Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-02-23

their present and eternal destiny. For
fifty or sixty years he lives that kind
of life and then gets through with it
and goes into heaven a ransomed soul.
Loo am not going TO describe the port
into which that ship has entered. l
am not going to describe the pilot who
met him outside at the 'lightship."
am not going to say anything about
the crowds of friends who met him on
the crystalline wharves up which he
goes on steps OF chrysoprases. For
God in his words to Job calls me to
look at the path of foam in the wake
of that ship, and tell you it is all
a-gleam with splendors of kindness
done, and rolling with illumined tears
that were wiped away, and a-dash with
congratulations, and clear out to the
horizon in all directions is the spark
ling, flashing, billowlng phosphores-
cence of Christian life. "IIe maketh
path to shine after him"
And here l correct one of the mean
notions which at some time takes pos
session of all of us, and that is as to
the brevity of human life. When
bury some very useful man, clerical or
lay, in his thirtieth or fortieth year,
say, what a waste of energiesl 1t
was hardly worth while for him to get
ready for Christian work, for he had
so soon to quit it." But the fact is
that / may insure any man or woman
who does any good on large or small
scale for life on earth as long as the
world lasts Sickness, trolley-car ac-
cidents, death itself can no more de-
stroy his life than they can tear down
one of the rings of Saturn. You can
start one good word, one kind act, one
cheerful smile, on mission that will
last until the world becomes a bonfire,
and out of that blaze it will pass into
the heavens never to halt as long as
God lives.
There were in the seventeenth century
men and women whose names you
never heard of who are to-day infu-
encing schools, colleges, churches, ma
tions, You can no more measure the
gracious results of their lifetime than
you could measure the length and
breadth and depth of the phosphores-
cence last night following the ship of
the White Star line 800 miles out at
sea. How the courage and consecra-
ton of others inspires us to follow, as
a general in the American army, cool
amid the flying bullets, inspired q
trembling soldier, who said afterward,
L was nearly scared to death, but L,
IL ,.,l,tta 1n
over his shoulder, and went on" Aye,
we are all following somebody, either
in right or wrong directions. A few
DAYS ago stood beside the garlanded
casket of a gospel minister, and
in my remarks had occasion to re-
call q snowy night in farmhouse
when was boy, and an evangelist
spending night at my fathers house,
who said something so tender and
beautiful and impressive that it led
me into the kingdom of God and de-
cided my destiny for this world and
the next You will, before twenty
four hours go by, meet some man or
woman with a big pack. of care and
| trouble, and you may say something
to him or her that will endure until
this world shall have been so far lost
in the past that nothing but the
stretch of angelic memory will be able
to realize that it ever existed at all.
am not talking of remarkable men and
women, but of what ordinary folks
can do. ! am not speaking OF the
| phosphorescence in the wake of a
"Campania," but OF the phosphores-
cence in the track of Newfound-
land fishing smack. God makes
| thunderbolts out of sparks, and
out of the small words and
deeds of small life he can
launch power that will fash and
burn and thunder through the eterni-
ties. How do you like this prolonga-
tion of your earthly life by deathless
influence? Many babe that died at
six months Of age by the anxiety
created in the parents heart 10 meet
that child in realms seraphic, is living
yet in the transformed heart and life
of those parents, and will live on for
ever in the history of that family II
this be the. opportunity of ordinary
souls, what is the opportunity of those
who have especial intellectual, or
social, or monetary equipment? Have
you any arithmetic capable of esti-
mating the influence of our good and
gracious friend who few days ago
went up to rest-George w. Childs of
Philadelphia? From a newspaper that
was printed for thirty years with
out one word of defamation.
or scurrility, or scandal, and put
ting chief emphasis on virtue and
charity, and clean intelligence. he
reaped fortune for himself and then
distributed vast amount of it among
the poor and struggling, putting his
invalid and aged reporters on pensions,
until his name stands everywhere for
large and sympathy and
help and highest style of Christian gen.
tleman. In an era which had in the
chairs of its journalism a Horace
Greeley, and Henry j. Raymond, and
a James Gordon Bennett, and an Eras-
tus Brooks, and George William Cur.
tbs, and an Irenacus Prime, none OF
them will be LONGER remen bered than