Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-03-13

mas naQ tempeSbuOuS Time at sea, anu
now that it proposes another voyage,
keeps on its davits the damaged life
boats, and the splinters of shivered
mast and the broken glass of smashed
skylight. Ny advice is: Clear the
decks, overheard with the damaged rig
ging, brighten up the sailed smokestack,
open a new log book, haul in the planks,
lay out new course and set sail for
Heaven. You have had spiritual dumps
long enough. You will please the Lord
more by being happy than by being
miserable.
Again, my text has good advice con-
corning any Christian hampered and
bothered and bound by fear of his own
dissolution. To such the Book refers
when it speaks of those who through
fear Of death were all their lifetime
subject to bondage. The most of US,
even if we have the Christian hope, are
towards about death. If plank fall
from scaffolding and just grazes our
hat how pale we look. If the Atlantic
ocean plays with the steamship, pitch
ing it toward the heavens and letting it
suddenly drop how even the Christian
passengers poster the steward or stew
ardess as to whether there is any dan
ger and yhe captain, who has been all
night on the bridge and chilled through,
coming in for cup of coffee, is assailed
with whole battery of questions as to
many of the best people are, as Paul
says, throughout their lifetime in bond
age by fear of death.
One of the first realizations in getting
out of this world, think, will be that
in this world we were very much pent
up and had cramped apartments and
were kept on the limits.
Take the gladdest, brightest, most
jubilant days you ever had on earth and
compress them all into one hour, and
that hour would be a requiem, fast
day, gloom, a horror, as compared with
the poorest hour they have had in
Heaven since its first tower was built or
its first gates swung or its first song
caroled.
co." you say, ''that may be true, but
1 am afraid of crossing over from this
world to the next, and l fear the snap
ping of the cord between soul and
body" Well, all the surgeons and ply
sicians and scientists declare that there
is no pang at the parting of the body
and the soul, and all the seeming rest
lessness at the closing hour of life is in
voluntary and no distress at all. And
I agree with the doctors, for what they
say is confirmed by the fact that persons
who were drowned or were submerged
until all consciousness departed and
were afterward resuscitated, declare
that the sensation of passing into I'M
consciousness was pleasureable rath-
er than distressful. The cage Of
the body has a door on easy
hinges, and when that door of the phys
ical cage opens the soul simply puts out
it's wings and scars. But" you say, 81
fear to go because the future is so full
of mystery" Well, will tell you how
to treat the mysteries. The mysteries
have ceased bothering me, for l do as
the judges of your courts often do.
They hear all the arguments in the case
and then say: 81 will take those papers
and give you my decision next week. :"
So have heard all arguments in regard
to the next world, and some things are
uncertain and full of mystery, and so 1
fold up the papers and reserve I'M
til the next world my decision about
them. l can there study all the
mysteries to better advantage, for
the light will be better and my faculties
stronger, and L will ask the Christian
philosophers who have had all the ad-
vantages of Heaven for centuries, to
help me, and 1 may be permitted myself
humbly to ask the Lord, and 1 think
there will be only one mystery left, and
that will be how one so unworthy as
myself got into such an enraptured
place. Come up out of the sepulchral
shadows. If you are not Christians by
faith in Christ come up into the light;
and if you are already like Lazarus, re-
animated, but still have your grave
clothes on, get rid of them. The COM
mand is: ''Loose him and let him CO."
The only part of my recent journey
that 1 really dreaded, although 1 did
not say much about it beforehand, was
the landing at Joppa. That is the port
of entrance for the Holy Land, and
there are many rocks, and in rough
weather people can not land at all. The
boats taking the people from the steam
er to the docks must run between reefs
that looked to me to be about fifty feet
apart, and one mis-stroke of an oarsman
on an unexpected wave has sometimes
been fatal, and hundreds have persisted
along those reefs. Besides that, as We
left Port Said the evening before an old
traveller said: 1.-THE wind is just right h
give you rough landing at Joppa; in
deed, think you will not be able to land
at all" The factwas that when our Medi.
terranean steamer dropped anchor near
Joppa and we put out for shore in the
small boat, the water was as still a.
though it had been sound asleep q
years, and we landed as easily
as came on this platform. Well, YOU
fears have pictured for you an appalling
arrival at the end of your voyage of life
and they say that the seas will run high
and that the breakers will swallow YOU
up, or that if you reach Canaan at all il
will be very rough landing. The very
opposite will be true if you have the
eternal God for your portion. Your dis
for the promised land will
be as smooth as was ours at Palestine
last December. Christ will meet you a,
sea and pilot you into complete safety
and you will land with hosanna on
one side of you and hallelujah on the
other.
Land ahead % its fruits are waving
Ger the hills of fade ess green,
And the living waters living
Shores where heavenly forms are seen.