The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-06-11

prowling around the palace, and
suppose he thought, ST can't attend
to religion while am so pressed by
affairs of state" 1t was business,
among other things, that ruined his
soul, and I suppose there are thou
sands of people who are not children
of God because they have so much
business 1t is business in the store
losses, gains, unfaithful employees 1t
is business in your law office-sub-
pRnas, writs you have to write out,
papers you have to file, arguments you
have to make. 1t is your medical pro-
fession, with its broken nights. and
the exhausted anxieties of life hang
ing upon your treatment 1t is
your real estate Office, your
business with landlords and tenants.
and the failure of men to meet their
obligations with you Ay, with some
of those who are here. it is the annoy
ance of the kitchen, and the sitting
room, and the parlor-the wearing
economy of trying to meet large ex-
penses with a small income. Ten
thousand voices of business, bust
ness, business" drown the voice of
the Eternal spirit. silencing the voice
of the advancing judgment day, over
coming the voice of eternity; and they
can not hear. they can not listen
They say, go thy way for this time"
Some of you look upon your goods.
look upon your profession, you look
upon your memorandum-books, and
you see the demands that are made
this very week upon your time and
your patience and your money; and
while 1 am entreating you about your
soul and the danger of procrastination
you say, $50 thy way for this time;
when 1 have a convenient season, I
will call for thee" Oh, Felix, why
be bothered about the affairs of this
world so much more than about
the affairs of eternity? Do you
not know that when death
comes you will have to stop business,
though it be in the most exacting
period of it-between the payment of
the money and the taking of the re-
ceipt? The moment he comes you will
have TO go. Death waits for no man,
however high, however low. Will
you put your Office, will you put your
shop in comparison with the affairs of
an eternal world? Affairs that in
volve thrones, palaces, dominions
eternal? Will you put 200 acres of
ground against immensely? Will you
put forty or fifty years of your life
against millions of ages? oh, Felix
you might better postpone every thing
elsel for do you not know that the up
hoIstering of Tyrian purple in your
palace will fade, and the marble
blocks of Cesarea will crumble and
the breakwater at the beach, made of
great blocks of stone sixty feet long
must give way before the perpetual
wash of the sea; but the redemption
that Paul offers you will be forever?
nd
him back to the guard room, saying,
''Go thy way for this time; when /
have a convenient season will call
for thee"
Again, Felix adjourned this subject
of religion and put off PauPs argu-
ment, because he could not give up the
honors of the world. He was afraid
somehow he would be compromised
himself in this matter. Remarks he
made afterward showed him to be in
tenselY am bilious Oh, how he Rugged
the favor of men!
l never saw the honors of this world
in their hollowness and hypocrisy so
much as in the life and death of that
wonderful man, Charles Sumner. AS
he went toward the place of burial,
even Independence hall, in Philade1-
phia, asked that his remains stop there
on their way to Boston The flags
were at half-mast, and the minute
guns on Boston Common throbbed
after his heart had ceased to beat
Was it always so? While he lived,
how censured of legislative resolu-
tions. how caricatured of the pictori-
ais; how charged with every motive
mean and ridiculous; how all the urns
of scOrn and hatred aud billings
gate emptied upon his head;
how, when struck down in senate
chamber, there were hundreds of
thousands of people who said, Good
for him, served him right" how he
had to put the ocean between him and
his maligners, that he might have a
little peace, and how, when he went
off sick, they said he was broken
be President or secretary of state.
Oh Commonwealth of Massachusetts,!
who is that man who sleeps in your
public hall, covered with garlands
and wrapped in the stars and stripes?
Is that the man who, only a few
months before, you denounced as the
foe of republican and democratic insti-
Is that the same man? Ye
American people, We could not by one
week of funeral eulogium and news
paper leaders, which the dead sena-
tor could neither read nor hear, atone
for twenty five years of ma1treatment
and caricature. When I see a man
like that, pursued by all the hounds
of the political kennel so long as he
lives, and then buried under a
great pile of garIands. and amidst
the lamentations of a whole nation, 1
say to myself: What an unutterably
hypocritical thing is all human APP
nlar1sa and all hurnar, fauorI Va,