New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1889-02-13

| obliged to halt at the circle-they could not
| pass But one day a temptress with dia-
monded 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 hey ond til at circle. Would
you not like this day by the grace of God to
step back? This, 1 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
ing for the hour when the ministers of state
should gatherin 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
sometimes gives one, she arose and stood be-
fore the clock, and stood there watching the
clock when the nurse returned. The nurse
said "Do you see auy thing peculiar about
that clock?" She made no answer, but soon
died. There is a clock scene in every history
If some ofyou would rise from the bed Of
leathargy and come out from your delirium
of SIM and look on the clock of your destiny
this morning, you would see and hear some
thing you have never seen or heard before
and every tick of the hour and every swing
of the pendulum would say: .sNow, now,
now, now!' Oh, come home, to your fathers
house d, Come home, Oh. prodigal, from the
wilderness. Come home!
Second-But noticed that when the prodi-
gal came there was the fathers joy. He did
not greet him with any formal ow do you
dor lie did not come out and say: EsYou
are unit to enter; go out and wash in the
trough by the well, 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 a
fathers love and a fathers joy. God is your
Father. have not much sympathy with
that description of God | sometimes hear, as
though he were a Turkish sultan, hard and
unsympathetic and listening not to the cry
of his subjects. A man told me he saw in one
ofthe Eastern, lands a King riding along,
and two men were in alteration, and one
charged the other with having eaten his rice;
and the King said: ''Then slay The man, and
by the post-mortem examination find whether
he has eaten the rice And he was Slain All!
the cruelty of a scene like that. Our God is
not a Sultan, not a car, not a despot, but.a
father-kind, loving, forgiving and He makes
all heaven ring again when a prodigal comes
back. Il have no pleasure He says, in the
death OF him that dieth. y
If a man does not get to heaven it is be-
cause he will not get there. No difference the
color, no difference the history, no difference
the antecedents, no difference the surround
ings, no difference the sin. When the white
horses OF Chrlsts victory are brought out to
celebrate the eternal 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 q JOY deeper than all depth,
and higher than all width, and vaster than
all immensely. 1t overtops, 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 offestivity, scattered
silver and gold among the people, and sent
valua bic presents to his courtiers; but me-
thinks 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 an
thems OF the redeemed greater hallelujah,
while with q voice that reveberates among
the mountains Of frankincense 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, l saw a Mexican futist, 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 of that
one flute as compared with all the orchestra
was SieetteT U1tu dill Ule com DlneU Joy OF une
universe when compared with the resounding
heart of Almighty God.
For ten years father went three times a
day to the depot His son went of in ag-
gravating circumstance, but the father said:
"He will come back" The strain was too
much, and his mind parted, and three times
a day the father went In the early morning,
he watched the train, its arrival, the step
ping out of the passenger, and then the de-
parture Of the train. At noon he was there
again, watching the advance and watching
the departure. At night, there again; watch
ing the coming, watching the going for 10
years. He was sure his son would come
back. God has been watching and waiting
e Gs 80 ye ons en my 60 Seoh
40 years, perhaps SO years waiting, waiting,
watching, watching; and if this morning the
prodigal should come home, what a scene of
gladness and testiyiJy. and how the great
Fathers heart would rejoice at your coming
home. You willscome, some of you, will YOU
not? You WILL you will
Third notice also that when a prodigal
comes home there is the joy of the ministers
OF religion. Oh, it is a grand thing to preach
this gospel. l know there has been great
deal said about the trials and the hardships
OF the Christian ministry. l wish somebody
would write good rousing book about the
joys of the Christian ministry. Since l en-
tered the profession / have seen more Of the
goodness of God than will be able to cele-
brate in all eternity. I know some boast
about their equilibrium and they 10 not rise
into enthusiasm, and they do not break
down with emotion; but confess to you
plainly that when see man coming to God
and giving up his sin, fesl in mind, body.
and soul q transport. When see a m an who
is bound hand and foot in evil habit enamel
pated, rejoice over it as if it were my own
emancipation. When to day in our COM
munion service such throngs Of young and
old stand at these affairs, and in the presence
of heaven and earth and hell attest their al
legience to Jesus Christ, | feel a joy some
thing akin to that which the apostle de-
scribes when he says: whether in the body
cannot tell, or out of the body cannot tell;
God knoweth.' .
Oh, have not ministers a right to rejoice
when a prodigal comes home? They blew
the trumped, and ought they not to be glad
ofthe gathering of the host? They pointed
to the full supply, and ought they not to re-
joice when souls pant as the hart for the
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