The Brookhaven leader., 1890-01-23

They wait until their children swear
before they teach them the Importance
of righteous conversation. They wait
until their children are all wrapped up
in this world before they tell them OF a
better world. Too late with your
prayers. Too late wi tn your discipline.
Too late with your benediction. You
put all care upon your children between
twelve and eighteen. Why do you not
put the chief care between four and
nine?
1T is tco lato to repair vessel when
it has got out of the dry docks. 1t
is too late to save Joash after
tho executioners have broken in.
May God arm us all for this work Of
snatching royal souls from death to
coronation. Can you imagine any sub
liner work than this soul-saving! That
was what flushed Paul's cheek with en-
thusiasm; that was what led Munson to
risk his life amid Bornesian cannibals;
that was what sent DR.. Abel to preach
under the consuming skies of China;
that was what gave courage to Phocus
in the third century. When the mill
tary officers came to put him to death
for Christ's sake, he put them to bed
that they might rest while he himself
went out and in his own garden dug his
grave, and then came back and said: 81
am ready" but they were shocked at the
idea of taking the life of their host. He
said: ut is the will of God that | should
die" and he stood on the margin OF his
own grave and they beheaded him. You
say it is a mania, foolhardiness, a
fanaticism. Rather would | call it a
glorious self-abnegation, the thrill of
eternal satisfaction, the plucking of
Josiah from death, and raising him to
coronation.
Would God that we were as wise as
Jehosheba, and knew that the church of
God is the best hiding place. Perhaps
our parents took us there in early days;
they snatched us away from the world
and hid us behind the baptismal fonts
and amid the Bibles and the psalm
books. o, glorious Enclosure! We have
been breathing his breath of the golde
censers all the time, and we have seen
the lamb on the altar and we have
handled the plants which arc the pray.
ers of all saints, and we have dwelt I'M
der the wings of the cherubim. dlori-
Gus inclosure! When my father and
mother died, and the property was set
tied up, there was hardly any thing left;
but they endowed us with property
worth more than any earthly possession,
because they hid us in the temple. And
when days of temptation have come
upon my soul have gone there for shell
ter; and when assaulted of sorrows
have gone there for comfort, and there
| mean to live. l want, like Joash, t.
stay there until coronation. l mean te
be buried out of the house of God.
tell you there is not more than on.
man out of thousand that appreciates
what the church is. Where are the
souls that put aside one-tenth for Chris
tian institutions-one-te tenth OF their in
come? Where are those who, having put
aside that one-tenth, draw upon it cheer
fully? Why, it is pull, and drag, and
hold on, and grab, and clutch; and Civ
ing is an affection to most people when
it ought to be an exhilaration and a
rapture. Oh, that God would remodel
our souls on this subject, and that we
might appreciate the house Of God as
the great refuge. If your children arc
to come up to lives of virtue and happi-
ness, they will come upunder the shadow
of the church. If the church does moi
get them the world will.
All, when you pass awaY-and it will
not be long before you do-when you
pass away it will be a satisfaction to
see your children in Christian society.
You want to have them sitting at the
holy sacraments. You want them min
Cling in Christian associations. You
would like to have them die in the sa-
cred precincts. When you are on your
dying bed, and your little ones come up
to take your last word, and you look in
to their bewildered faces, you will want
to leave them under the church's bene-
diction. l don't care how hard you
are, that is so. l said to a man
of the world: "Your son and
daughter are going to join our
Church next Sunday. Have you any
obiections?" 'Bless you," he said, sob
jections? l wish all my children be-
to those matters myself know l am
very wicked-but am very glad they
are going, and l shall be there to see
them. am very glad, sir; l am very
glad. / want them there" And so,
though you may have been wanderers
from God, and though you may have
sometimes caricatured the church of
Jesus, it is your great desire that your
sons and daughters should be standing
all their lives within this sacred inclos
ure.
More than that, you yourself will
want the church for hiding place when
the mortgage is foreclosed, when your
daughter, just blooming into woman
hood, suddenly clasps her hands in a
slumber that knows no waking, when
gaunt trouble walks through the parlor,
and the sitting-roOm, and the dining
hall, and the nursery, you will want
some shelter from the tempest. All,
some of you have been run upon by mis-
fortune and trial; why do you not come
into the shelter? l said to a widowed
mother after she had buried her only
son-months after said to her:
GLOW do you get along nowadays?"
"Oh," she replied, II get along toler-
ably we'll, except when the sun shines"
said: what do you mean by that?"
when she said:
81 can't bear to see the sun shine; my
heart is so dark that all the brightness
of the natural world seems mockery