News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-02-20

alarms, and perhaps an especial Waterman
blowing his whistle at midnight before your
dwelling, but all tnat cannot project your
household.
Is there on our houses the sign of a
Sayiour's sacrifice and mercy? Is there a
scarlet line in the window? Have your chill
dren been consecrated to Christ? Have YOU
been washed in the blood of the atonement?
In what room do you have family PRAYERS? ?
Show me where it is you are cus'omed to
kneel. The sky is black with the coming
JeInre Is your family inside or outside Of
the ark? 1t Is sad thing for man to reject
Christ: but to lie down in the night of sin,
across the path to heaven, so that his family
come up and trip over him-that is terrific
1t is sad thing for mother to reject Christ !;
but to gather her family around her, and IL en-
take them by the hand and lead them out into
paths of worldliness, away from God and
heay n-alas! alas There may be geranium
and cactus in that family window, and up
holstery lowering over it, and childish faces
looking out of it, but there is no scarlet thread
stretched across 1t.
AIlnough that house may be on the best
street in all the town or city, it is really on
the edge of q marsh across which sweep
most poisonous maarias, and it has SANDY
foundation, and its splendor will come down,
and great will be the fall of it. A home
without God! A prayerless father! An un-
deyout motheri Awful! awful! Is that
YOU? Will you keep on, my brother, on the
wrong re adj, and take your loved ones with
YOU? Time is so short we cannot waste any
of if on apologies, or indirections, or circum-
locutions You owe to your children, o
father. o mother, more than food, more than
clothing more than shelter on owe them
the example OF a prayerful, consecrated,
pronounced. out-and-out Christian life. You
cannot afford to keep it away from them.
Now, as | stand here, you do not see any
hands outstretched toward me, and yet
there are hands on my brow and hands on
both my shoulders. They are hands of pa
terna benediction. 1t is quite good many
years ago now since we folded those hands
Us they began the last sleep on the banks of
the Raritan in the village cemetery; but
those hands are stretched out toward me to-
day, and they are just as warm, and they are
lust as gentle as when | sat on her knee at
wears Of age. And shall never shake off
those hands. / do not want to. They have
helped me so many thousand times already,
and do not expect to have trouble or
trial between this and my grave where those
hands will not help me. 1t was not very
splendid home, as the world calls 1t, but we
had family Bible there. well worn by tender
perusal; and there was family altar there,
where we knelt morning and night; and
there was a holy Sabbath there; and stretch
ed in a straight line or hung in loops or fes-
toons, there was scarlet line in the window.
O the tender, precious, blessed memory of
a Christian memory! Is that the impression
YOU are dead-and it will not be long before
YOU are-when you are dead, will your child
saw: If there ever was Christian father,
mine was one. If there ever was good
Christian mother, mine was oneT
But blessed be God for this scarlet line in
the window. That tells me that the blood of
Christ bought that home for my soul, and l
shall go there when my work Is done. And
as l put my hand on that scarlet line, every
thing in the future brightens. My eyesight
gets better, and the robes of the victors are
more lustrous, and our loved ones who went
away some time ago-they do not stand any
more with their backs to us, but their faces
are this way, and their voices drop through
this Sabbath air, saying with all tenderness
and sweetness: "Come! Come! Gomez
And the child that you think Of only as
buried-why, there she is, and it is May day
in heaven; and they gather the amarantb,
and they pluck the lilies, and they twist them
into garland for her brow, and she is one
of the May queens Of heaven. Oh, do you
think they could see the waving today? 1t is
quite pleasant day, pretty clear, and not
MANY clouds in the SKY. l wonder If they
can see us from the good land? | think they
can. If from this window of earthly pros
poets we can almost see them, then from
their powers of light / think they can fully
see us. And SO wave them the glory, and
wave them the joy, and / say: "Have You
got through with all your troublesY' and
y
all tears from our eyes" 1 say: els it rs
grand up there as you thought it would be?"
and the voices answer: "Eye hath not seen
nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into
the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for those that love him."
l say: "Do you have any more struggle for
bread" and they answer: 1--WE hunger no
more, we thirst no more" And l say:
"Have you been out to the cemetery of the
golden city," and they answer; ''There is no
heavens, and l say, "Where do you get your
light from nights, and what do you burn in
the temple" and they answer: "There is no
night here, and we have no need of candle or
of star" And l say: "What book do you
sing out OFF, and they answer: "The Halle
lujah Chorus" And say SIN the splendor
and magniticence of your city don't you ever
get losty" and they answer: "The Lamb
which is in the midst of the throne leadeth US
to living fountains of water.'' Oh, how near
they seeml Their wings-do you not feel
them? And all that through the window of
our earthly prospects, across which stretches
the scarlet line.