northern
heavens, nothing-compared with the splen-
dor with which I have garnitured them.
But you must be clean before you can enter
there and SO l have opened a fountain
where you may wash all your sins away.
Come nowl Put your weary but cleansed
feet on the upward pathway, Do you not
see amid the thick foliage ON the heavenly
hill-tops the old family homesteadY' ''In
my Fathers house are many rooms"