Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-01-06


life at 20 or 30 years of age. Do you
know the reason why the vast majority
of people die before 80? 1t is because
they have not the moral endurance for
that which is beyond the 80. and mer-
ciful God will not allow them to be pat
to the fearful strain.
Again, there is blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that one is the sooner taken off the de-
fensive. As soon as one is old enough to
take care of himself, he is put on his
guard. Bolts on the door to keep out
the robbers. Fireproof safes to keep off
the flames. Life insurance and fire in
surance against accidents Receipts lest
you have to pay debt twice. Lifeboat
against shipwreck. Westinghouse air
brake against railroad collision. There
are many ready to overreach you and
take all you have. Defense against cold,
defense against heat, defense against
sickness, defense against the worlds
abuse, defense all the way down to the
grave, and even the tombstone some
times is not sufficient barricade.
If a soldier who has been on guard,
shivering and stung with the cold, pacing
up and down the parapet with shout
dered musket, is glad when some one
comes to relieve guard and he can 90 in
side the fortress, ought not that man to
shout for joy who can put down his
weapon of earthly defense and go into
the kings castle? Who is the more for
tunate, the soldier who has to stand guard
10 hours, or the man who has to stand
guard six hours? Wehaye common sense
about everything but religion, common
sense about everything but transference
from this world.
THE EVIL TO COME.
Again, there is blessing in an alb
breviated earthly existence in the fact
that one escapes so many bereavements.
The longer we live the more attach
ments and the more kindred, the more
chords to be wounded or rasped or sun
dered. If man live on to 20 or 50 Years
of age, how many graves are cleft at his
feet? In that long reach Of time father
and mother go, brothers and sisters go,
children go. grandchildren go, personal
friends outside the family circle whom
they had loved with love like that of
David and Jonathan.
Besides that, some men have natural
trepidation about dissolution, and ever
and anon during 40 or 50 or 60 years this
horror of their dissolution shudders
through soul and body. Now, suppose
the lad goes at 16 years of age. He es-
capes so funerals, so caskets, so obse-
quies, so awful wrenchings of the heart.
1t is hard enough for US to bear their de-
parture, but is it not easier for us to bear
their departure than for them to stay
and bear 90 departures? Shall we not, by
the grace of God. rouse ourselves into a
generosity of bereavement which will
practically say, sit is hard enough for
me to go through this bereavement, but
how glad am that he will never have to
go through itr'
So l reason with myself, and so you
will find it helpful to reason with your
selves. David lost his son. Though
David was king, he lay on the earth
mourning and inconsolable for some
time At this distance Of time, which
do Won really think was the one to be
congratulated. the short lived child or
the long lived father? Had David died
as early as that child died, he would in
the first place have escaped that particu-
lar bereavement, then he would have es-
capped the worse bereavement of Absa-
lon, his recreant son, and the pursuit of
the Philistines, and tie fatigues of his
military campaign, and the jealousy Of
Saul, and the perfdy of Ahithophel, and
the curse of Shimei, and the destruction
of his family at Ziklag and, above all,
he would have escaped the two great Ca
lamities of his life, the great sins of I'M
cleanness and murder. David lived to
be of vast use to the church and the
world, but so far as his own happiness
was concerned, does it not seem to you
that it would have been better for him
to have gone early?
Now, this, my friends. explains some
things that to you have been inexplica-
bic. This shows you why when God
takes little children from a household
he is very apt to take the brightest, the
most genial, the most sympathetic, the
most talented. Why? 1t is because that
kind of nature suffers the most when it
does suffer and is most liable to tempta-
ton. God saw the tempest sweeping
up from the Caribbean, and he put the
delicate craft into the first harbor.
Taken away from the evil to come"
Again, my friends. there is blessing
in an abbreviated earthly existencei in the
fact that it puts one sooner in the center
of things. All astronomers, infidel as
well as Christian, agree in believing that
the universe swings around some great
center. Any one who has studied the
earth and studied the heavens knows that
Gods fayorite figure in geometry is
circle. When God put forth his hand
to create the universe, he did not strike
that hand at right angles, but he waved
it in circle and kept on waving it in
circle until systems and consultations
and galaxies and all worlds took that
motion. Our planet swinging around
the sun, other planets swinging around
other suns, but somewhere a great hub
around which the great wheel of the uni
verse turns. Now, that center is heaven.
That is the capital Of the universe. That
is the great metropolis Of immensely.
KNOWLEDGE AT FIRST HANDS.
Now, does not our common sense teach
us that in matters of study it is better
for us to move out from the center to-
ward the circumference rather than to
be on the circumference where our world
now is? We are like those who study
the American continent while standing
on the Atlantic beach. The way to study
the continent is to cross it or go to the
heart of it. Cur standpoint in this world
is defective. We are at the wrong end
of the telescope. The best way to study
q piece of machinery is not to stand on
the doorstep and try to look in, but to
go in with the engineer and take our
place right amid the saws and the cyl
inders. We wear onr eyes out and onr
brain out from the fact that we ara
studying under such great disadvantage.
Millions Of dollars for observatories TO
study things about the moon, about the
sun, about the rings Of Saturn, about
transits and occultations and eclipses,
simply because our studio, our observa-
tory. is poorly situated. We are down
in the cellar trying TO study the palace
of the universe, while our departed
Christian friends have gone up stairs
amid the skylights to study.
7 Now, when one can sooner get to the
center of things. is he not to be coBgrat-
Mated? Who wants to be ALWAYS in the