Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1890-01-11
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and anxieties, and We must tend them.
We sometimes hear very good people
say: IF / had a month or q year or two
to do nothing but to attend TO religious
things, 1 would be be q gress deal bet
ter than am now" You are mistaken.
Generally the best people are the busy
people. Elisha was blowing In the
field when the prophetic mantle fell
on him. Matthew was attending TO his
custom house duties when Christ COM
manded him to follow. James and
John were mending their nets when
Christ called them to be fishers OF men.
Had they been snoring in the sun Christ
would not have called their incidence
into the apostleship. Gideon was at
work with the fail on the threshing
floor when he saw the angel. Saul was
with great fatigue hunting up the lost
asses when he found the crown OF
Israel. The prodigal son would never
have reformed and wanted to have re-
turned 10 his fathers house IL he had
not first gone into business, though it
was swine feeding. Not once out of a
hundred times will q lazy man become
a Christian. Those who have nothing
TO do are in very unfavorable circum-
stances for the receiving OF divine mani
festations. 1t is not when you are in
idleness, but when yea are, like the
bethlehem shepherds, watching your
hocks, that the glory descends and there
is JOY among the angels of God owe
your soul p%enitent and forgiven.
My subject also strikes at the delu-
sion that the religion Of Christ is
dolorous and grief infusing. The music
that broke through the midnight
heavens was not a dirge, but an anthem.
1t shook joy oyer the hills. IL no only
dropped upon the shepherds, but it
sprang upward among the thrones. The
robe OF a Savior's righteousness is not
black. The Christian life is not made
up of weeping and cross bearing and
war waging. Through the revelation
of that Christmas night / find that re-
ligion IL not a grOan. hdt a song. In a
world Of sin and sick bed and sepulchers,
we must have trouble; but in the dark
est night the heavens part with angelic
song. You may, like Paul, be ship
wrecked, but eXhort you to be Of good
cheer, for you shall all escape safe 10
the land. Religion does not show it
self in the elongation Of the face and
the cut Of the garh. The Pharisee who
puts his religion into mis- phylactery has
none left Tor his heart. Fretfulness
and complaining do not belong to the
family of Christian graces which move
into b heart when the devil mov
out. Christianity does not frown upon
amusements and r~ecreations. 1t ia not
a cynic, it is not a shrew, it chokss no
laughter, it quenches no light, it de-
faces no art. Among the happy, it Is
the happiest. IL is just as much at
home on the playground as it is in the
church. 1t is just as graceful in the
as,it Is in the psalm book. 1t
sings just as we'll in Surrey gardens as
1T prays in st. Paul's. Christ died that
we might live. Christ walked that we
ride. Christ wept that We might
laugh.
Again, my subject impresses me with
the fact that glorious endings sometimes
very humble beginnings. The
straw pallet was the starting point, but
the shout in the midnight.sky revealed
what would be the glorious consumma
ton. Christ on Mary's lap, Christ on
the throne of universal dominion-what
An humble starting! What a glorious
ending! Grace begins on a small scale
in the heart. You see only men as
trees walking. The grace of God in tho
heart is a feeble spark, and Christ has
to keep both hands over IL lest it be
blown out. What an humble begin
ming. But look at the same man when
he has entered heaven. No crown able
To express his royalty. No palace able
to express his wealth. No scepter able
to express his power and his dominion.
Drinking from the fountain that drips
from the everlasting rock. Among tho
harpers harping with their harps. On
a sea OF glass mingled with fire. Be
fore the throne of God, TO go no more
out forever. The spark of grace that
Christ had TO keep both hands over lest
1t come to extinction, having famed up
into honor and glory and immortality.
What humble starting! What glorious
consummationi
The New Testament church was on q
small scale. Fishermen watched it.
Against the uprising walls crashed in
fernal enginery. The world said
anathema. Ten thousand people re-
ioiced at every seeming defeat, and
said: "Aha! aha! so we would have
it," Martyrs on fire cried: 'sHow
long, o Lord, how long?" Very hum
BILE starting, but see the difference at
the consummation, when Christ with
his almighty arm has struck off the
last chain of human bondage, and
Himalaya shall be Mount Zion; and
Pyrenees, Moriah; and oceans, the
walking place of him who trod the wave
cliffs of stormed Tiberias, and island
shall call TO island, sea to sea, continent
TO continent, and, the song of tho
worlds redemption rising, the heavens.
like great sounding board, shall strike
back the shout of salvation to the earth
until 1T rebounds again to the throne of
God. and all heaven, rising to their
thrones, beat tine with their scepters.
Oh what IN humble beginning. What
a glorious ending! Throne linked TO a
manger, heavenly mansions to a stable.
My subject also impresses mo with
the effect Of christ,s mission upward
and downward Glory to God, peace to
man. When God vent his son into the
world, angels discovered something new
in God, something they had never seen
before. Not power, not wisdom, not
love. They knew all that before.
But when God sent his son into
this world then the Anglers saw
the spirit of self-denial in God.
the spirit Of self-sacrifice in God. 1t is
easier To love an angel on his throne
than a thief on the cross. q seraph in