Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1894-10-25


all exult melodiously before the Lord.
With God for our Father, and Christ
for our Savior, and heaven for our
home, and angels for future compan-
ions, and eternity for a lifetime, we
should strike all the notes of joy. Go
ing through the wilderness of this
world let us remember that we are on
the way to the summary cline of hea-
ven, and from the migratory popula-
learn always to keep singing.
Children of the heavenly King,
AS ye journey, sweetly sing,
Sing your Savior's worthy praise,
Glorious in his works and ways.
Ye are travelling home to God,
In the way your fathers trod;
They are happy now, and we
Soon their happiness shall see.
The church of God never will be
triumphant church until it becomes
singing church.
go further and remark that the
birds of the air are wiser than we, in
the fact that in their migration they
fly very high. During the summer,
when they are in the fields, they often
come within reach of the gun, but
when they start for their annual flight
southwark, they take their places mid
heaven and go straight as mark. The
longest rifle that was ever brought to
shoulder can not reach them. Would
to God that we were as wise as the
stork and crane in our fight heaven
ward. We fly SO low that we are with
in easy range of the world, the flesh
and the devil. We are brought dowh
by temptations that ought not to come
within mile of reaching us. Oh, for
some of the faith of George Miller of
England, and Elfred Goodman once of
the church militant, now of the
church triumphant! So poor is the
type of piety in the church of God
now, that men actually caricature the
idea that there is any such thing as a
higher life. Moles never did believe in
eagles. But, my brethren, because
we have not reached these heights
ourselves, shall we deride the fact that
there are any such heights? A man
was once talking to Brunei, the famous
engineer, about the length of the rail
road from London to Bristol The en-
gineer said, 1T is not very great. We
shall have, after while, steamer
running from England to New York "
They laughed him to scorn; but we
have gone so far now that we have
ceased to laugh at anything as impos-
sible for the Lord? l do not believe
that God exhausted all his grace
in Paul, and Latimer and Edward
| Payson, l believe there are
higher points of Christian attainment
to be reached in the future ages of the
Christian world. You tell me that
Paul went up to the tiptop of the Alps
of Christian attainment. Then L tell
you that the stork and crane have found
above the Alps plenty of room for free
| flying. We go out and we conquer our
temptations by the grace of God, and
| lie down. On the morrow, those
temptations rally themselves and at
tack us, and by the grace of God we
defeat them again, but, saying all the
time in the old encampment, we have
the same old battles to fight over.
Why not whip out our temptations,
and then forward march, making one
raid through the enemy's country,
stopping not until we break
ranks after the last victory. Do,
my brethren, let us have some novelty
of combat, at any rate, by chang
ing, by going on, by making advance
ment, trading off our stale prayers
about sins we ought to have quit long
ago, going on toward a higher state OF
Christian character, and routing out
sins that we have never thought of yet.
The fact is, if the church of God-if we
as individuals, made rapid advance
ment in the Christian life, these stereo-
typed prayers we have been making
for ten or fifteen years would be as in
appropriate to us as the shoes, and the
hats, and the coats we wore ten or
fifteen years ago, Oh for higher
fight in the Christian life, the stork
and the crane in their migration teach.
ing us the lesson!
Dear Lord, and shall we ever live,
At this poor dying rate
Our love so faint, so cold to thee,
And thine to us so great9
Again, L remark that the birds OF
the air are wiser than we, because they
know when to start. If you should &c
out now and shout, ''Stop, storks and
cranes, don't be in hurry they would
say, mo, we can not stop; last night
we heard the roaring in the woods
bidding us away, and the shrill flute
of the north wind has sounded the re-
treat. We must go. We must GO.
So they gather themselves into compa-
MES, and turning not aside for storm
or mountain top, or shock of musketry,
over land and sea, straight as an arrow
to the mark they go. And ifyou come
out this morning with sack of corn
and throw it in the fields and try to
get them to stop, they are now so ia,
up they would hardly see it. They are
on their way south. You could not stop
them. Oh, that we were as wise about
the best time to start for God and
heaven! We say, wait until it is a
little later in the season of mercy.
Wait until some of these green leaves
of hope are all dried up and have been
scattered. Wait until next year.