The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1896-09-25

Washington. Sept. 20, 1S96.-If the
clarion note of this sermon, delivered
at the national capital, could sound
through Christendom, 1t would give
everything good a new start. DR.. Tai
IMAGES text was Romans. 1872: "The
day is at hand"
Back from the mountains and the
seaside, and the springs, and the farm
house, your cheeks bronzed and your
spirits lighted, 1 hail you home again
with the words Of Gehazi to the Shu-
nammite: rs it well with thee? is
it well with thy husband? is it well
with the child?" On some faces / see
the mark of recent grief, but all along
the track of tears l see the story Of
resurrection and reunion when all
tears are done; the deep ploughing OF
the keel, followed by the fash of the
phosphorescence. Now that l have asked
You in regard to your welfare, you nat
urally ask how / am. Very well, thank
you. Whether. it was the braeing air
of the mountains, or a bath in the surf
Of Long Island beach, or whether it is
the joy of standing in this great group
of warm-hearted friends, or whether
1t is a new appreciation Of the goodness
of God, I cannot tell. 1 simply know
/ am happy. 1t was said that John
Moffatt, the great Methodist preacher,
occasionally got fast in his sermon, and
to extricate himself would cry Halle
lujahr" l am in no such predicament
to-day, but l am full of the same rhap-
sodic ejaculation. Starting out this
morning on a new ecclesiastical year,
1 want to give you the keynote of my
next twelve months ministry. l want
to set it to the tunes Of Antioch"
"Ariel," and Coronation" 1 want to
put a new trumpet stop into my ser
mons. We do wrong if we allow our
personal sorrows to interfere with the
glorious fact that the kingdom is COM
ing. We are wicked if we allow appre-
hension of national disaster to put
down our faith in God and in the mis-
sion of our American people. The God
who hath been on the side Of this ma
ton since the Fourth of July, 1776,
III SCc " u IHaI IhIp oioii AOS
commit suicide on November Sd, 1896.
By the time the unparalleled harvests
of this summer get down to the sea
board we shall be standing in a sun
burst of national prosperity that will
paralyze the pessimists who by their
evil prophecies are disappearing the
God who hath blest this nation as he
hath blest no other.
In all our Christian work you and |
want more of the element of gladness.
No man had a right to say that Christ
never laughed. Do you suppose that he
was glum at the wedding in Cana Of
Galilee? Do you suppose that Christ was
u~nresponsive when the children clam
bered over his knee and shoulder at
his own invitation? Do you suppose
that the Evangelist meant nothing
when he said of Christ: He rejoiced
in spirit?" Do you believe that the
Divine Christ who pours all the waters
over he rocks at Vernal Falls, Yo-
semitic, does not believe in the sparkle
and gallon and tumultuous JOY and
rusing raptures of human life? l be-
lieve not only that the morning laughs,
and that the mountains laugh, and
that the seas laugh, and that the cas-
cades laugh, but that Christ laughed.
Moreover. take a laugh and a tear into
an alembic, and assay them, and test
them. and analyZe them, and you will
often find as much of he pure gold OF
religion in a laugh as in a tear. Deep
spiritual joy always shows itself in ia
cial illumination. John Wesley said
he was sure of a gocI religious in
preston being produced because OF
what he calls the great gladness he saw
among the people. Goddess merriment
is blasphemy anywhere, but expression
of Christian joy is appropriate every
where.
Moreover, the outlook of the world
ought to stir us to gladness. As+ron-
omers disturbed many people by telling
them that there was danger Of stellar
collision. We we're told by these as
tronomers that there are worlds com
ing very neal together, and that we
shall have plaques, and wars, and tu-
mults, and perhaps the worlds destruc-
ton. Do not be scared. If you have
ever stood al e railroad center, where
ten, or twenty, or thirty rail tracks
cross each other, and seen that ny the
movement of the switch n or two
inches the train shoots this way and
that, without colliding, then you may
understand how fifty worlds may come
within an inch of disaster, and that
inch be as good as a million miles. If
a human switch-tender a shoot the
trains this way and that without harm,
cannot the hand that for thousands OF
years has upheld the universe, keep
our little world out of harms way?
Christian biologists tell US that this
world was millions of years in build
ing. Well, now, I do not think God
would take millions Of years to build
a house which was to last only six
thousand years. There is nothing in
the world or outside the world, terres-
trial or astronomical, to excite dismay.
I wish that some stout gospel breeze