The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-09-07

4
hurricane deck shakes out its banner
of smoke and darkness. ''Down
with the lifeboatsI' cries the captain.
Down with the lifeboatsr' Peo-
| pie rush into them. The boats are
about full. Room only for one more
man. You are standing on the dock
beside the captain.
Who shall it be? You or the captain?
The captain says: You" You jump
and are saved. He stands there and
dies. Now, you believe that Capt.
Braveheart sacrificed himself for his
passengers, but you believe it with love.
with tears, with hot and long-contin-
ued ordinations: with grief at his loss
and joy at your deliverance. That is saw
/ ing faith. In other words, what you be-
| lieve with all the heart, and believe in
regard to yourself. On this hinge turns
my sermon; aye, the salvation of your
| immortal soul. You often go across n
bridge you know nothing about. You
| do not know who built the
bridge; you do not know what ma
terial it is made of; but you come to it,
and walk over it, and ask no ques-
tions. And here is an arched bridge
blasted from the Rock of Ages"
And built by the Architect of
the whole universe, spanning
the dark gulf between sin and right
eousness, and all that God asks You is
to walk across it; and you start, and
you come to it, and you go little way
on. and You stop, and you fall back,
and you experiment. You say: slow
do know that bridge will hold me?'
instead of marching on with firm step,
asking no questions, but feeling that
the strength of the Eternal God is I'M
der you.
Shall / try to tell you what it is to
be saved? l can not tell you. No man,
no angel, can tell you. But can hint
at it. For my text brings me up t
this point: ''Thou shalt be saved" 1t
means a happy life here. and peace
| full death and blissful eternity. 1t is
grand thing to go to sleep at night
and to get up in the morning. and to
do business all day feeling that
all is right between my heart
and God. No accident, no sick
/ iCSS. hO pCISCCullOns hO DCIIf iO
sword can do me any permanent
damage. 1 am forgiven child of
| God, and He is bound to see me through.
The mountains may depart, the earth
may burn, the light of the stars may
be blown out by the blast of the judg-
ment hurricane; but life and death,
things present and things to come, are
mine. Yea, further than that-it
means peaceful death. Mrs. Hemans,
Mrs. Sigourney, DIR. Young, and almost
all the poets have said handsome things
about death. There is nothing beauti-
full about it. When we stand by the
white and rigid features of those whom
we love and they give no answering
pressure of the hand and returning
kiss of the lip, we do not want any
body poetizing around about us. Death
is loathsomeness and midnight and the
wringing of the heart until the ten
drills snap and curl in torture, unless
Christ shall be with us. l confess to
you an infinite fear, consuming
horror of death, unless Christ shall
be with me. / would rather go down
into a cave of wild beasts or jungle
of reptiles than into the grave, unless
Christ goes with me. VIII you tell me
that am to be carried out from my
bright home and put away in the dark
ness? / can not bear darkness. At the
| first coming of the evening | must have
the gas lighted. and the farther on in
life get the more l like to have my
friends round me.
What power is there in anthing to
chill me in the last hour if Christ wraps
around me the skirt of His own gar
ment? What darkness can fall upon
my eyelids then, amid the heavenly
daybreak? o death. L will not fear
| thee then. Back to thy cavern of
dark, thou robber of all the earth.
Fly, thou despoiIer of families. With
this battle-ax l hew thee in twain.
from helmet to sandal, the voice of
Christ sounding all over the earth and
through the heavens: so death, l will
be thy plague. grave, L will be thy
destruction"
To be saved is to wake up in the pres
ence of Christ. You know when Jesus
was upon the earth how happy He made
every house He went into, and when
He brings us up to His house
in Heaven how great shall be our
glee. His voice has more music in it
than is to be heard in all the oratories of
eternity. Talk not about banks dashed
with effiorescence. Jesus is the chief
bloom of Heaven. We shall see the
very face that beamed sympathy in
Do toll ha hand 4hot
dropped its blood from the short beam
of the cross. Oh, l want to stand in
eternity with Him. Toward that har-
Dor steer. Toward that goal i run.
shall be satisfied when / awake in
His likeness.
Oh, brolzen-hearted men and women,
how sweet it will be in that good land
to pour all your hardships and be-
reavements and losses into the
loving ear of Christ, and then
have Him explain why it was best
for you to be sick. and why it was
best for you to be widowed, and why
it was best for you to be prosecuted,
and why it was best for you to be tired,
and have Him point to an evelation
proportionate to your disquietude here,
saying, ''You suffered with me on
earth, come up now and be glorified
with ne in Heaven"
Some one went in a house where
there had been a good deal of trouble,
and said to the woman there: ''You
seem to be lonely" Yes she said,
Il am lonely" How many in the
family?" ''Only myself" Have you
any children" had seven
children" where are they?"
leone 'All gomez GAIL" "All
dead?" "All." Then she breathed a
:. Il :. L L 4 !.