The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-11-24

Now, / have to tell you that thi.
oblivion of which have spoken has it.
defeats, and that there is no more
reason why we should not be distinctly
and wildly and gloriously remembered
five hundred million billion trillior
quadrillion years from now, than thai
we should be remembered six weeks.
am going to tell you how the thing
can be done and will be done.
We may build this everlasting re-
membrance," as my text styles it, into
the supernal existence of those to
whom we do kindnesses in this world.
You must remember that this intirm
and treacherous faculty which we now
call memory is in the future state to be
complete and perfect Everlasting
remembrance" Nothing will slip the
stout grip of that celestial faculty.
Did you help a widow pay her
rent? Did you find for that man
released from prison place
to get honest work? Did you pick up
child. fallen on the curbstone, and.
by stick of candy put in its hand.
stop the hurt on its scratched knee?
swamped by the stringency of the
money market, that times would after
awhile be better? Did you lead a
Magdalen of the street into midnight
mission, where the Lord said to her:
Neither do | condemn thee. Go, and
sin no more?" Did you tell a man,
clear discouraged in his waywardness,
andshopeless and plotting suicide, that
for him was near by laver in which
he might wash. and a coronet of eter-
nal blessedness he might wear? What
are cpl taphs in graveyards, what are
eulogiums in presence of those whose
breath is in their nostrils, what are
unread biographies in the alcoves of a
city library, compared with the imper-
ishable records you have made in
the illumined memories of those
to whom You did such kindnesses?
Forget them? They cannot forget
them. Notwithstanding all their might
and splendor, there are some things
the glorified of Heaven cannot do and
this is one of them. They cannot for
get an earthly kindness done. Has
Paul forgotten the inhabitants of
Malta? Has the victim of the high
wayman on the road to Jericho forgot
ten the good Samaritan? Have the
English soldiers who went up to God
from the Crimean battle-felds forgot
ten Florence Nightingale? Through
all eternity will the northern and
southern soldiers forget the northern
and southern women who administered
to the dying boys in blue and gray
after the awful fights in Tennessee and
Pennsylvania and Virginia and Georgia,
which turned every house and barn
and shed into hospital and incarna-
dined the Susquehanna and the James
and the Chattahoochee and the Savan-
nah with brave blood? The kindnesses
you do to others will stand as long in
the appreciation of others as the gates
of Heaven will stand, as the House of
Many Mansions" will stand, as long as
the throne of God will stand.
Another defeat of oblivion will be
found in the character of those whom
we rescue. uplift or save. Character is
eternal Suppose by a right influence
we aid in Transforming a bad man into
a good man, a disheartened man into
courageous man, every stroke of that
work done will be immortalized. There
may never be SO much as one line in a
newspaper regarding it. or no mortal
tongue may ever whisper it into human
ear, but wherever that soul shall go,
your work upon it shall go; wherever
that soul rises, your work on it will
rise, and so long as that soul will last.
your work on it will last. Do you sup
pose there will ever come such an
idiotic lapse in the history of that
soul in Heaven that it shall regret that
you invited him to Christ, that you,
by prayer or gospel word, turned
him around from the wrong way to the
right way? No such insanity will ever
smite heavenly citizen. 1t is not half
as well on earth known that Christie
pher Wren planned and built St Paurs,
as it will be known in all Heaven that
you were the instrumentality of build
ing a temple for the sky. We teach a
Sabbath class, or put Christian tract
in the hand of passer-by, or testify
for Christ in a prayer meeting, or
preach sermon, and go home discour-
aged, as though nothing had been ac-
complished, when we had been char
acter building with material that no
frost or earthquake or rolling of the
centuries can damage or bring down.
There is no sublimer art on earth
than architecture. With pencil and
rule and compass, the architect sits
down alone and in silence, and evolves
from his own brain a cathedral or a
national copitol or a massive home be-
fore he leaves that table, and then he
goes out and unrolls his plans, and
calls carpenters and masonS and art
isans of all sorts to execute his design,
and when it is finished he walks
around the vast structure, and sees
the completion of the work with high
satisfaction, and on stone at some
corner of the building the architects
name may be chiseled. But the storms
do their work, and time, that
takes down everything, will yet
take down that structure, I'M
til there shall not be one
stone left upon another. But there
is soul in Heaven. Through your in
strumentality it was put there. Under
Gods grace you are the architect of its
eternal happiness Your name is writ
ten, not on one corner of its nature,
but inwrought into its every fiber and
energy. VIII the storms of winter
wash out the story of what you have
wrought upon that spiritual structure?
No. There are no storms in that land
and there is no winter. VIII time wear
out the inscription which shows your
fidelity? No. Time is past and it is