Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-05-22
luiah for the Lord God omnipotent reign


Join with me in crusade, giving ME not
only your hearts, but the mighty uplifting
OF your voices, and believe we can through
Christ's grace sing fifty thousand souls into
the kingdom OF Christ. An argument they
can laugh at, sermon they can talk down
but a vast audience joining in one anthem Is
irresistible. Would that Queen Balkis would
drive ali her spice leaden boundaries into
our church music. Neither was there any
such spice as the Queen of Sheba gave KING
Solomon"
Now, / want to impress this audience with
the fact that religion is sweetness and per-
fume and spikenard and saffron and CHINA
mon and cassla and frankincense and all
sweet spices together. 'Oh," you say. II
have not looked at il as such. thought il
was a nuisance; it had for me q repulsion;
hald my breath as though it were malodor:
l have been appalled, at its advance. / have
said, il have any religion at all, want 60
have just as little Of it as Is possible to isst
through with" Oh, what a mistake your
have made my brother. The religion OF
Christ is present and everlasting redolence.
1t counteracts all trouble. Just put it on
the stand beside the pillow Of sickness. 1t
catches in the curtains and perfumes the
sitting air. 1t swsetens the cup of bitter
medicine, and throws g glow on the gloom
of the turned lattice. 1t is balm for the
aching side and a soft bandage for the tenn
pie stung with pain.
Why did you look so sad to-day when you
came in? Alas for the loneliness and the
heartbreak, and the load that is never lifted
from your soul Some Of you go about feel
ing like Macaulay when he wrote: eff l hat
another month of such days as l have beer
spending, I would be impatient to get down
into my little narrow crib in the ground like
q weary factory child" And there have
been times in your life when you wished YOU
could get out of this life You have said
'Oh, how sweet to my lips would be the dust
of the valley" and wish you could pull over
you in your last slumber the coverlet OF
green grass and daisies. You have said,
''Oh, how beautifully quiet it must be in the
tomb. | wish | was there" l see all around
about me widowhood and orphanage and
chlldIessneSs; sadness, disappointment per-
plexity. If I could ask all those to rise in
this audience who have felt no sorrow and
been buffeted by no disappointment-ifI
could ask all such to rise, how many would
rise? Not one.
A widowed mother with her little child
went West, hoping TO get better wages there
and she was taken sick and died. The over
seer Of the poor got her body and put it in a
box, and put it in a wagon, and started down
the street toward the cemetery at full trot.
The little child-the only child-ran after it
through the Streets bareheaded, crying,
Bring me back my mother bring me back
my motherr' And it was said that as the
people looked on and saw her crying after
that which lay in the box in the wagon-aH
she loved on earth-it is said the whole viii
lage was in tears. And that is what great
many of you are doing-chasing the dead.
Dear Lord, is there 10 appeasement for all
this sorrow that see about me? Yes, the
thought of resurrection and reunion far be-
You'd this scene of struggle and tears. 'They
shall hunger no more. neither thirst any
more, neither shall the sun light on them,
nor any heat; for the Lamb which is in the
midst of t. throne shall lead them to living
fountains of water, and God shall wipe away
all Tears from their ewes p"
Across the cOuches Of your sick and across
the graves of your dead fling this shower
Of sweet spices. Queen Balkis, driving up
to the pillared portico of the house Of cedar,
carried no such pungency OF perfume as ex-
hales to-day from the Lords garden. 1t is
peace. 1t is sweetness. 1t is comfort. 1t is
Infinite satisfaction, this Gospel commend
to you. Some one could not understand why
an old German Christian scholar used to be
always so calm and happy and hopeful when
he had so many trials and sicknesses and
ailments. A man secreted himself in the
house. He said, II mean to watch this old
scholar and Christian;' and he saw the old
Christian man go to his room and sit down
ON the chair beside the stand and open the
Bible and begin to read. He read on and
on, chapter after chapter, hour after hour,
until his face was ali ag Low with the It'd
ings from heaven, and when the clock
struck twelve he arose and shut his Bible,
and said: BLESSED Lord, we are on the
night"
On, you sin parched and you trouble
pounded, here is comfort, here is satisfaction.
Will you come and get it? l cannot tell you
what the Lord offers you hereafter SO well
as l can tell you now. sit doth not yet APP
pear what we shall be-" Have you read OF
the Tai Mahal in India, in some respects the
most majestic building earth? Twenty
thousand men were twenty years in building
it. 1t cost about sixteen millions Of dollars.
The walls are of marble, inlaid with carne-
liam from Bagdad, and turquois from Thlbet.
and Jasper from the Punjaub, and amethyst
from Persia and all manner of precious
stones. A Traveller says that it seems to him
ike the shining of an enchanted castle OF
FURNISHED silver. The walls are two hun
bred and forty five feet high, and from the
top of these springs dome thirty more feet
high that dome containing the most won
derful echo the world has ever known, SO that
ever and anon travellers standing below with
flutes and drums and harps are testing that
echo and the sounds from below strike up,
and then come down, as it were, the voices
Of angels all around about the building.
There is around it garden of tamarind and
banyan and palm and all the floral glories Of
the ransacked earth
But that is only a tomb of dead empress,
and it is tame compared with the grandeurs
which God has builded for your living and
immortal spirit. Oh, home of the blessedi
Foundations of gold! Arches Of victoryl
CapsUones of praise! And a dome in which
there are echoing and re-echoing the hallelu-
jahs of the ages. And around about that
mansion is a garden-the garden OF GOD
and all the springing fountains are the bot
tied tears of tee church in the wilderness,
and all the crimson of flowers is the deep hue
that was caught up from the carnage or
earthly martyrdoms and the fragrance Is
the prayer Of all the saints and the aroma