The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1895-11-08
the martyrs. Stakes chat have been

: the martyrs stakes that have bcol
v kindled could be set at proper dis
8 tances, they would make the midnight
Q all the world over, bright as monday
: And now they sit yonder in thu
! martyrs gallery. For them the fire'
of persecution have gone out. The
swords are sheathed and the moi
/: hushed. Now they watch us with
an all-observing sympathy They
} know all the pain, all the hardship. all
, the anguish, all the injustice, all the
} privation. They can not keep still.
They cry: 'Courage! The fire will not
consume. The floods can not drown.
The lions can not devour. Couragel
down there in the arena"
What, are they all looking? This
night we answer back the salutation
they give, and cry: HALL sons and
daughters of the fre!'
look again. and see another gall
lery, that of eminent Christians. What
strikes me strangely is the mixing in
companionship of those who on earth
could not agree. There / see Martin
Luther, and beside him Roman
Catholic who looked beyond the super
stitions OF his church, and is saved.
| There is Albert Barnes. and around
him the presbytery who tried
him for heterodoxy! Yonder is
Lyman Beecher, and the church
court that denounced him! Stranger
than all there is John Calvin and James
Arminius! Who would have thought
that they would sit so lovingly to-
gether There is George Whitfield,
and the bishops who would not let him
come into their pulpits because they
thought him a fanatic. There are the
sweet singers. Toplady, Montgomery,
Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts and Mrs.
Sigourney. IfHeaven had had no music
before they went up, they would have
started the singing. And there, the
band Of missionaries: David Abeel
talking of China redeemed; and John
Scudder, OF India saved; and David
Brainerd, of the aborigines evangel-
lied; and Mrs Adoniram Judson,
whose prayers for Bur NAH took Heav-
en- by violence! All these Christians are
looking into the arena. Our struggle
is nothing to theirs. Do we, in
Christ's cause, suffer from the
cold? They walked Greenland's
icy mountains. Do we suffer from the
heat? They sweltered in the tropics
Do we get fatigued? They tainted,
with none to care for them but canni-
balls. Are we prosecuted? They were
mathematical. And as they look from
their gallery and see us falter in the
presence of the lions, seem to hear
Isaac Watts addressing us in his old |
hymn, only little changed:
Must you be carried to the skies
On fowery beds OF ease
While others fought to win the prize,
Or sailed through bloody seas?
Toplady shouts in his old hymn:
Your harps, We trembling saints,
Down from the willows take;
Loud to the praise Of love divine,
Bid every string awake.
While Charles Wesley. the Methodist,
breaks forth in his favorite words, a
little varied:
A charge to keep you have,
God to glorify;
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky!
look again, and see the gallery of
'ur departed. Many of those in the
'ther galleries we have heard of; but
hese we knew. Oh! how familiar
heir faces! They sat at our tables,
md we walked to the house of God in
company. Have they forgotten us?
Those fathers and mothers started
is on the road of life. Are
hey careless as to what be-
omes of us? And those children:
10 they look on with stolid indifference
s to whether we win or lose this bat
lie for eternity? Nay; 1 see that child
unning his hand over your brow and
aging: Father. do not fret" Moth
r, do not worry" They remember
he day they left us. They remember
he agony of the last farewell.
though years in Heaven, they know our
aces. They remember our sorrows.
hey watch this fight for Heaven.
way; see them rise up and lean over,
nd wave before us their recognition
nd encouragement. That gallery is !
ot full. They are keeping places for I
s. After we have slain the lion
hey expect the king to call us.
aging: Come up higher!" Be- g
ween the hot struggles in the arena G
7ipe the sweat from my brow, and Q
tand on tiptoe, reaching up my right 6
and to clasp theirs in rapturous hand g
while their voices come ring. b
lg down from the gallery, crying: r
Be thou faithful unto death, and Won n
hall have CROWN"
Sure must fight II would reign
Be faithful to my Lord;
And bear the cross, endure the pain, q
Supported by Thy word. o
Thy saints in all this glorious war
Shall conquer. though they die;