Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1893-06-29

two obstacles strike each other in the
air, do you hear the percussion? What
is the subtle energy that d~issolyes a
solid In a cruciblel What makes the
notches In an oak leaf different from
any other kind Of leaf? What makes
the orange blossom different from thar
OF ther rose? How can the almightiness
which rides on the circle of the heaven
find room to turn its chariot on q hello
trope! Explain these. Can you not
do IL? Then 1 viii not explain the res
direction. You explain one-half of the
common mysteries of everyday life,
and / will explain all the mysteries of
the resurrection. You cannot answer
me very plain questions in regard to
ordinary affairs. l am not ashamed to
say that i cannot explain God, and the
Judgment, and the resurrection. / SIM
ply accept them as facts, tremendous
and infinite.
Before the resurrection takes place,
everything will be silent. The mauso-
leums and the labyrinths silent. The
~grayeyards silent, the cemetery silent,
save from the clashing of hoofs and
the grinding of wheels as the last
funeral procession comes in. No breath
of air disturbing the dust where Per
ScpOliS StOou, anu lutbtS uili pdDN toh.
No winking of the eyelids long closed
in darkness. No stirring of the feet
that once bounded the hillside. No
| opening of the hand that once plucked
the flower out of the edge of the wild
wood. No clutching of swords by the
men who went down when Persia bat
tied and Rome fell. Silence from ocean
beach to mountain cliff and from river
to river. THE sea singing the same old
tune. The lakes hushed to sleep in the
bosom of the same great hills. No
hand disturbing the gate of the long
barred sepulchre. All the nations of
the dead motionless in their winding
sheets. Up the side of the hills, down
through the trough of the valleys, far
out in the cayerns, across the fields,
deep down into the coral palaces of
the ocean depths where leyiathan
| sports with his fellowS-eyerywhere,
layer above layer, height above height,
depth below depth-dead, dead! dead.
But in the twinkling of an eye, as quick
as that, as the arcnangels trumpet
comes pealing, rolling, re~ycrberatlng,
| crashing across continents and seas,
the earth will give one fearful shudder
and the door of the family vault, with
| out being unlocked, will burst open;
| and all the graves of the dead VIII
| begin to throb and heave like the waves
of the sea; and the mauSoleums OF
princes will fall into the dust: and Us
! tend and Sebastapol. n AusterltZ
and Gettysburg. stalk forth in h lurld
air: and the shipwrecked rise from the
| deep, their wet locks looming above the
billow: and all the land and all the sea
become n moving mass or nte-au
generations. all ages with upturned
countenances-some kindled with rap
| ture and others blanched with despair,
but gazing i'm one direction, upon one
object, and that the throne of resur-
r%ection,
While / present these thoughts this
| morning does il not seem that heaven
comes very near TO us, as though
friends. whom we thought a great
way off, are not in the distance, but
close by? You have sometimes come
down TO a river at nightfall, and you
have been surprised how easily you
could hear voices across the river. You
shouted over TO the other side OF the
river. and they shouted back. 1t is
said that when George Whitefield
preached il Third street, Philadelphia.
one evening time. his voice was heard
clear across to the New Jersey shore.
When / was a little while chaplain
i'm the army. / remember how at even
tide we could easily hear the voices of
the pickets across the Potomac just
when they We're using ordinary tones.
And as we come to-day and stand by
the river Of Jordan that divides us
from our friends who are gone, IL
seems to me we stand on one bank
and they stand on the other, and 1t is
only il narrow stream, and our voices
90 and their voices come. Hank. Hush.
L hear distinctly what they say: These
are they who came out of great tribu-
iation. and had their robes washed and
made white in the blood of the Lamb"
Still the voice mt across the water,
and / hear: I'VE hunger no more,
we thirst no more; neither shall the
sun light on us, nor any heat. for the
Lamb which is in the midsr OF the
throne leads us to living fountains of
water. and God wipeth away all tears
from u eyes"