The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1892-05-26

pers about why people do not come to !
church. They do not come because they are !
not Interested. The old hackneyed religious |
phrases that come moving do wn through
the centuries will never arrest the masses.
What we want to-day. you in your sphere
and In my sphere, is TO freshen up. Peo-
ple do not want in their sermons the sham
flowers bought at the millinery shop, but
the jeponicas wet with ths morning dew;
nor the heavy bones OF extinct megatherium
of past ages, but the living reindeer caught
last August at the edge OF Schroon lake.
We want TO drive out the drowsy, and the
prosaic, and the tedious and the humdrum,
aud introduce the brightness and vivacity,
and the holy sarcasm, aud the sanctified
wit. aud the epigrammatic power, and the
blood red earnestness, and the fire of relig-
ious zeal and | do not know of any way
OF doing IL ns well as through the dramatic.
Attention Beholdl Hark Selahl
Next speak OF tho Selah of perpetuty.
The Targum. which is the Bible in Chaldec.
renders this word of my text forever"
/ Many writers agree in believing and stating
/ that one meaning of this word is forever"
In this very verse from which | take my
text Selah means not only poetic significance
| and intermissiou and emphasis but IL means
eternal reverberation = foreverl Gods
government forever, Coils goodness for
ever, the gladness OF tho righteous for
! ever. or course you and | have not
surveyors chain with enough links To
]
world we must build everything on small
scale. A hundred years are great while.
| A tower five hundred feet is great height.
! A Journey of four thousand miles Is very
long. But eternity II the archangel has
not strength of wing 90 fly across il, but
flutters and drops like n wounded seagull,
there is no need of our trying in the small
shallow of human thought to voyage
across IL.
A skeptic, desiring to show his contempt
for the passing years and to- show that no
could build enduringly, hal his own
sepulcher made OF the finest and the hardest
marble, aud then he had put on the door the
words, "For time and for eternity" but IL
so happened that the seed OF n tree somehow
| got into an unseen crevicc OF tho marble.
That seed grew AMI enlarged until II became
n tree and split the marble 10 pieces There
can be no LIBERALIZATION of any thing earthly.
But foreverl Will you and live as long as
ttatS We are apt to think of the grave n
the terminus. We are apt 10 think OF the
hearso rs our last vehicle. We are apt Z
think OF seventy or eighty or ninety years
and then n cessation.
{ Insteid of that we find the marble slab o
the tomb is only milestone, marking th'
first mile, and that the great journey Is be
, yond. We have only time enough i'll thi
o world 10 put on the sandals aud 10 clasp oul
{ girdle and 20 pick up our stall. We take on
. first step from cradle To grave, AMI then WI
= open the door and start great God, whittier
= Tho clock strikes the passing away OF time
but not the passing away OF etornity. Meas
o ureless, mcRsurclessl This Selah Of pcrpet
n uity makes earthly inequalities SO insigniil
II cant, the difference between sceptsr an
II needle, between Alhambra and hut, betwee
Il chariot anc cart, between throne and curl
70 stone between Administer and bare fooi
n between satin and sackcloth, very trivial.
y This Selah of porpetuity makes our gettin
Is ready so important. For such prolongado
" of travel what outfit OF guitobooks, of pas
N ports and of escortg Are we putting out o
e DESERT smoom swept and ghoul huntei,o q
into regions OF sun lighted and spra
N sprinklel gardensi win IL be Elysium O
L Gehennaf Once started in that world, "
s. cannot stop. The current Is so swift thu
T. onco in no oar can resist IL, no helm ca
W steer out of IL, no herculean or titanic ar
~ can battle il. Hark to the long resouniin
IL echo, "ioreverw Oh, wake up TO the inte
nt est OF your deathles5 spiritl Strike out K
n heaven. Rouse ye, men and women K
at whom Jesus died. Selah! Selnhl Foreve
%. | Il oreyerl