The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-06-23


ages. The faces that were CHASTITY and
fixed when you saw them last all afiuSh
with the light of interruption. The
father looking around on his children
and saying, Come, come, my darlings;
this Is the morning Of the resurrection"
Mrs. Sigourney wrote beautifully with
the tears and blood of her own broken
heart:
There was a shaded chamber,
A silent watching band,
On n low couch suffering child
Grasping her mothers hand.
But mid the gasp and struggle
With shuddering lips she cried,
"Mother, oh, dearest mother,
Bury me by your side."
Only one wish she uttered
As life was ebbing fast,
"Sleep by my side, dear mother.
And rise with me at last"
A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.
Oh, yes, we want to be buried togeth-
er. Sweet antelope of everlasting resi-
dence in each others companionship.
When the wrecker went down into the
cabin of the lost steamer, he found the
mother and child in each others arms.
1t was sad, but it was beautiful, and it
was appropriate. Together they went
down. Together they will rise. One on
earth. One in heaven. Is there not
something cheering in all this thought
and something to impress upon us the
idea that the departed are ours yet-ours
forever?
But console you again with the fact
of your present acquaintanceship and
communication with your departed
friends. have no sympathy, 1 need not
say, with the ideas of modern spiritual
ism, but what 1 mean is the theory set
forth by the apostle when he says, I'VE
are surrounded by great cloud of wit
nesses." Just as in the ancient amphi-
theater there were $4,000 or 100000 peo-
pie looking down from the galleries upon
the combatants in the center, so, says
Paul, there is great of your friends
In all the galleries of the sky looking
down upon our earthly struggles. 1t is
sweet, consoling, a Scriptural idea.
With wing Of angel, earth and heaven
are i'll constant communication.
Does not the Bible say, "Are they not
sent forth as Idinistering spirits to those
who shall be heirs of salvation?" And
when ministering spirits come down and
see us, do they not take some message
back? 1t is impossible to realize, l know,
the idea that there is such rapid and per-
petual ntercommunicationo earth and
heaven, but it is glorious reality. You
take rail train, and the train is in full
motion, and another train from the op-
posite direction dashes past you SO
swiftly that you are startled. All the
way between here and heaven is fNnd
with the up trains and the down
spirits coming-spirits going-col1.ns &
going coming-going.
That friend of yours who died last
month-do you not suppose he told all
the family news about you in the good
land to thafriends who are gone? Do you
not suppose that when there are hun
dreds of opportunities every day for
them in heaven to hear from you that
they asa about you--that they know
your tears, your temptations, your strug-
giles, your victories? Aye, they do.
Perhaps during the last war you had
boy in the army, and you got pass,
and you went through the lines, and you
found him, and the regiment coming
from your neighborhood you knew most
Of the boys there. One day you started
for home. You said: "Well, now, have
you any letters to send? Any messages
TO send?" And they filled your pockets
with letters, and you started home. Ar
irving home, the neighbors came in, and
one said, did you see my JohnT" and
others, "Did you see George 'Do you
know anything about my Frank" And
then you brought out the letters and
gave them the messages of which you
had been the bearer. Do you suppose
that angels of God, coming down to this
awful battlefield of sin and sorrow and
death and meeting us and seeing us and
finding out all about us, carry back nc
message to the skies?
Oh, there is consolation in it! You are
in present communication with that
land. They are in sympathy with you
now more than they evsr were, and they
are waiting for the moment when the
hammer stroke shall shattcr the last
chain of your earthly bondage, and your
soul shall spring upward, and they will
stand on the heights Of heaven and see
you come, and when you are within
Mailing distance your other friends will
be called out, and as you flash through
the pearl hung gate their shout will
make the hills tremble, Hail! ransomed
spirit, to the city Of the blessed!'
console you still further with the
idea Of a resurrection. l know there ar,
a great many people who do not accept
this because they cannot understand it
but, my friends, there are two stout pas
sages-I could bring hundred, but two
swarthy passages are enough-and one
David will strike down the largest Go
Hath. Marvel not at this, for the hour
is coming whtn all who are in theil
graves shall come forth" The othel
swarthy passage is this: 1.-THE Lord shall
| descend from heaven with shout, ant
the voice Of the archangel, and the trum]
VI NTOl, duu tilc ucttl III SlI lSb Sldil Ilb
first" Oh, there will be such thing a
a resurrection.
You ask me great many questions
cannot answer about this resurrection
You say, for instance, "If mans bod,
Is constantly changing, and every sew
enth year he has an entirely new body
and he lives on to 70 years of age ant
so has had 10 different bodies, and at tn
hour Of his death there is not particl
of flesh on him that was there in tn
days of his childhood, in the resurrec
ton which of the 10 bodies will com
up or will they all rise?"
You say, Suppose man dies, and hi
body is scattered in the dust, and out 0
that dust vegetables grow, and men ca
the vegetables, and cannibals slay thes
men and eat them, and cannibals figh
with cannibals until at last there shall
be a hundred men who shall have With
them some particles that started frol
the dead body first named, coming u
through the vegetable, through the frs
man who ate 1t and through the canni
balls who afterward ate him, and Their
! he more than n hundred men WIN hay