The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-09-30

Micah and Zachariah and Wilbertorcs
and Oliver Cromwell and Philip ane
Doddridge and Edward Payson and
John Milton and Elizabeth Fry and
Hannah More and Charlotte Elizabeth
and all the other kings and queens Of
Heaven. o, my soul, what a compsn-
ionship.
A palace means splendor of banquet.
| There will be no common ware on that
table. There will be no unslilled mu-
sicians at that entertainment There
will be no scanty supply of fruit or
beverage There have been banquets
spread that cost s1,OO0,000 each, but
who can tell the untold wealth of that
banquet? / do not know whether
Johns description of it is literal or
| fgurative. A great many wise people
tell me it is figurative; but prove it
do not know but that it may be literal.
do not know but that there may be-
real fruits plucked from the tree of life.
| do not know but that Christ referred
to the real juice of the grape when he
said that we should drink new wine in
our Fathers Kingdom, but not the in
toxicating stuff of this worlds brew
ing. do not say it is so; but have as
much right for thinking it is so as you
have for thinking the other way. At
any rate it will be a glorious banquet.
Hank! the chariots rumbling in the
distance. l really believe the guests
are coming now. The gates swing
open, the guests dismount, the palace
| is filling and all the chalices, flashing
with pearl and amethyst and carbuncle,
are lifted to the lips of the myriad BAN
queters, while standing in robes of
snowy white they drink to the honor of
our glorious King. co. you say, that
is too grand place for you and for
me-" No, it is not. If a spider, accord
ing to the text, could crawl up on the
wall of SOlomon's palace should not our
poor souls, through the blood of Christ,
mount up from the depths of their sin
and shame and finally reach the palace
of the eternal King? where sin
abounded, grace shall much more
abound, that whereas SIN reigned unto
death, even so may grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus
Christ our Lord" One flash of that
coming glory obliterates the sepulchre-
Years ago, with lanterns and torches
and Il guide, we went sdOwn in the
Mammoth cave of Kentucky. You may
walk fourteen miles and see no sunlight
1t is a stupendous place. Some places
the roof of the cave is one hundred feet
high. The grOttoes filed with wierd
echoes, Cascades falling from invisible
height to invisible depth. Stalagmites
rising from the floor of the cave-stal-
actites descending from the roof of the
cave-joining each other and making
pillars of the Almighty's sculpturing.
There are rosettes of amethyst IN halls
of gypsum. AS the guide carries
his lantern ahead of you the shad-
ows have an appearance supernatural
and. spectral. The darkness is fear
full. Two people, getting lost from
their guide for only few
hours years ago, were demented, and
for years sat in their insanity. You
feel like holding your breath as you
walk across the bridges that seem to
span the bottomless abyss. The guide
throws his calcium light down into the
caverns and the light rolls and losses
from rock to rock and from depth to
depth, making at every plunge new
revelation of the awful power that
could have made such place as that.
A sense of suffOcation comes upon you
as you think that you are $50 feet in
straight line from the sunlit surface of
the earth. The guide, after awhile,
takes you into what is called the Star
ry Chamber" and then he says to you:
sit here" and then he takes the
lantern and goes down under the
rocks, and it gets darker and darker
until the night is so thick that the
hand an inch from the eye is unobserva-
BILE An then, by kindling one of the
lanterns, and placing in u cleft of the
rock, there is a reflection cast ON the
dome of the cave, and there are stars
coming out In constellatiOns-a brill
liant night heavens-and you invOlun-.
tarily exclaim: Beautiful! beautiful
Then h takes the lantern down in
other depths of the cavern and wanders
on, and wanders on, until he comes up
from behind the rocks gradually, and it
seems like the dawn of the morning
and it gets brighter. The guide is a
skilled ventriloquist, and he initiates
the voices of the morning, and soon the
gloom is al gone, and you stand con-
graduating yourself over the wonder
full spectacle.
Well, there are great many people
who look down into the grave as great
cavern. They think it is thousand
miles subterraneous, and as the echoes
seem to be the voices of despair, and
the cascades seem to be the falling
tears that always fall, and the gloom
of earth seems coming up in staiagmite,
and the gloom of the eternal world
seems descending in the stalactite,
making pillars of Undesirable horror.
The grave is no such place as that to
me, thank God! Our Divine Guide
takes us down into the great caverns,
and we have the lamp to our feet and
the light to our path and all the echoes
in the rift of the rock are anthems, and
all the falling waters are fountains of
salvation, and, after awhile, we look up,
and behold, the cavern of the tomb has
become a Kings star chamber. And,
while we are looking at the pomp of it,
and everlasting morning begins to rise,
and all the tears of earth crystalize
into stalagmite, rising up in pillar on
the one side, and all the glories of
Heaven seem to be descending in a
stalactite, making pillar on the other
side, and you push against the gate
that swings between the two pillars,
and, as that gate flashes open, you find
it is one of the twelvegates which are
twelve pearls. Blessed. be God, that
through this gospel the mammoth cave