The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-05-26

mighty IN MS retreats as IN MS aO-
vances. His army would several times
have been destroyed if he had not
lodged. He lodged on Long Island,
he lodged on New Jersey heights
Lincoln on his way to inauguration at
Washington was waited for by assas-
sins, but he took another train and
lodged the desperadoes. We have high
example of the fact that sometimes q
man will serve God best by disappear
ing from this or that place, this or that
/ environment
| A mob brought Christ to the top Of =
I the rocks back of Nazareth. They did
not like his preaching, and they pro-
posed to hurl him down the precipice.
But while they were getting reading
| for the massacre Christ darted into the
crowd, and amid the confusion escaped
! to Capernaum, and continued eXOrcis-
/ ing devils and cooling fevers and filling
fish-nets and giving healthy circulation
/ of blood to paralysis, and curing de-
mentia, and turning corpses into living
men and women, and doing his chief
work. What good thing he lodged
the crowd On the rocks back of Naza-
reth: Likewise at Jerusalem one day,
while he was sauntering up and down
in Solomon's porch waiting for an OPP
portunity to say kind words or do a
useful deed, the people proposed to pay
him for his self-sacrifces by stoning
him to death, but the record is, HE
escaped out of their hands"
See also in my subject the unreason-
able attitude of javelin toward harp.
What had that harp in David's hand
done to the jdvelin in Saurs hand?
Had the vibrating strings of the one
hurt the keen edge of the other? Was
there an old grudge between the two
families of sweet sound and sharp cut?
Had the triangle ever insulted the pol
ished shaft? Why the deadly aim of
the destroying weapon against the in
strument of soothing, calming, healing
sound? Well, | will answer that if you
VIII tell me why the hostility of
so many to the gospel, why the
virulent attacks against Chris
tan religion, why the angry
antipathy of so many to the most
genial, most inviting, most salutary in
fiuence under all the heavens? Why
will men give their lives to writing and
speaking and warning against Christ
and the gospel? Why the javelin of
the worlds hatred and rage against the
harp of heavenly love? You know and
know men who get wrathfully red in
the face and foaming at the mouth and
use the gesture of the clenched fist and
put down their feet with indignant en-
| phasis and invoke all sarcasm and irony
and vituperation and scorn and spite
at the Christian religion. What has
the Christian religion done that it
should be so assailed? Whom hath it
bitten and left with hydrophobiac virus
in their veins that it should sometimes
| be chased as though it were a maddened
canine?
Javelin of wit, javelin of irony, jave-
lin of scurrility, javelin of sophistry,
| javelin of human and diabolic hostility,
have been flying for hundreds of years,
and are flying now. But aimed at
what? At something that has come to
| devastate the world? At something
that Stays nations? At something that
would maui and trample under foot
and excruciate and crush the human
race? No, aimed at the gospel harp.
Harp on which prophets played with
sublime certainty, and martyrs played
with somewhat lingering and uncertain
| fingers, but harp on which apostles
played while their fingers were on fire.
Harp that was dripping with the blood
of the Christ, out of whose heart strings
the harp was chorded and from
whose dying groan the strings were
keyed. Oh, gospel harp. All thy
nerves a-tremble with stories of self
sacrifice. Harp thrummed by fingers
long ago turned to dust. Harp that
made Heaven listen and will yet make
all the world year. Harp that sounded
pardon to my sinful soul and peace
over the grave where my dead sleep.
Harp that will lead the chant of the
blood-washed throng redeemed around
the throne. May javelin slay me be-
fore 1 sling a javelin at that. Harp
which it seems almost too sacred for me
to touch, and so l call down from their
thrones those who used to finger it, and
ask them to touch it now. Come down,
William Cowper, and run your fingers
over the strings of this harp" He says:
Il will" and he plays:
There is fountain filed with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins
"Come down, Charles Wesley, and
touch the string" He says: Il WILL"
and he plays:
Jesus, lover OF my SOUL
Let me TO Thy bosom fly.
"Come down, Augustus TOplady, and
sweep your fingers across this gospel
harp. He says: Il will" and he plays:
Rock Of ages. cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
"Come down, Isaac Watts. and take
this harp" He SAYS: Il will" and he
plays:
Alas and did my Saviour bleed,
And did my Sovereign die:
''P. p. Bliss, come down and thrum
this gospel harp" He says: Il WILL"
and he plays:
Halleiujah, tits done,
l believe on the Son
Ineffable harp Transporting harp.
Harp of earth! Harp of Heaven! Harp
sanity and seraphic! Harp of God, Oh,
/ like the idea of that old monument in
the ancient church of Ullard, near Kill
kenny, Ireland. The sculpture on that
monument, though chiseled more than
thousand years ago, as appropriate
to-day as then, the sculpture represent
ing a harp upon cross That is where
l hang it now, that is where you had
better hang it. Let the jayelin be for
ever buried, the, sharp edge down, but
hang the harp upon the cross.
And now upon our souls let the harps
of Heaven rain music, and as, when the
suns rays fall aslant in Switzerland at
the approach of eventide, and the shep-
herd among the Alps puts the horn to