The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-05-25

bers of that family, and carried them
away. Ziklag in ashes. And you go
about, sometimes weeping and some
times enraged, wanting to get back
your loved ones as much as David and
his men wanted to reconstruct
their households. Ziklag in ashes!
Some of you went off from home. You
counted the days of your absence.
Every day seemed as long as a week.
Oh! how glad you were when the time
came for you to go aboard the steam
boat or the rail car and start for home,
You arrived. You went up the street
where your dwelling was, and in the
night you put your hand on the door
bell, and, behold! it was draped with
the signal of bereavement, and you
found that Amalekitish Death, which
has devastated thousand other house
holds, had blasted yours. You go
about weeping amidst the desolation
of your once happy home, thinking of
the bright eyes closed, and the noble
hearts stopped, and the gentle hands
folded, and you weep until you have
no more power to weep. Ziklag in
ashes.
Why these long shadows of bereave-
ment across this audience? Why Is it
that in almost every assemblage black
is the predominant color of the ap-
parel? Is it because you do not like
saffron or brown or violet? Oh no.
You say: The world is not SO bright
to us as once it was;' and there is a
story of silent voices, and of still feet,
and of loved ones gone, and when you
look over the hills, expecting only
beauty and loneliness, you find only
devastation and woe. Ziklag in ashes.
l preach this serman to-day, because
L want to rally you, as David rallied his
men, for the recovery of the loved and
the lost. 1 want not only to win
Heaven, but l want all this congrega-
ton to go along with me. / feel that
somehow / have n responsibility in
your arriving at that great city. Do
you really want to enjoy the COM
panionship of your loved ones who have
gone? Are you as anxious to join
them as David and his men were to join
their families? Then | am here, in the
name of God, to say that you may, and
to tell you how.
1 remark, in the first place, if you
want to join your loved ones in glory,
you must travel the same way they
went. No sooner had the half-dead
Egyptian been resuscitated than
he pointed the way the captors
and the captives had gone, and David
and his men followed after. So our
Christian friends have gone into an
other country, and if we want to reach
their companionship we must take the
same road. They repented; we must
repent. They prayed; we must pray.
They trusted in Christ; we must trust
in Christ. They lived a religious life;
we must live religious life. They had
their faults, but as they were like us in
deficiencies, we ought to be like them
in taking supernal Christ to make
up for the deficits. Had it not been
for Jesus, they would have all persisted;
but Christ confronted them and said:
Il am the way" and they.took it.
1 have also to say to you that the
path that these captives trod was a
troubled path, and that David and his
men had to go over the same difficult
way. While these captives were being |
taken off, they said: ''Oh. we are so |
tired; we are SO sick; we are so hungry |
But the men who had charge of them |
said: stop this crying. Go on" David |
and his men also found it hard way. |
They had to travel it. Our friends |
have gone into glory, and it is through |
much tribulation that we are to enter |
into the kingdom. How our loved ones |
used to have to struggle! Did you ever
hear the old people, seated by the
evening stand, talk over their
early trials, their hardships, the acct
dents, the burials, the disappointments,
the empty flour barrel when there were
so many hungry ones to feed, the sick
ness almost unto death, where the next
dose of morphine decided between
CHASTITY bereavement and an unbroken
home circle? Oh, yes! it was trouble
that whitened their hair. 1t was trou-
BILE that shook the cup in their hands
1t was trouble that washed the luster
from their eyes with the rain of tears
until they needed spectacles. 1t was
trouble that made the cane a necessity
for their journey. Do you ever re-
seeing your old mother sit
ting, on some rainy day, looking out of
the window, her elbow on the window
sill, her hand to her brow-looking out,
not seeing the falling shower at all
you well knew she was looking into
the distant past), until the apron came
up to her eyes, because the memory
was too much for her?
Oft the big. unbidden tear
Stealing down the furrowed cheek,
Told in eloquence sincere,
Tales Of woe they could not speak.
But this scene of weeping DER,
Past this scene Of toll and pain,
They shall feel distress no more,
Never, never weep again.
"Who are these under the altar?r the
question was asked; and the response
,ame: ''These are they which came out |
If great tribulation, and have washed
heir robes, and made them white in |
he blood of the Lamb" Our friends
vent by path of tears into glory. Be
lot surprised if we have to travel the
anne pathway.
TcIudTh, again, IL we WdHI 10 win | g.,
he society of our friends in Heaven We
will not only have to travel path of
aith and path of tribulation, but we
will also have to positively battle for
heir companionship. David and his
men never wanted sharp swords and in
shields and thick breast
,lates so much as they wanted them on
he day when they came down upon
he Amalekites. If they had lost
hat battle they never would have