Morning journal and courier., 1891-09-28

which will make gay the face of the field no more. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth. These leaves have withered since yesterday, and the flowers have dropped. They have played with the sunbeams, and the breezes have played with them, but given their last and their fairest beauty to deck the temple of the Lord. Are we thankful that though in some respects we are like them that in others they are un-
 like us? One must needs be thoughtful to
 tread upon these autumn leaves with 8
 quiet triumph, and to remember that
 though he is like the leaf, in that he will
 one day lie low like them, yet that in an
 another way he is unlike, in that he is one with him who hath ascended up far above the heavens that he might fulfill all things. of man, though it be the glory of Solomon, is the flower of the | flowers of earth. Yet, brighter than they shall
 risen Christ and the first fruits of the harvest of the redeemed outof every kindred and tongue and who hath loved him Has the summer come and gone without any fruits and sheaves of thankful
 The Gs and here a thankful heart for his higher gift to you than
 their feeting, perishable beautyI Those supply ply l future of the harvest of the future Kingdom of | God, earnests of our harvests in God and Gods
 the the sickle at the coming of the son of man Does | it still seem to you such an incongruous thing
 to introduce M MsquMashesH ash H and apples into 9 church | that you think the only proper place for them
 yoys heart and 1 say you are thanEless | blessing of this life is nothing compared to the
 inestimable gift, the inestiua6le love in the re
 fhroppgR whom we have the @eans of 1 and the hope of glory "1nestimable'-
 It Is a hard word to pronounce with the lips, comprehend in the heart. There are people who
 thank God for the gift of his only love so care it makes only new act of inslncerity. The best
 of us can never fully realize the greatness of the gift or be sufficiently thankful for it, for can not realize the henousneSs of sin that infinite
 love of God, the son who died to save us from it'
 % 9Ys and pc breeds snd oy i and height. God in his hands holds the eternal
 rule by which to fathom it. II. But . we see see % what opened for us the kingdom of heaven. It ought | to move us every day to a yet deeper gratitude
 as life goes on. Yet does that old prayer of gen
 eral thanksgiving as we repeat it Sunday after
 tion of what we mean when we thank God for | his inestimable love in the redemption of the | world by our Lord Jesus Christ? o, my brethren,
 it is to be feared that idols of wood and stone in
 heathen lands have more ardent devotees than
 the outstretched form upon the cross
 ! There are people here this morning who have
 God in the bottom of their hearts for that pre- ! cious bloodshedding of Jesus Christ which has ] or might have procured their eternal salvation 1 If you will really search your hearts there are
 those of you here who will say am right. You
 may have said the prayer with your lips, but God | looked to see what you meant by it in your
 hearts. You have taken this matter ot ] course along with the food you ate and the ] water you drank. Yet you expect to die some
 day, and in some hay way you know not how you expect to go to heaven All that you can dc | then will be be to plead the name of Jesus Chris
 to whom you have been unthankful all your life 1 Do you expect to concentrate all your gratitude into your last dying effort to breathe his name l Do you think that God will regard your heart of
 fering then as sweet smelling savor, holy ac | ceptable unto him9 God asks men not on theil deathbeds, but all through their lives, to prov | their thankfulness to him by their works. H l tells men to pray to him. Do you pray 1 Do you pray for an ever-deepening sense : of sin and for the grace of God, the holy spiri to resist its Do you pray to have an ever deepen ing sense of his goodness and mercy? Do yol offer to him in any petition the sacrifice of } broken and contrite heart or the praise of 7 loving thankful and contented spirit? If not, d not call yourself thankful. God tells men to giv to him through his church and his poor. H l points to the cross and he says there is my gif to you: what will you give to me? Do you giv everything to him, or do you with grudging pal
 with him that the credit is largely in your favol ! That is the way some men receive Gods bles:
 | ings They take them if they belonged
 l them by right, and if deprived of them conside 3 l themselves defrauded Are you content to pa 5 your pennies into the Lords treasury, while yo spend your dollars on yourselves. He who S ' robs God of his tithes and offerings is robbin ] his immortal soul and cannot call himself thanl l full.
 ? The speaker closed his discourse with stron l, 1 personal appeal to his congregation not to nei | lect the sacrament of holy communion, th greatest feast of thanksgiving for the dying lov