The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1891-01-06
FAREWELL.
Rev. ]. ]. wilkins Sermon at
Calvary Church Yesterday.
Morning.


mon, prior to his departure for bis
new field of labor, Des Moines, Iowa.
The affair was one of much interest
and sadness. The rector could poorly
conceal the emotion of tender and
deep regret he experienced, while his
parishioners were often moved to
tears.
The sermon was a retrospect,
founded upon Deuteronomy, chapter
w.. verse 81: ASK now of the days
that are past" 1t was exquisitely
pathetic and peculiarly appropriate to
the occasion which called it forth. Mr..
Wilkins said
Five years your rector. Five times
twelve months have passed since we
entered on the mutual and blessed
relation of pastor and people. For
nearly two thousand days have gone
in and out among you. Five times
the globe on which we live has rolled
around its eternal orbit. Five winters
SHOWS have left their whiteness on the
heads of some and increased the years
of all. Five times the greenneSs of
summer verdure has taught us how to
grow in grace five summers fruits
and flowers have Swallowed forth the
Immortality we all desire; and FIVE
cycles of the church's year have sought
to impress on mi1d and heart the
grave and hopeful lessons which
Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent,
Easter, Whitsunday and Trinity are
designed to teach seasons, blessed
seasons, of instruction needed or unob.
served-seasons filled with solemn
messages to every soul seasons of
opportunity we ne'er shall see again :,
seasons filled with voices to which We
gave glad and willing heed or set in
opposition a closed and spiritually
deafened ear and a proud and stub
born will. Five years older, everyone
of US. Everyone ofus with character
mere firmly fixed for good or evil by
five years more of growth and build
ing. Everyone of us more securely
settled in faults, errors, sins, or stand
ing on higher rounds of the ladder of
christian grace and strength. Every
one of us five years nearer the "long,
long home" and everyone of us FIVE
years nearer the appointed judgment
day. Five years of good and loving
decisive years of love for the ignO-
rant, poor. and sick, years of
the blessed Christ whose fragrance fills
earth and sky, or five years, withered,
blasted and thin, as worthless as the
Egyptian kline, or the baseless fabric
of an empty dream. Which have
they been to us beloved? years of loss
and decay, or years of growth and
gain? One or the other they have
been to every one of us. The record
has been made, and the verdict rem
dered and We cannot change them
now. And what years of change they
have been How full of kaIeidos-
copic alterations of light and shade,
JOY and sorrow, prosperity and adver.
sity, disappointment and success. If
we could throw their varied events on
one great canvas for review today
what picture they would make of
days of afiiiction and days of pleasure.
Hearts light with joy and faces BEAM
ing with a happiness the tongue could
not tell of the priest sitting down with
the bereaved and striving with faiter-
ing speech to assuage the grief of we'll
nigh broken hearts with words that
tell of the rest beyond-mingling with
bridal groups and endeavoring to
show how the sacred marriage bond !
teaches the union of Christ and His
church-participating in festivities
and reunion, approving the pleasures
which Christ approved, but trying the
while to fix the heart on things above
where true pleasure alone can be
found-going to the happy, going to
the distressed, standing by beds of
pain and beds of death, hearing tales
Of joy, and listeninp to tales of woe
which must be locked and sealed |
within until he is weighed down with
burdens which none can lift, and his
heart is full of stored up sympathies
over the young, anxious
about the spiritual state of all, troubled .
about the neglectful, of whom there |
are so many, prayerful about tie
proud and rebellieus, weeping over
the sinner, jealous that every sacra-
ment and spiritual privilege should be
rightly used and estimated, often
misunderstood, often censured for
doing his plain and manifest duty,
often hurt in his warmest affections, |
and often faulted for the faults of
those who pass judgment upon him, |
yet striving though imperfectly, and
with so many, many, sad. sad fail
ures to teach all the knowledge and
,