The Russellville Democrat., 1890-01-23

tween sin and righteousness, and al God asks you is to walk across it; and you go little way on and you stop, and you fall back and you experiment. You say;
 '.IIow do know that bridge will hold ue?r
 Instead of marching on with finn
 step, asking no questions, but feeling that the strength of the eternal God ia under you. 0, was there ever prize offered so cheap as pardon and Heaven arc offered to you? For how much? A million dollars? It is certainly worth more than that But cheaper than that you can have it. Ten thousand dol lars? Less than that. One dollar? Less than that. One farthing? Less than that. "Without money and with out price" No money to pay No jour ney to take. No penance to suffer. Only just one decisive action of the soul
 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
 shalt be saved.
 Shall try to tell you what 1t is to be saved? can not tell you. No man, no angel can tell you. But can hint at 1t.
 For my text brings me up to this point: Thou shalt be saved" It means hap py life here, and peacafailsdeath and blissful eternity. It is a grand thing to go to sleep at night and to get up in tic morning, and to do business all day
 feeling that all is right between my heart and God. No accident, no sick
 ness, no persecution, no peril, no sword can do me any permanent damage.
 am a forgiven child of God, and He is bound to see me through. The mount aims may depart, the earth may burn, the light of the stars may be blown out by the blast of the judgment hurricane;
 but life and death, things present and things to come, are mine. Yea, further than that--it means a peaceful death. Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney, Dr. Young and almost all the poets have said handsome things about death. There is nothing beautiful about it. When we stand by the white and rigid features of those we love, and they give no answering pressure of the hand, and To returning kiss of the lip, we do not want any body poetizing around about
 us. Death is loathsomeness and mid night, and the wringing of the heart
 until the tendrils snap and curl in the torture unless Christ be with us. l confess to you to an in finite fear, a consuming horror, of death unless Christ shall be with me. l would rather go down into a cave of wild beasts or jungle of reptiles than into grave, unless Christ goes with me. Will you tell me that l am to be | ,nI put away in the darkness? I can not bear darkness. At the first coming of the evening must have the gas lit, and the further on in life I get the more I like to have my friends around abou
 me. And am to be put off for thous- ands of years in dark place, with no one to speak to? When the holidays come and the gifts are distributed, shall l add no joy to the Merry Christmas" or the Happy New Year'"
 An, do not point down to the hole in the ground, the grave, and call it a beautiful place; unless there be some supernatural illumination, 1 shudder back from it. But now this glorious lamp is lifted above the grave, and all the darkness is gone, and the way is clear. 1 look into it now without sin gle shudder. Now my anxiety is not about death; my anxiety is that I may live aright, for 1 know that my life is consistent when 1 come to the last hour, and this voice is silent, and these eyes are closed, and these hands with which l beg for your eternal sal vation to-day are folded over the still heart, that then I shall only begin to live. What power is there in any thing to chill me in the last hour if Christ wraps around me the skirt of his own garment? What darkness can fall upon my eyelids then, amid the Heavenly daybreak? O death, will not fear thee then. Back to the cavern of darkness, thou robber of all on earth. Fly, thou despoiler of families. With this battle axe 1 hew thee in twain from helmet to sandal, the voice of Christ sounding all over earth, and through the heavens: 70 death, will be thy plague. Ograve, I will be thy destruction"
 To be saved is to wake up in the pres ence of Christ. You know when Jesus was upon earth how happy He made every house He went into, and when He brings us,up to His house how great our glee. His voice has more music in it than is to be heard in all the oratorios of eternity. Talk not about banks dashed with effiorescence. Jesus is the chief bloom of Heaven. We shall see the very face that beamed sympathy in Bethany, and take the very hand that dropped its blood from the short beam of the cross. O, l want to stand in eternity with Him. Toward the harbor steer To ward that goal run. l shall be satis- fled when I awake in His likeness. Oh, broken-hearted men and women, how sweet it will be in that good land to pour all your hardships, and bereavements, and losses into the loving ear of Christ, and then have Him explain why it was best for you to be widowed, and why il was best for you to be tried, and have Him point to an elevation proportionats to your disquietude here, saying: "Yoy suffered with me on earth come up now and be glorihed with me in Heaven"
 Some went into house where there had been good deal of trouble and said to the woman there: ''You seem to be lonely"
 "Yes," she said, q am lonely" "How many in the famliy?"
 "Only myself.
 Have you had any children7' "I had seven children"
 Where are they?'
 Gone"
 "All gone?"
 All" Then she breathed long sigh into the loneliness, and said; 70, sir, l have been good mother to the grave"
 And so there are hearts here that are
 utterly broken down by the bereave-
 ments of life, point you to-day to the
 eternal balm Of Heaven. Are there any here that l am missing this morning? O, you poor waiting maid! your hearts sorrow poured in no human ear, lonely
 and sad! how glad you will be when
 Christ shall disband all your sor-
 rows and crown you Queen unto God uI tha Tarak fnra.arf n anoJ ,.,a.,