The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1893-02-04

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you never to get it back? / syour prop
erty gone forever? Is your soul to be
bruised and to be tried forever? Have
you no explanation, no Christian eXpla-
nation, and yet not a maniac? But
when you have the religion of Jesus
Christ in your soul, it explains every
thing SO far as it is best for you to I'M
derstand. You look off in life, and
your soul is full of thanksgiving to God
that you are so much better off than
you might be.
Oil the sunshinel the sunshine of
Christian explanation Here is some
one bending over the grave of the dead.
What Is going to be the consolation?
The flowers you strew upon the tomb?
Oh, no! The services read at the grave?
Oh, no! The chief consolation on that
grave is what falls from the throne of
God. Sunshine, glorious sunshine.
Resurrection sunshine.
Again, l find a great deal of the sun
shine of this Bible and of our re-
ligion in the climacteric joys that
are to come. A man who gets up and
goes out from a concert right after the
opening voluntary has been played, and
before the prima donna sings, or before
the orchestra begins, has a better idea
of that concert than that man has who
supposes that the chief joys Of religion
are in this world. We here have only
the first note of the eternal orchestra.
We shall in that world have the joy of
discovery. We will in five minutes
catch up with the astronomers, the
biologists, the scientists, the philoso-
piers of all ages who so far surpassed us
in this world. We can afford to adjourn
astronomy and geology and many of
the sciences to the next world, because
we shall there have better apparatus
and better opportunity. l must study
these sciences 70 far as to help me in
my work, but beyond that I must give
myself to saving my own soul and sav-
the soul of others, knowing that in one
flash of eternity we will catch it all.
Oil what an observatoryoin which to
study astronomy Heaven will be-not
by power of telescope, but by super
natural vision.
And geology! What a place that will
be to study geology, when the world is
being picked to pieces as easily as a
school girl in botanical lessons pulls
the leaf from the corolla! What a place
to study architecture, amid the thrones
and palaces and the cathedrals-St
Marks and St Paul's rookeries in com.
parison.
Sometimes you wish you could make
the tour OF the whole earth, going
around as others have gone; but you
have not the time; you have not the
means. You will make that tour yet,
during one musical pause in the eternal
anthem. l say these things for the
comfort of those people who are
abridged in their opportunities-those
people to whom life is a hum-drum, who
toll and work, and toll and work, and
aspire after knowledge, but have no
time to get it, and say: 'If / had the
opportunities which other people have,
how / would fill my mind and soul with
grand thoughtr Be not discouraged,
my friends, you are going to the univer-
sity yet. Death will only matriculate
you into the royal college of the uni
verse.
What a sublime thing 1t was that DR..
Thornwell, of South Carolina, uttered
in his last dying momentsl AS he
looked up he said, SIT opens; it ex-
pands, it expands" Or as Mr.. Toplady,
the author of Rock of Ages" in his
last moment, or during his last hours,
looked up and said, as though he saw
something supernatural, "Lightr' and
then as he came on nearer the dying
moment, his countenance more lumin-
GUS, he cried, 'Lightr' and at the very
moment of his departure lifted both
hands, something supernatural in his
c~ountenance as he cried, ''Light!" Only
another name for sunshine.
Besides that, we shall have the pleas.
ures of association. We will go right
up in the front Of God without any
fright. All our sins gone, there will be
nothing to be frightened about. There
our old Christian friends will troop
around us. Just Us now n of your
sick friends goes away to Florida, the
land of flowers, ore to the south OF
France, and you do not see him for a
long while, and after awhile you meet
him, and the hollows under the eyes
are all filled, and the appetite
has come back, and the crutch
has been thrown away, and he Is
so changed you hardly knew him; you
say: why, 1 eve say you look SO
we'll" He says: ~ couldn't help but
be well. ! have been sailing these
rivers and climbing these mountains.
and that's how I got this elasticity.
never was SO we'll" o, my friends
your departed loved ones are only away
for their health in a. better climate, and
when you meet them they will be Sc
changed you will hardly know themi
they will be so very changed, and, after
awhile, when you are assured that they
are your friends, your departed friends,
You will say: "Why, where is that
cough? Where is that paralysis?
Where is that pneumonia? Where is
that consumption?" And he will say:
"oh! l am entirely we'll; there are nc
sick ones in this country; l have been
ranging these hills md hence this elias
ITCHY. l have been here now twenty
years, and not one sick one have ! seer
we are all we'll in this climate"
And then l stand at the gate of the
celestial city to see the professions come
out, and l see a long procession Of little
children with their arms full of fow.
ers, and then see n procession of kings
and priests moving in celestial
pageantry-a long procession, but no
black.tasseled vehicle, no mourning
group, and I say: "How strange 1t isl
Where is you Greenwood? where is
your Laurel Hill? where is your
Westminster Abbey?" And they
shall cry: There are no graves
here" And then listen for the
tolling of the old belfries of
Heaven, the old belfries of eternity.
listen to hear them toll for the dead,
but they toll not for the dead; they
only strike up a silver chime, tower to
tower, east gate to west gate, as they
ring out, '"They shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more, neither shall
the sun light on them, nor any heat;
for the Lamb which is in the midst OF
the throne shall lead them to living
fountains of water, and God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes"
Oh! unglove your hand and give it to
me in congratulation on that scene. |
feel as if l would shout. 1 will shout
h~allelujah! Dear Lord, forgive me that
1 ever complained about anything. If
all this is all before us, who cares for
anything but God and Heaven and eter.
nal brotherhood? Take the Grape off
the door-belL Your loved ones are only
away for their health in a land ambro.
sial. Come Lowell Mason; come Isaac
Watts, and give us your best hymn
about joy celestial.
What Is the use of nostnoninG ON