The southern argus., 1892-01-21

ana says: well, boys, this is a dull
day, but it will clear off aeter awhile.
There are a good many ups and downs
In business, but there is an overrulinp
Providence. Years ago / made UP my
mind to trust God and he has always
seen me through. / remember when ]
was your age, had just come to town
and the temptation of city life gathered
around me, but resisted. The fact is
there were two old folks out on the old
farm praying for me, aud knew it,
and somehow could not do as some of
the clerks did or go where
some of the clerks went 1 tell you.
boys. it is best always to do right, and
there is nothing to keep one right
like the old fashioned religion of Jesus
Christ
The successful merchant who uttered
the kind words did not know how
much good he was doing, but the echo
will come back in five life times of
virtue and usefulness, and five Christ
ian death beds and five heavens. From
all the mountains of rapture and all
the mountains of glory and all the
mountains of eternity, he will catch
what Ezekiel in my text styles the
sounding again of the mountains"
Yea, take step further in this sub
ject, and say that our own eternity
will be a reverberation of our own
earthly lifetime. What we are here
we will be there only on larger scale.
Dissolution will tear down the body
and embank it, but our faculties of
mind and soul will go right on without
the hesltancy of moment and without
any change except enlargement and
lntensitication. Good here, good there;
bad here, bad there. Time is only
bedwarfed eternity. Eternity is only
an enlarged time. In this life our soul
is IN dry dock. The moment we leave
this life we are launched for our great
voyage, and we sail on for centuries
quintillian, but the ship does not change
its fundamental structure after it gets
out of the dry dock; it does not pass
from brig to schooner, or from schooner
to man-of-war. What we are launched
from this world we will be in the world
to come.
"Well," says some one, ''this idea or
moral, spiritual and eternal echo is
stopping this echo?" My answer is:
God can, and He only" If it is a
cheerful echo we do not want it
stopped; if baleful echo, we would
like to have it stopped. The hardest
thing in this world to do is to stop an
echo. Many an Grafton has been
spoiled and many an orator cOnfound-
ed by an echo. Costly churches, ca
thedras theaters and music halls have
been ruined by an echo. Architects
have strung wires across auditoriums
to arrest the echo and hung upholstery
against the walls, hoping to entrap it, |
and hundreds of thousands of dollars |
have been expended in public build !
ings of this country to keep the air
from answering when it ought to be !
quiet.
And if it is so hard to destroy a nat !.
,ural echo how much harder to stop |,
moral echo. a spiritual echo, an inn
mortal echo. You know that the echoes
are affected by the surfaces and the !
shape of rocks, and the depth OF ravines
and the relative position of buildings?
And, once in Heaven, God will so ar
range the relative position of mansions
and temples and thrones that one of
the everlasting charms of Heaven will
be the rolling, bursting, ascending, de-
chanting echoes. All the
songs we ever sang devoutly, all the
prayers we have ever uttered earnestly,
all the Christian deeds we have ever
done, will be waiting to spring upon us
in echo.
The scientists tell us that in this
world the roar of artillery and the
boom of the thunder are so loud, be-
cause they are com bination of echoes
all the hillsides and the caverns and
the walls furnishing a share of the
resonance. And never will we under
stand the full power and music of an
echo until with supernatural facilities, |
able to endure them we hear all the !
con joined sounds of heavenly echoes
larps and trumpets, OrcheStras and
)ratOrios, hOSannans and halleluj ahs,
east side of Heaven answering to the
west side, north side to south side, and
all the heights, and all the depths, and |
Ill the immensities and all the eter-
mites joined in echo upon echo, echo in
wake of echo. In the future state,
whether of rapture or ruin, we will
listen for reverberations of earthly .
Kings and doings /;
Voltaire. standing amid the ;
shadows will listen and from the !
Millions whose godlessness and liber- /;
in sm and debauchery were a conse- !
luence of his brilliant blasphemies,
will come back weeping, wailing, de-
'pairing, agonizing million voiced
,cho Paul will, while standing in the
light, listen and from all the circle of
he ransomed and from all the many
mansions which he helped to people,
md from all thethrones he helped to Oc-
.upants and from all the gates he | :,
helped throng with arrivals, and from | T
Ill the temples he helped to fill with :
there shall come back to
Tim a glorious, ever accommodating,
and triumphant echo. o,
What will the tyrants and oppressors
Il the earth do with the echoes Those a
Who are responsible for the wars Of the 7
world will have come back to them al. :,
he groans, the shrieks, the cannonadeS,
he bursting shells. the crackle of burn .
ng cities, and the crash of a nations :
lome. =:
Bat you know as well as do that Il