National Baptist world., 1894-11-02


music. why" he said, ''I can't dt
otherwise. When think of God my
soul is so full of joy that the notes Leaf
and dance from my pen." Iwish We
might all exult melodiously before the
Lord. With God for our Father, anC
Christ for our Saviour, and Heaven fol-
our home, and angels for future com
panions, and eternity for 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 summery cline of Heav-
en-, and from the migratory populations
flying through this autumnal air learn
always to keep singing.
Children of the heavenly King,
| AS ye journey, sweetly sing;
| Sing your Saviour'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 a
triumphant church until it becomes a
singing church.
l 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 the annual fight
southwark they take their places mid
heaven and go straight as a mark
The longest rifle that was ever brought
to shoulder cannot reach them Would
to God that we were as wise as
the stork and crane in our
fight heavenward! We fly so low
that we are within easy range
of the world, the flesh and the devil.
We are brought down by temptations
that ought not to come within a mile
of reaching us. Oh for some of the
faith Of George Muller, of England,
and Alfred Goodman, once of the
church militant, now of the church tri-
umphant! So poor is the type of piety
in the church of God now that men
actually caricature the idea that there
is such thing as higher life. Moles
never did believe in eagles. Bat, 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 railroad from London to Bristol.
The engineer said: SIT is not very
great. We shall have, after awhile,
steamer running from London to
New York" They laughed him to
scorn; but we have gone so far now
that we have ceased to laugh at any
thing as impossible for human achieve
ment. Then, L ask, is anything i'm
possible for the Lord? I do not be-
lieve that God exhausted all his grace
in Paul, and Latimer and Edward Pay
son. 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 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 them
selves and attack us, and by the |
grace Of God we defeat them again;
but, staying all the time in the old en- |
we have the same old bat |
ties 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 nov
city Of combat, at any rate, by chang
ing. by going on, by making advance
nent. trading off our stale prayers
about sins we ought to have quit long
ago, going on toward higher state of
Christian character, and routing our
sins that we have never thought of
yet. The fact is, if the church of God
f we, as individuals, made rapid ad-
in the Christian life, these
'tereotyped prayers we have been MAX
ng for ten or fifteen years would be
Inappropriate to us as the shoes, the
hats and the coats we wore ten or fif-
5een years ago. Oh for a higher flight
n the Christian life, the stork and the
;rane in their migration teaching 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 great?
Again, | remark, that the birds of
he air are wiser than we, because they
Know when to start If you should go
nut now and shout: "Stop, storks and
ranes, don't be in hurry" they
would say: mo, we cannot stop; last
light we heard the roaring in the
woods bidding us away, and the shrill
lutte of the north wind has sounded
he retreat. We must go. We must
o." So they gather themselves into
and, turning not aside for
torn or mountain top, or shock of
nusketry, over land and sea, straight
S an arrow to the mark they GO. And
you come out this morning with sack
f corn and throw it in the fields and try |
o get them to stop, they are SO far up
hey would hardly see it, They are on
heir way to the south. You could not
top them. Oh, that we were as wise
bout the best time to start for God
nd Heaven! We say: "Wait until it
5 a little later in the season of mercy.
L L