The Opelousas courier., 1890-05-17

shadow. Ascend the stairs of your
sepulcher. Step out into the broad light of
monday. We come around you to help re-
move YOU grave clothes, and n voice from
the heavens, tremulous but omnipotent,
commands: Loose him, and let him. go"
Again, my text has good advice concern
ing. 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, arc
towards about death. If a plank falls from a
scaifolding and just grazes our hat, how pale
We look. If the Atlantic Ocean plays with
the steamship, pitching it toward the
heavens and letting it suddenly drop, how
even the Christian passengers poster the stew
ard or S ewardess as TO whether there is any
danger -, and d. the eri c9anta in, w o52,, haas . been al
coming in for a cup Of coffee, is assailed with
a Whole battery of questions as to what he
thinks of the weather. And many of the
best people are, as Paul says, throughout their
lifetime in bondage by fear of death. My
brothers and sisters, if we made full use of our
religion we would soon get over this. Backed
up by the teachings of your Bible, just look
through the telescope some bright night and
see how many worlds there are and re-
feet that all you havo seen compared
with the number of worlds in existence are
less than the fingers of your right hand
as compared with all the fingers of the hui
mar race. How foolish then for us to think
that ours is the only world fit for lis to stay
in. | think that all the stars are inhabited
and by beings like the human race in feelings
and sentiments and the difference is in lung
respiration and neart beat ana physical con-
formation, their ply zeal conformation tit
for. tho climate nE THAR world and
our physical conformation fit for the
climate of our world. So we shall
| feel at home in any of the stellar ~nelghbor-
| hoods, our physical limitations having ceased.
| One of our first realizations in getting out of
! this world, I think, will be that in this world
we were very much pent up and had cramped
apartments and were kept on the limits. The
most even of our small world is water, and
| the water says to the human race: Don't
come here OF you viii drown" A few thou
sand feet up the atmosphere is unin-
habitable, and the atmosphere says
to the human race: Don't come
I up here or you cannot breathe" A
few miles down the earth is a furnace of fire,
and the fire says: Don't come here or you
will burn" The caverns of the mountains
are full of poisonous gases, and the gases say:
Don't come here or you will be asphyxiated."
And, crossing a rail track, you must look out
OF you will be crushed. And, standing by a
| steam boiler, you must look out or you will
be blown up. And ~pneu,nonias and pleurisies
and consumptions AMI apopiexies 60 across
this earth in fiocks, in droyes, i'll herds, and it
is a world of equinoxes and cyclones and
graves. Yet we are under the delusion that
it is the only place fit to stay i'll. We want
to stick to the wet plank mid ocean while
the great ship, 1.-THE City of God,' of the
Celestial line, goes sailing past, and would
gladly take us. up III Il life boat. My Chris
tian friends, let me tear Oil your desponien-
- - .-lx - AZ Owl
commands mo regarding you, saying
"Leose him, and let him 60"
Heaven is ninety-five per cent. liter than
this world, q thousand per cent. better. a
million per cent. better. Take the gladlest,
brightest, most jubilant days you ever had
on earth and compress them all into one
hour, and that hour would be q requiem. a
fast day, a gloom, a horror, as compared
with the poorest hour they have had in
heaven since its first tower was built or its
first gate sWung or its first song caroled.
"Oh," youG y, that may be true, but l am
so afraid oftrrossing over from this world
to the next, and l fear the swapping of the
all the surgeons and physicians and
scientists declare that there is no pang at
the parting Of the body and soul, and all lhe
| seeming restlessness at the closing hour of
life is involuntary and no disease 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 aud were afterward
rasneeitatad collar that tina sensation nf
| passing into Inconsistencies was pleasurable
rather than distressful. Til Gag OF
the body has a door on easy hinges, and
when that door of the physical cage opens
the soul simply puts out its wings and scars.
But" you say, II fear to go because the
future is so full of mystery" Well, I will
tell you how to treat the mysteries. The
mysteries have ceased bothering me, for [
do as the judges of your courts often do.
They hear all the arguments in the case and
then say: 81 viii take these papers and give
you my decision next week" So | have
heard all the arguments in regard to
the next world. and some things are
uncertain and full of mystery, and SO
l fold up the papers and reserve until the
next world my decision about them. l can
tsue lstudy all the mysteries to better adj
vantage, for the light will DO better and my
faculties stronger, and I will ask the Christian
philosophers, who nave had all the advan-
tages Of heaven for centuries, to help ME.
and NAV hermit myself hlImhiv tn ask fh~
Lord, and | think there will be only one mys
tery left, and that will be how one so I'M
worthy as myself got into such an enrap-
tured place. Come up out of the sepuichrat
shadows. IL o are not Christians by
faith in Christ come up, into the light
terminated, but still have your grave clothes
on, get rid of them. The command is:
Loose him, and let him CO." The only part
OF my recent journey that | really dreaded,
although I did not say much about it before
hand, w{ff1 the landing at Joppa. Thab is
the port Of entrance for the holy Land, and
there are many rocks, and in rough weather
people cannot land at all. The boats taking
the people from the steamer to the docks must
runbetween reefs that looked tome to beabout
fifty feet apart. and M mis-stroke of an
oarsman or en- unexpected wave has some.
times been fatal, and hundreds have persisted
along those reefs. Besides that, as we left
Port Said the evening before an old traveller
said: tsThe wind is just rightto give you a
rough landing at Joppa; indeed. I think
Won win not be able to land at ALL" The
fant WAS that when our Mediterranean