Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-18
DEATH AN ADVANTAGE
Which the Inhabitants of the World
Are Slow to Appreciate.
THE EARTH UNLOADS ITS CARGO.
Why Ask to Stay in the Cellar, When
Brilliant Halls Are Above?
TLLMLGES LATEST SUNDAY SERMON

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsPATCH.l
BROOKLYN, April 17.-Being Easter
morning the Brooklyn Tabernacle congrega-
tion had been invited to bring flowers the
night before, and a bank of them was on
the front of the pulpit and wreaths of them
over the pulpit. The word Resurrection"
was spelled out in letters of white lilies
Text, l. Samuel, xv., 80, surely the bit
terness of death is past.
So cried Agag, and the only objection L
have to this text is that a bad man uttered
it. Nevertheless, it is true, and in a higher
and better sense than that in which it was
originally uttered. Years ago legend some
thing like this was told me: In q hut lived
n very poor woman by the name OF Misery.
In front of her door was pear tree, which
was her only resource for a living.
Christ, the Lord in poor garb, was walking
through the earth and no one would enter
tain Him. In vain He knocked at the door of
palaces and of humble dwellings. Cold and
hungry and insufficiently clad, as He was,
no one received Him. But coming one day
TO the hut of this woman, whose name was
Misery, she received Him, and offered Him a
few crusts and asked Him to warm himself
at the handful of Goals, and she sat up all
night that the wayfarer might have pillow
to rest on. In the morning this divine being
asked her as He departed what she would
have Him 90 in the way of reward, and told
her that He owned the universe and would
give her what she asked.
Grim Death Up in a Pear Tree.
All She asked was that her pear tree might
be protected, and that the boys who stole
her fruit, once climbing the tree, might not
be able TO get down without her consent. So
it was granted, and all who climbed the
tree were compelled to stay there. After
a while Death came along and told the poor
woman she must go with him. But she did
not want to 60, for, however poor ones lot
is. no one wants to go with Death. linen
she said to Death:
4 will 90 with you if you will first climb
up into my pear tree and bring me down
q few pears before start.
This he consented to do, but having
climbed into the tree, he could not again
come down. Then the troubles of the world
began, for Death did not come. The physi-
clans had no patients, the undertakers no
business, lawyers no wills TO make, the peo-
pie who waited for inheritances could not get
them. the old men staid in all the profes-
sions and occupations SO that there was no
room for the young that were coming on,
and the earth got over-crowded and IRON all
the earth the cry went up:
''Oh, for Death, Where is Death?"
Then the people came to the poor woman
and begged her to let Death descend from
the tree. In sympathy for the world, she
condition, and that was that he should never
modest or take her away, and on that condi-
tion Death was allowed to come down, and
he kept his word and never removed her,
and for that reason we always have Misery
with us.
To Load, the Earth Must Unload.
In that allegory someone has set forth
the truth that L mean to present on this
Easter morning, which celebrates the res
direction of Christ and our coming resur.
section-that one of the grandest and
mightest mercies of the earth is our divine
permission TO quit it, Si1ty-four persons
every minute step of this planet Thirty
million people every year board this planet.
AS steamer must unload before it takes
another cargo, and as the passengers of a
rail train must leave it in order to have an
other company of passengers enter it, SO
with this world.
Now, this world is only a ship, which was
launched some 200 years ago. 1t Is sailing
the rate of many thousand miles an hour. |
1t is freighted with mountains and cities, |
and has in its staterooms and steerage about |
1000 000, 600 passengers. So many are coming
aboard, it is necessary that a good many
diSembark.
suppose that all the people that had lived
since the days of Adam and Eve were still
alive-what cluttered up place this world
would be-no elbow roonl-no place to walk
no privacv-nothing to eat or wear or if
anything were left, the human race would.
like a shipwrecked crew, have to be put on
small rations, each OF us having perhaps
only a biscuit day.
And what chance would there be for the
rising generations?The men and women who
started when the world started would keep
the modern people back and down, saying:
1--WE are 5000 years old. Bow down. His
tory IS nothing, for We are older than his
tory
The Good of Life Soon Lived Up.
What mercy for the human race was
death. Within few years you can get
from this world all there is in it. After you
have had so or co OF 20 spring times, You
have seen enough blossoms. After so or 60
or 20 auturnns you have seen enough of
gorgeous foliage. After 20 or 60 or 20 winters,
you have seen enough snowstorms and felt
enough chills and wrapped yourself in
enough blankets. In the ordinary length of
human life you have carried enough bur |
dens, and shed enough tears, and been
clouded by enough doubts. We talk about |
the shortness of lie, but if we exercised |
good sense we would realize that life is
quite long enough.
We are here in one room of our Fathers |
house, but there are rooms upstairs. They |
are better pictured, better upholstered, |
better furnished. Why do we want to stay |
in the ante-room forever. when there are |
palatlal apartments waiting for our occu- |
pancy? What a mercy that there is a limita- |
lion to earthly environments!
Death also makes room for improved |
physical machinery. Our bodies have won |
0rOus powers. but they are very limited. |
There are beasts that can outrun US, outlift |
US out-carry US. The birds have both the
earth and air Tor travel, yet We must stick |
to the one. In this world which the human
race t1kes for its own, there are creatures of /
God that can far surpass us in some things.
machinery and makes room for something
better.
Ininity Better Than Five Senses.
Then, we have only five Senses and to
these we are shut up. Why only five senses?
why not So why not l09 why not l. 600: We
can have, ana we will have them, but not
until this present physical machinery is put
out of the way. Do you think that this body
Is the best that God can do for us God did |
not half try when he contrived your bodily |
mechanism. Is it possible Tor man to make
Improvement in almost anything and God |
not be a BILE to make improvements in mans |
physical machinery2
Bene6cent Death comes in and makes the
necessary removal to make way for these
supernatural improvements. So also our
slow process of getting Information must
have a substitute. Through prolonged study
We learned the alphabet, and then we
learned to spell, and then we learned to
read. Then the book is put before u.s. and
the eve travels from word to word and from
mage to page, and we take whole days to
read the book, and, if from that book OF four
or five hundred pages, we have gained one |
or two profitable ideas, we feel we have done
we'll. There must be some swifter way and
more satisfactory way OF taking in Gods
universe of thoughts and facts and emotions
and information. But this cannot be done |
" it'll your brain in its present state. "Well,"
you say, "does not that destroy the idea of
d resurrection of the present body?" oh,
no 1t will be the old factory with new ma
Earthly Climate Is a Hindrance.
Then there are the Chronological hin.
1rances. We run against unpropituous
weather of all sorts. Winter blizzard and
summer scorch, and each season seems to
latch brood of its own disorders. The
simmer spreads its wings and matches out
levers and sunstrokes, and spring and aut-
ann spread their wings and hatch out