The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-11-11

| As ye journeT, sweetly sing:
Sing your Ssviour'B 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 a
triumphant church until it becomes a
singing church.
l 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 fields, they often
come within reach of the gun, but when
they start for the annual flight south
ward they take their places and go
straight as an arrow to the mark. The
longest rife 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 heavenwardl
We fly SO low that we are in easy range
of the world the flesh and devil. We
are brought down by temptations that
| ought not to come within a mile of
reaching us. o. for some of the faith
of George Muller, of England, and
Alfred Goodman, once of the church
militant, now of the church tri-
umphant! 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 higher life. Moles
never did believe in eagles But, my
brethren, because we have not reached
these heights ourselves, shall we deride
the fact that there are any such heights?
A man was once talking to Brunei, the
famous engineer, about the length of
the railroad from London to Bristol.
The engineer said: 1T is not very great
We shall have, after awhile, a steamer
running from England to New York. &"
They laughed him to scorn; but we
have gone so far now that we have
ceased II laugh at anything as impoS-
sible for human achievement Then, l
ask, is anything impossible for the
Lord? l do not believe that God ex-
hausted all his grace in Paul, and Lati
mer, and Edward Payson. | believe
there are higher points of Christian at
tainment to be reached in the future
ages of the Christian world.
You tell me that Paul went up to the
tip top of the Alps of Christian attain
ment. Then tell you 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 those temptations rally them
selves and attack us, and by the grace
of God we defeat them again; but stay
ing all the time in the old encampment,
we have the same old battles to fight
over. Why not whip out our tempta
tions, and then forward march, making
one raid through the enemy's country,
stopping not until we break ranks after
the last victory? Do. my brethren, let
us have some novelty 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
higher state Of Christian character,
and routing out sins that we have
never thought OF yet The fact is, if
the church of GOd-if we. as individuals.
made rapid advancement in the Chris
tian lifc-theSe stercotypcd prayers we
have been making for ten or fifteen
years would be as inappropriate to Us
as the shoes and the hats and the coats
we wore ten or fifteen years ago. o
for niger flight in the Christian life.
the Stork and the crane in their migra-
ton teaching us the lesson.
Dear Lord, and shall we ever live.
At this poor dying rate
Our love 80 faint. so cold to Thee,
And Thine to rs 50 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. storlls and
cranes. don't be in hurry" they would
say: NO, 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 go" So they
gather themselves into companies and.
turning not aside for storm or mountain
top or shock of muSketry, over land and
sea, straightaS an arrow to the mark they
90. 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 hardly see it.
They are on their way south. You
could not stop them. o, that we We're
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 leaves of hope are
all dried up and have been scattered.
Wait until next year" After a while
we start. and il is too late, and we per-
ish in the way when Gods wrath is
lzindled but little. There are, you
know, exceptional cases where birds
have started too late, and in the morn
ing You have found them dead on the
snow. And there are those who have
persisted half way between the world
and Christ They waited until the last
sickness. when the mind was gone. or
they were on the express train going at
forty miles an hour. and they came to
the bridge and the ''draw was up" and
they went down How long to repent
and pray? Two seconds, Two sec
onds. To do the work OF lifetime and
to prepare for the vast eternity in two
seconds,
was reading of an entertainment
given in a kings court and there were
musicians there with ella borate pieces
Of music After awhile Mozart came
and began to play and he had Il blank
piece of paper before him and the king
familiarly looked over his shoulder and
said: What are you playing? see no
music before you" And Mozart put
his hand on lis brow, as much as to
say, Il am improvising" 1t was very