Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1893-07-08

las -1neraI procession comes N 10 breath
~ air disturbing the dust where Persepolis
stood and Thebee and Babylon No winking
Of the eyelids long closed In darkness. No stir
ring ofthe feettha, once bounded the hillside.
No opening Of the hand that once pluckei
Abe Hover cut Of the edge Of the Wild
Wo1i. No clutching Of swords by the men
who went down when Persia hattlsd and
BONE fell. Silence from ocean beach to
mountain elf and from nver TO river. Tho
sea singing the sane old tune. The lakes
hushed 10 sleep in the bosom Of the same
g--a, hills. No hand disturbing the
gate 81 the long-barred sepulcher. All
the nations OF the dead motionless
in their winding sheets Up the side
O. the hills. down through the trough
o the valleys. far out n the cav
ems. across the fields, deep Town into the
coral p.saces Of the ocean depths where
le-ia.han sports with his f~elIoTsAevery-
where. layer above layer, height above
height. depth below depth--dead! dead
dead But in the twinkllng Of an eye, as
qlick as that. as the arcbangel,s trumpet
3rne ~pealing. rolling. reverberating, crash
ing across continents and seas, the earth Will
giye one fearful shudder and the door Of the
will burst open. and all the
graves Of the dead will begin to
throb and heave like the waves OF the sea,
and the mansoleum Of princes will fau into
dust. and Ostend and Sebastopol and Aus
terlitz and Gettysburg stalk forth in the
lurid air, and the shipwrecked rise from the
] deep, their wet locks looming above the bill
low. and all the land and al the sea become
one moving mass of life-all generations, all
aSes with upturned countenances-some
kinfled with rapture and others blanched
with despair, but gazing in one direction,
upon one object, and that the throne OF
resurrection.
on THAT day you will get back your Chris
tan dead. There is where the comfort comes
III. They will come up with the same hand,
the same foot and the same entire body, but
with a perfect hand. and a perfect foot, and
n perfect body. corruption. mortality having
become immortality. And. oh, the reunion
Oh, the embrace after SO long an absence
Comfort one another with these words.
While | present these thoughts this morn
ing does it not seem that heaven comes very
near 10 US. as though our friends, whom we
thought a great way off, are not in the dis
tance, but close by? You have sometimes
come down to a river at nightfall, and you
have been SURPRISE, how easily you could
hear voices acros. that river. You shouted
over TO the other side Of the river, and they
shouted back. 1t is said that when George
Whitefeld preached in Third street. Phila-
delphia, one evening time his voice was
heard clear across to the New Jersey shore.
When | was a little while chaplain in the
army. | remember how at eventlde we coulc
easily hear the voices OF the pickets acros;
the Potomac just when they were using or
binary tones. And as we come to-day anC
stand by the river of Jordan that divides u:
from our friends who are gone it seems to M
we stand on one bank. and they stand on tn
other. and il is only u narrow stream
and our voices go. and their voices come
Hark Hush / hear distinctly ,wha
they say. These are they who came out o
great tribulation and had their robes washes
and made white in the blood of the Lamb.
Still the voice comes across the water. and
hear, We hunger no more; we thirst n
more neither shall the sun light on US no
any heat for the Lamb which is in the mids
of the throne. leads us to living fountains o
water. and Goo wipeth away all tears from
our eyes"