Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-11-13


wards of the great city who shall say:
ssYou helped me once. You encouraged
me when I was in earthly struggle.
do not know that I would have reached
this shining place had it not been for
you" And we will laugh with heavenly
glee and say: @Ha! hal Do you really
remember that talk? Do you remember
that warning? Do you remember that
Christian invitation? What memory
you havei Why, that must have been
down there in Brooklyn and New Or
leans at least ten thousand million years
ago." And the answer will be, Eyes, it
was as long as that, but I remember it
as well as though it were yesterday"
Oh, this character buildingi The struc-
ture lasting independent of passing CEN
turtles, independent of crumbling mauso-
leums, independent of the whole plane
tary system. Aye, if the material uni
verse, which seems all bound together
like one piece of machinery, should some
day meet with an accident that should
send worlds crashing into each other like
telescoped railway trains, and all the
wheels of consultations and galaxies
should stop, and down into the chasm of
immensely all the suns and moons and
stars should tumble like the midnight ex-
press at Ashtabula, that would not touch
us and would not hurt God, for God is
spirit, and character and memory are i'm
mortal, and over that grave of a wrecked
material universe might truthfully be
written, 'tThe righteous shall be held in
everlasting remembrance"
O Time, we defy theei o Death, we
stamp thee in the dust of thine own
sepulchers! 0 Eternity, roll on till the
last star has stopped rotating, and the
last sun is extinguished on the sapphire
pathway, and the last moon has IL
lumined the last night, and as many
years have passed as all the scribes that
ever took pen could describe by as many
figures as they could write in all the CEN
turies of all time, but thou shalt have no
power to efface from any soul in glory
the memory of anything we have done
to bring it to God and heaven!
A FROWN FOLLOWED BY A KISS.
There is another and more complete
defeat for oblivion, and that is in the
heart of God himself. You have seen
sailor roll up his sleeve and show you his
arm tattooed with the figure of a favor
tie ship-perhaps the first one in which
he ever sailed. You have seen soldier
roll up his sleeve and show you his arm
tattooed with the picture of fortress
where he was garrisoned, or the face of a
great general under whom he fought.
You have seen many hand tattooed
with the face of loved one before or
after marriage.
This tattooing is almost as old as the
world. 1t is some colored liquid pune
tured into the flesh so indelibly that
nothing can wash it out. 1t may have
been there so years, but when the man
goes into his coffin that puncture will go
with him on hand or arm. Now, God
says that he has tattooed us upon his
hands. There can be no other meaning
in the forty-ninth chapter of Isaiah,
where God says, Behold, have craven
thee on the palms of my hands,"
It was as much as to say: II cannot
open my hand to help, but 1 think of
you. I cannot spread abroad my hands
to bless, but think of you. Wherever
] go up and down the heavens take
these two pictures of you with me. They
are so inwrought into my being that l
cannot lose them. AS long as my hands
last the memory of you will last. Not
on the backs of my hands, as though to
announce you to others, but on the
palms of my hands for myself to look
at and study and love. Not on the
palm of one hand alone, but on the
palms of both hands, for while 1
am looking upon one hand and thinking
of you, l must have the other free to pro-
tect you, free to strike back your enemy,
/. G L, !.
indelibly tattooed. And though l hold
the winds in my fist no cyclone shall up
root the inscription of your name and
your face, and though 1 hold the ocean
in the hollow Of my hand its billowing
shall not wash out the record of my re-
membrance. Behold, have craven thee
on the palms of my hands,"
What joy, what honor can there be
comparable to that of being remembered
by the mightiest and kindest and love-
lest and tenderest and most affectionate
being in the universe. Think of ito
hold an everlasting place in the heart of
God. The heart of God! The most beau
tiful palace in the universe. Let the
archangel build some palace as grand as
that if he can. Let him crumble up all
the stars of yesternight and tomorrow
night and put them together as mosaics
for such palace floor. Let him take all
the sunrises and sunsets of all the days
and the auroras of all the nights and
hang them as upholstery at it's windows.
Let him take all the rivers, and all the
lakes, and all the oceans, and toss them
into the fountains Of this palace court.
Let him take all the gold of all the hills
and hang it in it's chandeliers, and all
the pearls of all the seas and all the dia-
monds of all the fields, and with them
arch the doorways of that palace, and
then invite into it all the glories that