The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-02-01

| bnaJ crowd the post OmceS ana Welgn
down the mail carriers with expressions
of honest love. Tolstoi. the great
Russion author, is wrong when he
| prints a book for the depreciation of
marriage. If your observation has put
you in an attitude of deportation for
the marriage state, one or two things
lis true in regard to you-you have
either been unfortunate in your ac-
workmanship, or you yourself are
morally rotten. The world, not as
rapid a we would like, but still with
long strides, is on the way to the
scenes of beatitude and felicity which
the Bible depicts. The man who can
not see this is wrong, either in his
heart, or liver, or spleen.
Look at the great Bible picture gal
lery, where Isaiah has set up the pic
lures of aborescence, girdling the
world with cedar, and fir, and pine,
and lockwood, and the lion led by a
child; and st. Johns pictures of waters
and trees, and white horse cavalry,
and tears wiped away, and trumpets
blown, and harps struck, and nations
redeemed. While there are ten thou
sand things 1 do not like, have not
seen any encouragement for the cause
of God for twenty-five years. The
kingdom is coming. The earth is
preparing to put on bridal array.
We need to be getting our anthems
and marches ready. In our hymnology
we shall have more use for Antioch
than for Windham: for Ariel than for
Of lnnf fN,r, he
doleful cry" be submerged with "Joy
to the world, the Lord is comet" Real
ly, if l thought the human race were
as determined 20 be bad, and getting
worse, as the pessimistS represent,
would think it hardly worth saving.
If after hundreds of years of gOspeliza-
ton no improvement has been made,
let us give it up and go at something
else beside praying and preaching.
My opinion is that if we had enough
faith in quick results, and could go
forth rightly equipped with the gospel
call, the battle for God and righteous
ness would end with the nineteenth
century, and the twentieth century,
only five or six years off, would begin
the millennium, and Christ would reign.
either in person on some throne set up
between the Alleghanies and the Rock
les, or in the institutions of mercy and
grandeur set up by His ransomed
peopled. Discouraged work will meet
with defeat. Expectant and buOyant
work will gain the victory. Start out
with the idea that all men are liars and
scoundrels, and that every body is as
bad as he can be, and that society, and
the church, and the world are on the
way to demolition, and the only use
you will ever be to the world will be
to increase the value of lots in a Gene
terry.
We need a more cheerful front in all
our religious work. People have
enough trouble already, and do not
want to ship another cargo of trouble
in the shape of religiosity. If religion
has been to you a peace, a defense, an
inspiration, and a joy, say so. Say it
by word of mouth; by pen in your
right hand; by face illumined with
divine satisfaction. If this world is
ever to be taken for God, it will not be
by groans, but by hallelujahs. If we
it really is, in its true attractiveness,
all the people would accept it, and &C
cept it right away. The cities, the ma
tions would cry out: ''Give us thatl Give
it to use in all its holy magnetism and
gracious powerl Put that salve on our
wounds! Throw back the shutters for
that morning light! Knock off these
chains with that silver hammer! Give
us Christ-His pardon, His peace, His
comfort, His Heaven! Give us Christ
in song, Christ in sermon, Christ in
book, Christ in living example!' As a
system of didactics, religion has never
gained one inch of progress. As a
technicality, it befogs more than it ir-
radiates. AS dogmatism, it is an aw-
full failure. But as a fact, as n re-en-
forcement, as a TRANSPORTATION, it is
the mightiest thing that ever descend
ed from the heavens, or touched the
earth. Exemplify it in the life of a
good man or a good woman, and no |
one can help but like it.
There is an old-fashioned mother in |
a farm house. Perhaps she is some |
where in the seventies; perhaps rs or |
&c. 1t is the early evening hour. |
Through spectacles No. s she is reading |
a newspaper until toward bedtime, |
when she takes up well-worn book, |
called the Bible. l know from the il
Elimination in her face she is reading |
one of the thanksgiving Psalms, or in
Revelation the story of the twelve
pearly gates. After awhile she closes |
the book and folds her hands, and |
thinks over the past, and seems whis-
pering the names of her children,
some of them on earth and some of
them in Heaven. Now a smile is on |
her face, and now a tear, and some
times the smile catches the tear. The
scenes of long life come back to her.
One minute she sees all the children
smiling around her, with their toys,
and sports, and strange questionings. |
Then she remembers several of them
down sick with infantile disorders
Then she sees a short grave, but over it
cut in marble: suffer Them to Come
to Me-" Then there is the wedding
hour, and the neighbors in, and the
promise of 81 will" and the departure
from the old homestead. Then scene
of hard times, and scant bread, |
and struggle. Then she thinks of
a few years with gush of sun
shine, and fittings of dark shadows,
and vicissitudes. Then she kneels
down slowly, for many years have
stiffened the joints, and the illnesses
of lifetime have made her less sup
pie. Her prayer is a mixture of thanks
for sustaining grace all those years;
and thanks for children good, and