The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-05-07

year. / record with gratitude to God
that during this generation of twenty
five years, l remember but two Sabbaths
that l have missed service through any
thing like physical indisposition, Almost
a fanatic on the subject Of physical eXer-
else, | have made the parks, with which
our city is blessed, the means Of good
physical condition. A daily walk and
run in the open air have kept me ready
for work and in good humor with all the
world, ] say to all young ministers of
| the gospel, il IS easier to keep good
health than to regain it when once lost.
The reason so many good men think the
world is going TO ruin is because their
own physical condition is on the down
grade. No man ought to preach who has
a diseased liver, or an enlarged spleen.
! There are two things ahead Of US that
ought to keep us cheerful in our work.
heaven and the millennium.
| And now, having come up to the TWEEN
ty-fifth milestone in my passionate, won
der how many more miles l am TO travel.
! Your company has been exceedingly
! pleasant, O, my dear people. and ] would
like TO march by your side until the gen
GRAFTON with whom we are now moving
abreast and step to step, shall have
stacked arms after the last battle. But
the Lord knows best, and we ought to be
willing to stay or go.
| Most of you are aware that propose at
this time, between the close of M twenty
fifth year of pastorate and before the be-
! ginning of my twenty-siXth year, TO be
absent for few months, in order to take
a journey around the world. | expect 10
| sail from San Francisco in the steamer
Alameda" MAY 81. My place here on
| Sabbaths will be fully occupied, while on
Mondays, and every Monday, I will con-
| tinue to speak through the printing press
in this and other lands as heretofore.
| Why do l 90? To make a pastoral
visitation among people whom
have never seen, but to whom I
have been permitted long while to ad-
minister. | want to see them in their
own cities, towns and neighborhoods |
want to know what are their properties,
what their adversities and what their
opportunities, and SO enlarge my work,
and get more adaptedness. Why do go!
For educational purposes. l want 10
freshen my mind and heart by new
scenes new faces, new manners and Gus
toms ] want better to understand. what
are the wrongs to be righted and the
waste places to be reclaimed. 1 will put
all | learn in sermons to be preached to
you when ! return. | want to see the
Sandwich Islands, not so much in the
light of modern politics as in the light of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ which has
transformed them; and Samoa, and those
vast realms of New Zealand, and Austria
liza, and Ceylon, and India. want to see
what Christianity has accom-
pIlShed. want to see
how the missionaries have been
lied about as living in luxury and idleness.
] want to know whether the heather re-
ligions are really as tOlerable and as com
mendable as they were represented by
their adherents in the parliament of
religions at Chicago. ] want to see
whether Mohammedanism and Buddhism
would be good things for transportation
in America, as it has again and again been
argued. I want to hear the Brahmins
pray. l want to test whether the Pacific
Ocean treats its guests any better than
does the Atlantic. | want to see the
wondrous architecture of India, and the
Delhi and Cawnpore where Christ was
crucitied in the massacre of his modern
disciples, and the disabled Juggernaut UNI
wheeled by Christianity; and to see if the
Tai which the Emperor Shah Jehan built
in honor of his empress, really means any
more than the plain slab we put above our
dear departed. | want to see the fields
where Havelock and Sir Colin Campbell
won the day against the SepOys. / want
to see the world from all sides; how much
of IT is in darkness, how much of it is in
light; what the Bible means by the lends
of the earth, - and get myself ready TO APP
preciate the extent of the present to be
made to Christ as spoken of in the
Psalms: Ask of me and | shall give
thee the heather for thine inheritance,
and the uttermOst parts of the earth for
thy possession; ~ and so | shall be ready
to celebrate in heaven the victories of
Christ in more rapturous song than
could have rendered had | never seen the
heather denominations before they were
conquered. And so | hope to come back
refreshed, reinforced and better equipped,
and to do in ten years more effectual
work than l have done in the last twenty
five.
And now in this twenty fifth Anniver-
sary Sermon propose to do two things:
first, to put a garland on the grave of the
generation that has just passed off, and
then to put palm branch in the hand of
the generation just now coming on the
| field of action. For my text is true;
| Zone generation passeth away, and an
| other generation cometh." Oh, how
many we revered, and honored, and
! loved in the last generation that quit the
| earth. Tears fell at the time of their
| going, and dirges were sounded, and sig
| nails of mourning were put on but neither
| tears, nor dirge, nor somber veil told the
half we felt. Their going left vacancy
in our souls that has never been filled up.
| We never get used to their absence.
There are times when the sigh t of
something with which they were associ-
| ated-a picture or a book, or a garment,
or a staff, breaks us down with emotion
but we bear it simply because we have to
bear it. Oh, how snowy white their hair
got, and how the wrinkles multiplied,
and the sight grew more dim, and the
hearing less alert, and the step more frail
and one day they were gone out of the
chair by the Preside, and from the plate
at the meal, and from the end of the
church pew, where they worshipped with
us Oh, my soul, how we miss them
But let us console each other with the
thought that we shall meet them again in
the land of salutation and reunion.
And now l twist garland for that de-
parted generation. 1t eed not be costly
perhaps just handful of clover blossoms
from the field through which they used
to walk, or as many violets as you could
hold between the thumb and the forefn-
ger, plucked out of the garden where
they used to walk in the cool of the day
Put these old-fashioned flowers right
down over the heart that never again viii
ache, and the feet that will never AGAR
be weary, and the arm that has forever
ceased to toll. Peace, father! Peace
mother! Everlasting peace! All that
for the generation gone.
But what shall we do with the palm
branch, That we will put in the hand o,
the generation coming on. Yours is to bt