The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1896-11-04


with opportunities; but October came,
and their glory went. Frosted! In early
autumn the frosts come, but do not seem
to damage vegetation. They are light
frosts. But some morning you look out
of the window and say, There was a
black frost last night" and you know
that from that day everything will
wither. So men seem to get along with
out religion amid the annoyances and
vexations Of life that nip them slightly
here and nip them there. But after
awhile death comes. 1t is black frost,
and all is ended.
Oh, what whitening and scattering
death makes among those not prepared
to meet it! they leave every thing pleas
ant behind them-their house, their
families, their friends, their books, their
pictures-and step out of the sunshine
into tie shadow. They quit the presence
Of bird and bloom and wave to 90 un-
beckoned and unwelcomed The bower
in which they stood and sang and wove
chaplets and made themselves merry
has gone down under all awful cqulnoc-
tial. No bell can toll one-half the dole
fulness of their condition. Frosted!
But, thank God, that is not the way
people always die. Tell me on what
day of all the year the leaves of the
woodbine are as bright as they are to-
day. So Christian character is never so
attractive as in the dying hour. Such
go into the grave not as dog, with
frown and harsh voice, driven into a
kennel, but they pass away calmly,
brightly, sweetly, grandly! As the leaf!
AS the leaf!
Why go to the deathbed of distin-
guished men whe:, there is hardly a
house on this street but from it Chris
tian has departed? When your baby
died, there were enough angels III the
room to have chanted coronation.
When your father died, you sat watch
ing and after awhile felt Of his wrist,
and then put your hand under his arm
to see if there were any warmth lett,
and placed the mirror to the mouth to
see if there were any sign Of breathing,
and when all was over you thought how
granGly he slept-a giant resting after
a battle. Oh, there are many Christian
deathbcds! The chariots of God, come
to take his children home, are speeding
every whittier. This one halts at the
gate cf princes. The shout Of captives,
breaking their chains, comes on the
morning air. The heavens ring again
and again with the coronation. The II
gates of heaven are crowded with the
ascending righteous. I see the accumu-
lated glorics of a thousand Christian
deathbeds-an autumnal forest illumin-
ed by all autumnal sunset! They died
not in shame, but in triumph! AS the
leaf! AS the leaf!
To Rise Again.
Lastly, as the leaves fade and fall
only to rise, so do we. All this golden
shower of the woods is making the
ground richer, and in the juice and sap
and life of the tree the leaves will come
up again. Next May the south wind
will blow the resurrection trumpet, and
they will rise. So we fall in the dust,
only to rise again 1.-The hour is coming
when all who are in their graves shall
hear his voice and come forth. 1t
would be horrible consideration to
thizk that our bodies were always to lie
in the ground. However beautiful the
flowers you plant there, we do not want
to make our everlasting residence in
such place.
have with these eyes seen So many
Of the elories of the natural world and
the radiant faces Of my friends that
do not want to think that when I close
them in death shall never open them
again. 1t is said enough to have q hand
or foot amputated. In hospital, after a
soldier had had his hand taken off. he
said, "Goodby, dear old hand, you have
done me great deal Of good service"
ard burst into tears 1t is more awful
thing to think of having tho whole body
amputated from the soul forever.
must have my body again, to see with,
to hear with. to walk with. With this
hand I must clasp the hand of my loved
ones when have passed clean over Jor-
dan, and with it wave the triumphs of
my King. Aha, we shall rise again. We
shall rise again. AS the leaf! AS the
leaf!
Crossing the Atlantic the ship may
founder and our bodies be eaten by the
sharks. bat God tameth leviathan, and
we shall come again. In awful explo-
sion of factory boiler our bodies may be
shattered into hundred fragments in the
air, but God watches the disaster, aud
we shall come again. He will drag the
deep, and ransack the tomb, and upturn
the wilderness, and torture the mouu-
tain, but he will find us and fetch US
out and up to Judgment and to victory.
We shall come up with perfect eye, with
perfect hand, with perfect foot and with
perfect body, all our weaknesses left
behind.
We fall, but we rise. We die, but we
live again. We moldcr away, but we
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