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

| is hardly a family that has not been in
vaded by sorrow or death. Where are
those grand old men, those glorious
| Christian women who used to worship
with us? Why, they went away into
the next world 50 gradually that they
had concluded the second stanza or the
third stanza in Heaven before you
knew they were gone. They had on
the crown before you thought they had
dropped the staff of the earthly pill
grimage.
And then the dear children. o! how
many have gone out of this church.
You could not keep them. You folded
them in your arms and said: 20! God,
l cannot give them up. Take all else,
take my property, take my reputation,
but let me keep this treasure. Lord, 1
cannot bear this"
Oh! if we could all die together, if
we could keep all the sheep and the
lambs of the family fold together until
some bright spring day, the birds
achant and the waters aglitter, and
then we could all together hear
the voice of the good Shepherd,
and hand in hand pass through
the flood. No, no, no, no! o! if we
only had notice that we are all to de-
part together, and we could say to our
families: The time has come; the
Lord bids us away" And sthen we
could take our little children to their
beds, and straighten out their limbs
and say: Now, sleep the last sleep.
Good night until it is good morning."
And then we could go to our own
touches and say: Now, altogether we
are ready to go. Our children are gone,
now let us depart. No, no! 1t is one
by one. 1t may be in the midnight. Ii
may be in the winter, and in the snow
coming down twenty inches deep over
our grave. 1t may be in the strange
hotel, and our arm too weak to pull the
bell for help. 1t may be so suddenly
we have no time even to say gOod-by.
Death is a bitter, crushing, tremendous
curse.
l play you three tunes on the gospel
harp of comfort. weeping may en-
dure for a night, but JOY cOmeth in the
morning" That is one. IAN things
work together for good to those who
love God" That is the second. AND
the lamb which is in the midst of the
throne shall lead them to living fOun-
tains of water. and God shall wipe all
tears from their eyes" That is the
third. During these twenty-four years
have tried as far as | could, by argu-
ment, by illustration and by carica-
ture, to fill you with disgust with
which people are trying now to
substitute for the religion of Jesus
Christ and the religion of the apostles.
l have tried to persuade you that the
worst of all cant is the cant of skepti-
cism, and instead of your apologizing
for Christianity, it was high time that
those who do not believe in Christian
ity should apologize to you, and l have
tried to show that the biggest villains
in the universe are those who would
try to rob us of this Bible, and that the
grandest mission of the church of
Jesus Christ is that of bringing souls to
the Lord-a soul-saving church.
But now those years are gone. If you
have neglected your duty, if have neg
lected my duty. it is neglected forever.
Each year has its work. If the work is
performed within the twelve months,
it is done forever. If neglected, it is
neglected forever.
When woman was dying, she said:
Call them back" They did not know
what she meant. She had been dis
ciple of the world. She said: ''Oh, call
them back They said: "Who do you
want us to call back?" oh" she said,
''call them back, the days, the months,
the years l have wasted. Call them
back!' But you cannot call them back;
you cannot call year back, or month
back, or week back, or an hour back,
or a second back. Gone once, it is gone
forever.
When great battle was raging, a
messenger came up and said to the gen.
eral, who was talking with an officer:
General, we have taken a standard
from the enemy" The general kept
right on conversing with his fell
low-officer, and the messenger
said again, General, we have
taken standard from the enemy"
Still the general kept right on,
and the messenger lost his patience, not |
having his message seemingly appre- |
ciated, and said again: General, we |
have taken n standard from the enemy
The general then looked at him and |
said: Take another" All, forgetting |
the things that are behind, let us look |
to those that are before. Win another
castle, take another standard, gain
another victory.
Roll on. sweet day of the worlds
when ''the mountains
and the hills shall break forth into
singing, and all the trees of the wood
shall clap their hands, and instead q
the thorn shall come up the fir tree,
and instead of the brier will come up
the myrtle tree, and il shall be unto
the Lord for a name, for an everlasting
sign that cannot be cut Off"
An Ocean Oddly.
There are scores upon scores of di{rer-
ent forms of marine animal life that
comes within the ca tOrOrv aSSipned IN