Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-05-31
No batterinp ram smote

merriment that once belonged to that
house are concerned, the home has de-
parted. Armed diseases came down
upon the quietness of the scene-scar-
let fevers, or pleurisies, or consump-
tions, or underlined disorders came and
seized upon some members of that
family, and carried them away. Ziklap
in ashes And you go about, some
times weeping and sometimes enraged,
wanting to get back your loved ones as
much as David and his men wanted to
reconstruct their despoiled households.
Ziklag in ashes! Some of you went off
from home. You counted the DAYS of
your absence. Every day seemed as long
as week. Oh, how glad you were when
the time came for you to go aboard the
steamboat or rail car and start for
home! You arrived. You went up the
street where your dwelling was. and in
the night you put your hand on the
door bell, and, behold. it was wrapped
with the signal of bereavement, and
you find that Amalekitish Death. which
has devastated a thousand other house
holds, had blasted yours. You go
of your once happy home, thinking of
the bright eyes closed, and the noble
hearts stopped, and the gentle hands
folded, and you weep until you have no
more power to weep. Ziklag in ashes!
Why these long shadows of bereave-
ment across this audience? Why is it
that in almost every assemblage black
is the predominant color of the apparel?
Is it because you do not like saffron or
brown or violet? Oh no! You say,
"This world is not so bright to US as
once it was;" and there is a story of
silent voices, and of still feet, and of
loved ones gone, and when you look
over the hills, expecting only beauty
and loneliness, you find only devasta-
ton and woe. Zi6lag in ashes!
One day, in Ulster county, N. Y, the
village church was decorated until the
fragrance of the flowers was almost be-
wildering. The maidens of the village
had emptied the place of flowers upon
one marriage altar. One of their own
number was affianced to a minister of
Christ, who had come to take her to his
own home. With hands joined, amidst
a congratulatory audience, the vows
were taken. In three days from that
time one of those who stood at the
altar exchanged earth for Heaven. The
wedding march broke down into the
funeral dirge. There were not enough
flowers now for the coffin-lid, because
they had all been taken for the bridal
hour. The dead minister of Christ is
brought to another village.
He had gone out from them less than
week before in his strength; now he
comes home lifeless. The whole church
sion moved around to look upon
the still face that once had beamed
the messages of salvation. Little
children were lifted up to look at him.
And some of those whom he had COM
fronted in days of sorrow. when they
passed that silent form, made the place
dreadful with their weeping. Another
village emptied of it's fiowerS-some of
them put in the shape of a cross to sym
bolize his hope, others put in the shape
of a crown to symbolic his trump A
hundred lights blown out in one strong
gust from the open door Of a sepulcher
/ikla @ in ashes.
i preach this sermon to-day. because
/ want to rally you, as David rallied his
men, for the recovery Of the loved and
the lost. | want not only to win
Heaven, but | want all this congrega-
ton to go along with me. | feel that
somehow / have II responsibility in
your arriving at that great city. Do
you really want to join the companion
ship of your loved ones who have gone?
Are you as anxious to join them as
David and his men were to join their
families? Then | am here. in the name
of God. to say that you may, and to tell
you how.
/ remark, in the first place. if you
want to join your loved ones in glory,
you must travel the same way they
went. No sooner had the half-dead
Egyptian been reSuscitated than he
pointed the way the captors and the
captives had gone, and David and his
men followed after. So our Christian
friends have gone into another country,
and if we want to reach their compan-
ionship we must take the same road.
They repented; we must repent. They
prayed; we must pray. They trusted
in Christ: we must trust in Christ.
They lived a religious life; we
must live religious life. They were
in some things like ourselves. l know,
now that they are gone. there is a
halo around their names; but they had
their faults. They said and did things
they ought never to have said or done.
They were sometimes rebelliOus, some
times cast down. They were far from
being perfect. So | suppose that when
we are gone, some things in us that are
now duly tolera bic may be almost re-
splendent. But as they were like us in
deficiencies, we ought to be like them
in taking a supernal Christ to make up
Jesus, they would have all perished
but Christ confronted them, and said,
81 am the way" and they took it.
| have also to say to you that the path
that these captives tTod was troubled
path. and that David and mis- men had
to go over the same difficult way.
While these captiveS were being taken
off, they said: oh! we are so tired; we
are so sick: we are so hungry But
the men who had charge of them said:
stop this crying. Go on!" David
and his men also found it a hard way.
They had to travel it. Our friends have
goDe into glory, and it is through
much tribulation that we are to
enter into the Kingdom. How our
loved ones used to have to struggle!
how their old hearts ached! how, some
times, they had tussle for bread! In