The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-10-28

It was in the front room on the second
floor that my father lay a-dying. 1t was
Saturday morning, four o'clock. Just three
wears before that day my mother had left
him for the skies and he had been homesick
to join her company; He was .s eighty'thrse
in to comfort him, but he comforted them.
How wonderfully the words sounded out
from his dying pillow, II have been young
and now am old, yet have I never seen
the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging
bread" They bathed his brow, they bathed
bis hands, and they bathed his feet and they
succeeded in strengthening out the feet; but
they did not succeed in bathing open the
hand 80 it would stay open. They bathed
the hand open, but 1t came shut. They
bathed it open again, but it came shut.
tie fingers of that old hand? All it had
80 long clutched the sword of Christian con-
fiict that "his hand clave unto the sword"
preach this sermon as tonic. want
YOU to hold the truth with ineradicable grip,
and want you to strike so hard for God
that it will react and while you take the
sword, the sword will take you.
You noticed that the officers Of the North
ern army few years ago assembled at
Denver, and you noticed that the officers OF
the Southern army assembled at Lexington.
Soldiers coming together are very apt to re-
count their experiences and to show their
scars. Here is a soldier who pulls up his
sleeve and says, There, was wounded in
that arm" and shows the scar. And an
other soldier pulls down his collar, aud says,
'SThere. was wounded In the neck" And
another soldier says, II have had no use OF
that limb since the gun-shot fracture. Oh,
nv friends when the battle of life IS over
and the resurr action has come and our
bodies rise from the dead, will
We have on US any scars OF
bravery for God. Christ will be there all
covered with scars. Scars on thu brow,
scars on the hand, scars on the feet: scars all
over the heart, won 10 the battle Of redemp-
ton. And all heaven will sob aloud with
emotion as they look on those scars. Igna-
titus will be there and he will point out the
places where the tooth and paw Of the lion
seized him in the Coliseum; and John Huss
will be there, End he will show where the
coal first scorched the foot on that day when
his spirit took wing Of flame from Constance.
MMillan and Campbell and Freeman,
there-the men who with their wives and
children went down in the awful massacre at
Cawnpore. and they will show where the
daggers Of the Sepoys struck them.
The Waldenses will be there, and they will
show where their homes were broken on that
day when the Pisimontese soldiery pitched
them over the rocks. And there will be those
there who took care Of the sick and who
looked after the poor, and they will have
evidences Of earthly exhaustion. And Christ,
with His SCARED hand waving over the
SCARED multitude, will say, You suffered
with Me on earth; now he glorified with Me
in heaven" And then the great organs OF
eternity will take up the chant and st. John
will play, "These are they who came out OF
great tribulation and had their robas washed
and made white in the blood of the Lamb"
But what will your chagrin and mine be
if it shall be told that day on the streets OF
heaven that on earth we shrank back from
all toll and sacrifice and hardship. No scars
to show the heavenly soldiery. Notso much
as one ridge on the palm OF the band to snow
that Just once in the battle for God and the
truth, we Just once grasped the sword SO
firmly, and struck so hard that the sword
and the hand stuck together, and the hand
clave to the sword. o my Lord Jesus, rouse
Us to Thy service.
c Thy saints in all this glorious war
~ Shall conquer though they die;
They see the triumph from afar.
And seize 1t with the eye.
When that ilustrlous day shall rise.
And all Thy armies shine
In robes Of victory through the sxiess
The glory shall be Thine.