News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-06-22

lieve y great many things you cannot
explain. You believe your mind acts on
your body. Explain the process. This
seed planted comes up q blue flower. An
other seed planted comes up yellow
flower Another seed planted comes up
a white flower. Why? Why that wart
on your finger? Tell me why some cows
have horns and other COWS have no
horns. Why, when two obstacles strike
each other in the air, do you hear the
percussion? What is the subtle energy
that dissolves a solid in crucible?
What makes the notches on an oak leaf
different from any other kind of leaf?
What makes the orange blossom differ
emit from that of the rose? How can the
almightiness which rides on the circle of
the heaven find room to turn its chariot
on heliotrope? Explain these. Can
you not do it? Then l will not explain
the resurrection. 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 or
binary affairs. | am not ashamed to say
that cannot explain God, and the judg-
ment, and the resurrection. 1 simply ac-
cept them as facts, tremendous and inf
mite.
NEAR UNTO HEAVEN GATES.
Before the resurrection takes place
verything will be silent. The mauso-
leums and the labyrinths silent. The
graveyards 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 Persepolis
stood and Thebes and Babylon.
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
sepulcher 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 cav
ems, across the fields, deep down into
the coral palaces of the ocean depths
where leviathan sports with his fellows
everywhere, layer above layer, height
above height, depth below depth-dead!
dead! deadl But in the twinkling of an
eye, as quick as that, as the archangeFs
trumpet comes pealing, rolling, reverber-
ating 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 will begin to
throb and heave like the wseyes OF the
sea, and the mausoleum of princes will
fall into the dust, and Ostend and Sc
bastopol and Austerlitz and Gettysburg
stalk forth in the lurid air. and the ship
wrecked rise from the deep, their wet
locks looming above the billow, and all
the land and all the sea become one
moving mass of life-all generations, all
ages with upturned countenances- some
kindled with rapture and others blanched
with despair, but gazing in one direc-
ton, upon one object. and that the throne
of resurrection.
On that day you will get back your
fort comes in. They will come up with
the same hand, the same foot and the
same entire body, but with a perfect
hand, and a perfect foot, and perfect
body, corruption having become incor-
ruption, mortality having become i'm
mortality. And, oh, the reunion! Oh,
the embrace after so long an absence!
Comfort one another with these words.
While l present these thoughts this
morning does it not seem that heaven
comes very near to us, as though our
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 that river. You shouted
over to the other side of the river, and
they shouted back. 1t is said that when
George Whitefield preached in Third
street, Philadelphia, one evening time
his voice was heard clear across to the
New Jersey shore.
When l was a little while chaplain in
the army, remember how at eventide
we could easily hear the voices of the
pickets across the Potomac just when
they were using ordinary tones. And
as we come today and stand by the riv-
er of Jordan that divides us from orr
friends who are gone it seems to me we
stand on one bank, and they stand on the
other, and it is only narrow stream.
and our voices go, and their voices come.
Hark! Hush! l hear distinctly what
they say, ''These are they who came out
of great tribulation and had their robes
washed and made white in the blood of
the Lamb" Still the voice comes across
the water, and hear, 1--WE hunger no
more; we thirst no more; neither shall
the sun light on us, nor any heat, for the
Lamb whichis in the midst of the throne
leads US to living fountains of water,
and God wipeth away all tears from
our eyes,"