Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1892-01-16

years right after you nad passed out
of your teens. Physical power less,
your spiritual power ought to be
more.
Up to the last hour of their lives
what power for good old Dr. Archi-
bald Alexander, old DR.. Woods, old
DR.. HAYES. old Dr.. Minor. old DR..
McIlvaine, old Or. Tying, old Dr.
Candlish, old DR.. Chalmers! What
have been Bismarck to Germany, and
Gladstone to England. and Oliver
Wendell Holmes to America in the
time Of an advanced age2 Let ne
say to those in the afternoon of life:
Don't be putting off the harness;
when God wants it off he will take it
off. Don't be frightened out Of life by
the grip, as many are. At the first
sneeze of an influenza many give up
al as lost.
No new. terror has come on the
earth. The microbes as the cause Of
disease were described in the Talmud
seventeen hundred years ago as in
visible legions of dangerous ones. :"
Don't be scared out of life by all this
talk about heart failure. That trouble
has always been in the world. That
is what d" Il Tie, :c,cc0pie 'sa.lever passad
out of this life have died of-heart
failure. Adam had it, and all of his
descendants have had it or will have
it.
Do not be watching for symptoms,
or you will have symptoms of every
thing. Some of you will yet die of
/ symptoms. Symptoms are often only
what we sometimes see in the country
"a dead owl nailed on a barn door to
scare living owls. Put your trust in
God, go to bed at ten o'clock, have
the window open six inches to let in
the fresh air, sleep on your right side
and fear nothing. The old maxim
was right "Get thy spindle and
distaff ready, and God will send thee
fax"
TOWARD THE SUNRISE.
But while looking at this sundial
of Ahaz and see the shadow of it
move l notice that it went back to-
ward the sunrise instead of forward
toward the sunset : toward the
morning instead of toward the night
That thing the world is willing now
to do and in many cases has done.
There have q great many things been
written and spoken about the sunset
of life. 1 have said some of them
myself. But my text suggests a bet
ter idea. The Lord who turned back
that day from going toward shutdown
and started it toward sunrise is will
ing to do the same thing for all of u.s.
The theologians who stick to old
religious technicalities until they be-
come soporifcs would not call it
anything but conversion. call it a
change from going toward shutdown
to going toward sunrise. That man
who never tries to unhuckle the clasp
of evil habit, and who keeps all the
;s.-.Ssssss. a pas, and thezsareseat
One who could redeem-if that man
will examine the sundial be will find
that the shadow is going forward
and he is on the way to shutdown.
His day is on the road to night.
All the watches that tick, all the
clocks that strike, all the sandgl;sses
that empty themselves. all the shad-
ows that move on all the sundials
indicate the approach of darkness.
But now, in answer to prayer, as in
my text the change was in answer
to prayer, the pardoning Lord re-
veres things and the man starts to-
ward sunrise instead of sunset. He
turns the other way. The captain
of salvation gives him the military
command: Attention Right about
facet" He was marching toward in
difference, marching toward hard
ness of heart, marching toward pray
erlessness, marching toward sin,
marching toward gloom, marching
toward death.
, Now he turns and marches toward
peace, marches toward light and
marches toward comfort and march
es toward high hope and marches
toward a triumph stupendous and
everlasting, toward hosannas that
ever hoist and hallelujahs that ever
roll. Nowif that is not the turning
of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz
from going toward SHUTDOWN to going
toward sunrise, what is it2
| have seen daybreak over Mont
Blanc and the Matterhorn, over the
heights of Lebanon, over Mount
Washington, over the Sierra Ne
7adas and mid-Atlantic, the morn
ing after departed storm when the
pillows were liquid Alps and liquid
Sierra Nevadas, but the sunrise OF
the soul is more effulgent and more
transporting 1t bathes all the
heights of the soul and illuinines all
the depths of the soul and whelms
all the faculties, all the aspirations,
all the ambitions, all the hopes with
a light that sickness cannot eclipse
or death extinguish or eternity DO
anything but augment and magnify
I preach the sunrise.
As look at that retrograde move
ment of the shadow on Ahazs dial, l
remember that it was a sign that
Hezekiah was going to get well, end
he got well. So l have to tell all you
who are by the grace of God having
your day turned from decline toward
night to ascent toward morning, that
vol1 are going to cet well-weQ of all