The Portland daily press., 1892-11-05

cheerful music. 'sWhy," he said, Il
can't do otherwise When l think OF
God my soul is so full of joy that the
notes leap and dance from my pen. L
wish we might all exult melodiously be-
fore the Lord. With God for our IA
ther, and Christ for our Saviour ana
Heaven for our home, and angels Tor fu-
ture companions. and eternity for a life
time, we should strike all the notes OF
joy. Going through the wilderness OF
this world, let us remember that we are
on the way to the summary cline OF
heaven, and from the migratory popula-
tions flying through this autumnai air
earn always to keep singing:
Children of the Heavenly King,
AS We journey, sweetly sing; v
Sing your Savionr's worthy praise,
Glorious in His works and ways
Ye are travelling home to God.
In the way your fathers trod;
They are happy now and we
Soon their happiness shall see.
The church of God never will be
triumphant church until it becomes
singing church.
/ go further, and remark that the
birds of the air are wiser than we, in
the fact that, in their migration, they
fly very high. During the summer,
when they are in the field, they often
come within reach of the gun; but
when they start for the annual flight
\ southwark, they take their places and
go straight as an arrow to the mark.
The longest rifle that was ever brought
to shoulder cannot reach them. Would
to God that we were as wise as the
stork and crane in our fight heaven
ward! We fly so low that we are within
easy range of the world, the fiesh and
the devil We are brought down by
temptations that ought not to come
within mile of reaching us. o, for
some of the faith of George Muller,
of England, and Alfred Goldman, once
of the church militant now of
the church triumphant! so poor is
the type of piety in the church OF
God now, that men actually caricature
the idea that there is any such thing as
a higher life. Moles never did believe
in eagles. But, my brethren, because
we have not reached these heights our
selves, shall we deride the fact that
there are such heights? A man was
once talking to Brunei, the famous en-
gineer, about the length of the railroad
from London to Bristol. The engineer
said, SIT is not very great. We shall
have after awhile steamer running
from England to New York. They
laughed him to scorn; but we have gone
SO far now that we have ceased to laugh
at anything as impossible for human
achievement Then, ask, is anything
impossible for the Lord? | do not be-
lieye that God exhausted all His grace
in Paul. and Latimer and Edward Pay
son. l believe there are higher points
of Christian attainment to be reached
in the future ages of the Christian
world.
You tell me that Paul went up to the
tiptop of the Alps of Christian attain
ment. Then tell you that the stork
and crane have found above the Alps
plenty Of room for free flying. We go
out and we conquer our temptations by
the grace of God, and lie down. On the
morrow these temptations rally them
selves and attack us, and by the grace
OIL UOu we oGlCdb ulS1ll GILL; 0uu oUcy
ing all the time in the old encampment,
we have the same old battles to fight
over Why not whip out our tempta-
lions and then forward march, making
one raid through the enemies country,
stopping not until we break ranks after
the last victory. Do, my brethren, let
us have some novely of combat, at any
rate, by changing, by going on, by
making advancement, trading off our
stale prayers about sins we ought to
have quit long ago, going on toward
Christian character, and routing out
sins that we have never thought of yet.
The fact is, if the church of God-f we,
as individuals made rapid advancement
in the Christian life, these stereotyped
PRAYERS we have been making for ten
or fifteen years would be as inappropri-
ate to us as the shoes, and the hats and
the coats we wore ten or fifteen years
ago. O, for higher fight in the
Christian life, the stork and the crane
in their migration teaching us the les
son!
Dear Lord, and shall we ever live, Il,
At this poor living rate
Our love so faint so cold to Thee, y
And Thine to us great?
Again, remark that the birds of the
air are wiser than we, because they
know when to start. If you should go
out now and shout, ''Stop, storks and
cranes, don't Elm a hurry' they would
say: 'sNo, we cannot stop; last night
we heard the roaring in the woods bid
ding us away, and the shrill flute of
the north wind has sounded the retreat.
We must go. We must 60" So they
gather themselves into companies, and
turning not aside for storm or mountain
top or shock of musketry, over land and
sea, straight as an arrow to the mark
they 60 And if you come out this
morning with sack of corn and throw
it in the fields and try to get them to
stop, they are SO far up they would hard
ly see it. They are on their way south.
You could not stop them. 0 that we
were as wise about the best time to start
for God and Heaven! We say: "Wait
until it is little later in the season of
mercy. Wait until some of these green
r 1. LII nd hox