Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-11-17

he replied, Hsince / found the Lord /
have never had any pain except sin !"
Then they said to him, "Would you
| like to send amessage to your friends?''
Eyes, l would Tell them that only
last night the love of Jesus came rush
ing into my soul like the surges of the
sea, and had to cry out: Stop, Lord;
it is enoughi Stop, Lord--enoughl' !"
Oh, the joys of this Christian religionl
Vanity of Sinful Pleasures.
just pass over from those tame joys
In which you are indulging-joys Of
this world-into the rapturos of the gos-
pei. The world cannot satisfy you; you
have found out-Alexander longing for
other worlds to conquer and yet drown
ed in his own bottle, Byron whipped
by disquietudcs around the world, Vol
taire cursing his own soul while all the
streets of Paris We're applauding him
Henry II consuming with hatred against
poor Thomas Beckett, all illustrations
of the fact that this world cannot make
man happy. The very man who poi
soned the pommel of the saddle on
which Queen Elizabeth rode shouted in
the street. God save the queenp' One
moment the world applauds, and the
next moment the world mathematics.
Oh. come over into this greater joy,
this sublime solacc this magnificent
beatitude. The night after the battle of
Shiloh there were thousands of wound
ed on the field, and the ambulances had
/ nr,n (fhYfcfiot, cn1a1ar 1x.i,,r
there a-dying under the starlight, be-
gan to sing
There is a lard of pure delight.
And when he came to the next line
there were scores of voices uniting:
Where saints immortal reign.
The song was caught up all over the
field among the wounded until it was
said that there were at least 10, 900
wounded men uniting their voices as
they came to the verse:
There everlasting spring abides
Ard never whitening flowers.
Death, like narrow stream, divides
That heavenly land from ours.
Oh. it is great religion to live by,
and it is great religion to die by.
There is only one heart throb between
you and that religion this moment. Just
look into the face of your rardoning
God and surrender yourself for time
and for eternity, and he is yours, and
heaven is yours, and all is yours. Some
of you, like the young man of the text,
have gone astray. l know not the his
tory, but you know it-you know it.
The Circle of Safety.
When young man went forth into
life, the legend says, his guardian angel
went forth with him, and getting him
into field the guardian angel swept o
circle clear around where the young
man stood. 1t was a circle of virtue and
honor, and he must not step beyond that
circle Armed foes came down., but
were Obliged to halt at the circle. They
could not pass. But one day temptress,
with diamonded hand, stretched forth
and crossed that circle with the hand,
and the tempted soul took it, and by
that one fell grip was brought beyond
the circle and died.
Some of you have stepped beyond that
circle Would you not like this day, by
the grace of God, to step back? This,
say to you, is your hour of salvation.
There was i'll the closing hours of Queen
Anne what is called the clock scene.
Flat down on the pillow, i'll helpless
sickness, she could not move her head
or move her hand. She was waiting for
the hour when the ministers of state
should gather in angry contest, and
worried and Worn out by the coming
hour, and i'll momentary absence of the
nurse, III the power-the strange power
which delirium sometimes gives one
she arose and stood in front of the
clock, and stood there watching the
clock when the nurse returned. The
nurse said, do you see anything pecul-
lar about that clock?'' She made no an
swer, but soon died. There is clock
scene in every history. If some of you
would rise from the bed of lethargy and
come out of your delirium of sin and
look on the clock of your destiny this
moment, you would see and hear some
thing you have not seen or heard be-
fore, and every tick of the minute, and
every stroke of the hour, and every
swing of the pendulum, would say,
Now, now, now, now" Oh, come
home to your Fathers housed Come
home, oh, prodigal, from the wilder
ness Come home, come homel
The Divine Justice.
But | notice that when the prodigal
came there was the fathers JOY. He
did not greet him with any formal
"How do you do:" He did not come
out and say; You are unfit to enter
Go out and wash i'll the trough by the
well, and then you can come i'll. We
have had enough trouble with you. !"
All, mol When the proprietor of that es-
tate proclaimed festival, it was an out
burst of fathers love and a fathers
joy. God is your father.
/ have not much sympathy with that
description of God l sometimes hear, as
though he were Turkish sultan-hard
aud unsympathetic and listening not to
the cry of his subjects A man told me
he saw i'll one of the eastern lands
king riding along, and two men were
in alteration. and one charged the 9TH
u Will nav IlS bultl LIS IlCc, anu tuG
king said. Then Stay the man, and By
post mortem examination find whether
he has eaten the rice. " And he was
slain. All, the cruelty Of scene like
that! Our God is not sultan, not
despot, but a father-kind, loving, for
giving he makes all heaven ring
again when prodigal comes back. Il
have no pleasure, he says, lin the
death of him that dieth. "
II man does not get heaven, it is
because he will not go there No differ
ence the color, 10 difference the history,
no difference the antecedents, no differ
ence the surroundings, no difference the
sin. When the white horses of Christ
victory are brought ont to celebrate the
eternal triumph, you may ride one of
them, and, as God is greater than all,
his joy is greater, and when a soul comes
back there is III his heart the surging of
an infinite ocean of gladness, and to ex-
press that gladness it takes all the rivers
pnaA