The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-04

for there Is no happiness comparable to that which comes to him who Is con- scious of communication and commun- ion with the divine and who knows a daily self-giving even as the Master gave Himself Life Is development, for the most majestic powers of the human soul are those which are called out and are put to use and are made to grow by such service as I have mentioned, The majority of men are stunted in their growth because they pass through life without ever bringing out into the largest service their noblest powers. For many, life is little else than va DOT, appearing for little time; vanish ing away, For many, the dates which stand for birth and death on the mar ble are an adequate biography; be- cause their thought of life was simply of self and of the present hour
 They never found the true center; they never got the right direction; nev- CT learned self-giving; never discover ed their highest powers; never stum- bled upon happiness; never grasped the thought of eternity or lifted the eye of aspiration toward heaven; never knew life.
 There is another thing which makes our gathering to-day especially signiti- cant. It is this table spread before us, the solemn and joyous memorial of the death of Jesus Christ, Perhaps the pastor who has gone away will be re- membered longest and most reverently in the act of serving at this table and suggestiLg to you the profound and blessed significance of the communion service. And here we shall find the center of our thought this morning. For 1 life and the meaning of it is the thing for which we are searching. And must remind you that this world never lanew what life meant until Jesus Christ came; and that even then 1t never knew life's full meaning until Jesus Christ was gone away, This Lords supper is a memorial of His death, it is true; and in approaching it let the thought be centered in that great sacrifice In winch | Christ gave Himself for this lost world. 1 But do not forget that the Lords sup per has another meaning still. The memory of His departure unites itself with the prophecy of His glorious com ing. That which tells us of Christ's death tells us in the same moment that He could not die. Die He did and die | He could not AS often as yet eat this bread and drink the cup ye proclaim l the Lords death till He come. That is ft-sTill He come" The dead Christ is coming He lives. Death could not bind Him. Christ being raised from | +I, ptb hath n more dominion over Him" "Our Saw for Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought fife and inn mortality to light through the gospel; Eye proclaim the Lords death till He come" By and by the hour shall strike and there shall appear in the heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and the tribes of the earth shall mourn and they shall see the Son of Man coming l in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory And this, the very Christ who hung there on the cross the Christ wohse life blood flowed, whose fever ragged, whose nerves throbbed, whose heart broke-dead taken from the cross; anointed for the burial; wrapped in shroud; placed in tomb. Life all over | d NdHlSieN NdpOI ANO' ANO' iSihS All 1 it's fulIness just beginning now or rather after it's earthly Interruption and limitation.
 Who would dare say that Christs life was thirty-three years long? Out of eternity he came and into eternity he passed. For thirty -three years, men saw him, but that must have been the narrowest and most hampered portion of the life of the Son of God He showed us that death was an incident of existence a most blessed incident for the disciple of Jesus Christ. He taught us that he whose life was united to himself here, should be united with the divine life right through the grave and should rise from the dead unto the transcendent life of heaven.
 Blessed is the man who learns this lesson early who gets that life Christ centered in the tender years of child hood or in the freshness of his youth and who looks forward forever to Christ union and a growing Christ-love and a widening Christ-service. To him death is nothing, and the premonitions of it strike no terror to the heart Rather are they the promise of escape from earthly conditions which are hard and from the flesh which clogs the spirits flight out into the boundless life which redeemed men have found.
 That was the life which our brother was living and such the freedom to- ward which he was looking forward.
 Even here, he lives far into how many sturdy Christian lives has his life entered 'How many words spoken i'm sympathy or in encourage ment forty years ago are still potent in hearts that have not ceased their beat ing" And what unnamed souls of yet unborn generations will respond to the tender grace of his Christian hymns His voice, his pen, his life belonged to his Master. He lived in Christ; he died in Christ; in Christ he shall live forevermore
 Brethren what is your life? a vapor vanishing as cloud in the sky van- ishes to be seen and to be remembered no more? or is it an unquenchable force held in leash by earthly conditions to be set free by death tomorrow
 In the presence of the Lords table, a, reminder of his death, but supremely of the glorious life which shall be mani fest when he shall come again, and with the yet vivid memory of a life which set the worlds in true perspec-