Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1896-10-09
Eternal Volumes.


see your name there, you will find it
written in lines in words, in letters
unmistakable. Some people have come
to consider indistinct and almost un-
readable penmanship mark Of genius,
and so they affect it. Because every
paragraph that Thomas Chalmers and
Dean Stanley and Lord Byron and Ru-
fus Choate and other potent men wrote
was puzzle. imitators make their PEN
manship a puzzle. Alexandra Dumas
says that plain penmanship is the brevet
Of incapacity. Then there are some
who, through too much demand upon
their energies and through lack of time,
lose the capacity of making the pen in
telligible, and much Of the writing Of
this world is indecipherable We have
seen piles of inexplicable chiroGraphy,
and we ourselves have helped augment
the magnitude. We have not been sure
of the name signed, or the sentiment
expressed, or whether the reply was af-
firmative or negative. Through indis-
tinct penmanship last wills and testa-
ments have been defeated, widows and
orphans robbed Of their inheritance,
railroad trains brought into collision
through the dim words Of telegram
put into the hand of a conductor, and
regiments in this wise, mistaking their
instructions, have been sacrificed in
battle.
l asked Bishop Cowie, in Auckland,
New Zealand, the bishop having been
in many Of the wars, what Tennyson, in
his immortal poem, THE Charge of the
Light Brigade" meant by the words,
"Some one had blundered. and the
bishop said that the awful carnage at
Balaklava was the result Of an indis-
tinctly written and wrongly read mill
tary order. "Some one had blundered.
But your name, once written in the
Lambs book Of life, will be so unmis-
taxable that all heaven can read it at
the first glance. 1t will not be taken
for the name Of some other, so that in
regard to it there shall come to be dis
mutation. Not one of the millions and
billions and quadrillions Of the finally
saved will doubt that it means you and
only you. Oh, the glorious, the raptur-
ous certitude Of that entrance on the
| heavenly roll Not saved in promiscu-
Gus way. Not put into glorited mob.
No, mo- Though you came up the worst
sinner that was ever saved, and some-
body who knew you in this world at one
time as absolutely abandoned and disso-
lutte should say, II never heard OF your
conversion, and | do not believe you
have a right to be here, you could just
laugh a laugh of triumph, and turning
over the leaves containing the names Of
the redeemed, say: Read it for your
self. That is my name, written out In
full, and do you not recognize the hand
writing? No young scribe OF heaven en-
tered that. No anonymous writer put IT
there. Do you not see the tremOr in the
lines? Do you not also see the boldness
of the letters? Is it not as plain as yon-
der throne, as plain as yonder gate? Is
not the name unmistakable aud the
handwriting unmistakablei The cruel
fed Lord wrote it there the Gay re-
pented and turned. Hear It'll Hear it,!
My name is written there! Therel"
Plainly Written.
I have sometimes been tempted to
think that there will be so many Of us
in heaven that we will be lost in the
crowd. No. Each one Of Us will be as
distinctly picked out and recognized as
was Abel when he entered from earth,
the very first sinner saved, and at the
head of that long procession Of sinners
saved in all the centuries My dear
hearers, if we once get there l do not
want it left uncertain as to whether we
are to stay there. After you and l get
fairly settled there in our heavenly
home we do not want our title proved
defective. We do not want to be elected
from the heavenly premises. We do not
want some one to say: "This is not
your room in the house of many man
sions. and you have on an attire that
YOU ought not to have taken from the
heavenly wardrobe, and that is not
really your name on the books. II you
had more carefully examined the writ
ing in the register at the gate, You
would have found that the name was
not yours mt all, but mine. Now, move
ont while [ move in. On what
wretchedness after once worshiping II
heavenly temples TO be compelled tt
turn your back on the music, and after
having ioined the society Of the blesseo
to be forced to quit it forever, and after
having clasped our long lost kindred III
heavenly embrace TO have another sepa'
rationl What an agony would there Dc
in such a goodby to heavenl Glory be
to God on high that our names VIII b
so plainly written in those volumes thai
neither saint nor cherub nor seraph mol
archangel shall doubt it for one moment
for 500 eternities, if there were room
for so many. The oldest inhabitant OF
heaven can read it, and the child thai
left its mothers lap last night for HEAVIER
can read it, You will not just look al
your name and close the book, but yor
will stand and soliloquize and say: III
, it not wonderful that my name is there
at all? How much it cost my Lord t'
, get it therel Unworthy am to have i
, in the same book with the sons anC
, daughters of martyrdom and with thu
choice spirits Of all time. But there j
is. and so plain the word and so plair
, all the lotters"
And you will turn forward and back
ward the leaves and see other name
there, perhaps your fathers name, an'
, your mothers name, and your brother
, name, and your sisters name, and you
: wife's name, and apostolic names, an'
saw: al am not surprised that thos
names are here recorded. They wer'
better than l ever was But astonish
: ment overwhelming, that my name is u
: this bookp' And turning back to tn
: page on which is inscribed your name
you will stand and look at it until, see
I, ing that others are waiting to examin
7. the records with reference TO their owl
I names, you step back into the ranks o
the redeemed, with them to talk owe
4 the wonderment
Indelibly Written.
: Again, II you are 90 happy as to in'
-