The Progress., 1896-10-31

give one round shout over your eman
cipation. You say you have it so hard
you might have it worse. You wonder
| why this great cold trouble keeps re,
| volring through your soul, turning
and turning with black hand on the
crank. All, that trouble is the grind
stone on which you are to sharpen your
sickle. To the fields! Wake up! Take
off your green spectacles, your blue
spectacles, your black spectacIes. Pull
up the corners of your mouth as far
as you pull them down. TO the fields!
Reap! reap!
Again, l remark, in grace as in farm
Ing there is a time for threshng. I
tel! you bluntly that is death. Just as
the farmer with fail beats the wheat
out OF the straw, so death beats the
soul out of the body. Every sickness
is stroke of the fail, and the sick-bed
is the threshingnoor. What, say you
is death to good man only taking the
wheat out of the straw? That IS all.
An aged man has fallen asleep. Only
yesterday you saw him in the sunny
porch playing with his grandchildren.
Calmly he received the message to
leave this world. He babe a pleasant
goodbye to his old friends. The teIe-
graph carries the tidings, and on swift
rail-trains the kindred come, wanting
once more to look on the face of dear
old grandfather. Brush back the gray
hairs from his brow: it will never ache
again. Put him away in the slumber
Of the tomb. He will not be afraid of
that night. Grandfather was never
afraid of anything. He will rise in the
morning Of the resurrection. Grand
father was always the first to rise.
His voice has already mingled in the
doxology of heaven. Grandfather o.
ways did sing in church. Anything
CHASTITY in that? No. The threshing
of the wheat out Of the straw, that is
all.
The Savior folds lamb in his bosom.
The little child filled all the house
with her music, and her toys are scat
tered all up and down the stairs just as
she left them. What if the hand that
plueked four clocks out of the mead
ow is still? It will wave in the eternal
triumph. What if the voice that made
music in the home is still? 1t will sing
the eternal hosanna. Put white rose
in one hand, red rose in the other
hand, and a wreath of orange blossoms
on the brow; the white flower for the
victory, the red flower for the Savior's
the orange blossoms for her
day. Anything CHASTITY about
that? Oh, no! The sun went down
and the flower shut. The wheat
out of the straw Dear Lord,
give me sleep" said a dying boy, the
son of one Of my elders, Dear Lord,
give me sleep" And he closed lis
eyes and woke in glory, Henry W.
Longfellow, writing a letter of condo
ence to those parents, said, "Those
asst words were beautifully poetic"
And Mr.. Longfellow knew what is
poetic. Dear Lord, give ME Sleep"
Twas not in cruelty, not in wrath
That the reaper came that day;
Twas an angel that visited the earth
And took the flower away.
So may it be with us when our work
S all done. Dear Lord, give me
leep."
l have one more thought to present.
have spoken Of the blowing, Of the
owing, of the narrowing, of the reap
ng, of the threshing. l must now
peak moment of the garnering.
Where is the garner? Need I tell
'ou? Oh, no. So many have gone
ut from your own circles-yea, from
our own family, that you have had
our eyes on that garner for may
ear. What hard time some of
hem had? In Gethsemanes of suffer-
ng. they sweat great drops of blood.
hey took the coup Of trembling" and
hey put it to their hot lips and they
ried, "lf it be possible, let this cup
ass from me-" With tongues of burn
ng agony they cried, 20 Lord, deliver
ny SOUL" But they got over it. They
II got over it. Garnered! Their tears
'iped away; their battles all ended;
heir burdens lifted. Garnered! The
ord of the harvest will not allow
hose sheaves to perish in the equinox.
Some of us remember, on
he farm, that the sheaves were put on
he top of the rack which surmounted
he wagon, and these sheaves were
lied higher and higher, and after
while the horses started for the barn;
nd these sheaves swayed to and fro
/ the wind, and the old wagon
reaked, and the horses made strug-
lie, and pulled so hard the harness
ame up in loops of leather on
leir backs, and when the front wheel
.ruck the elevated door Of the barn
seemed AS If the load would go no
lrther, until the workmen gave great
1out, and then, with one last tremen-
MS strain. the horses pulled in the