The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1896-11-13

hrist;ans are doing for l
ton of this planet. and they IT
until, at the close of life, IT
opens a black book at t of
their casket, and reads, ri. sd are
the dead who die in the Lord; h y
rest from their labors and their wo KS
do follow them" The sense o the
ludicrous is so thoroughly ev lOued
in me that when hear eS- Strip
ture words read at the obsequIe~ % one
of the religious do-nothinrs il the
churches it is too much for nv grav ty.
Their works do follow them" WHAT
works? And in what direction 40
they follow them-up or down? And
do they follow on foot or on the wing?
And how long will they follow before
they catch up? More appropriate
funeral text for all such religious dead
beats would be the words in Mat hew
1858: Our lamps are gone out" One
would think that such Christians would
show at least under whose banner they
are enlisted. In one of the Nspoleonic
wars a woman, Jeanette by name,
took her position with the troops and
shouldered a broomstick. The colonel
said. Jeanette, why do you take such
a u>eless weapon into the ranks"
We'll" she said. Il can show at least
which side am on"
Now, the object of this sermon is to
stir at least one-fourth of you to an
ambition for that which my text pre-
sents in blazing vocabulary, namely, 8
passion for souls To prove that it is
4 g ~ - Z
bring the conservation of 2, $3.50 foreign
missionaries. It is usually estimated
that there are at least 1900 mission
ares. l make a liberal allowance,
and admit there may be ten bad mis-
sionarieS out of the 5000. but / do not
believe there is one. All Engl sh and
American merchants leave Bombay,
Calcutta, Annoy and Pekin as soon as
they make their fortunes. WhyP Because
no European or American in his senses
would stay in that climate after
monetary inducements had ceased.
Now, the missionaries there are put
down on the barest necessities, and
most of them do not lay up 81 in 20
years Why, then. do they stay in
those lands of intolerable heat, and
cobras, and raging fevers, the Their
mometer sometimes playing at 100 and
14O degrees of oppressiveness, $4,000
miles from home, because of the I'M
healthy climate and the prevailing i'm
mortallities of those regions compelled
to send their children to England, or
Scotland, or America, probably never
to see them againP Oh, blessed Christi
- h. hit
souls? It is easy to understand all this
frequent depreciation of foreign mis-
sionaries when you know that they are
all opposed to the opium traffic, and
that interferes with commerce; and
then the missionaries are moral, and
that is an offense to many of the mer-
chants-not all of them, but many of
them-who, absent from all home re-
straint, are so immoral that we can
make only faint allusion to the mon
strosity of their denominations. Oh. /
would like to be at the gate of Heaven
when those missionaries go in, to see
how they will have the pick of coro-
nets, aud thrones, and mansions on the
best streets of Heaven. We who have
had easy pulpits and loving congre a.
tions, entering Heaven, will, in my
opinion, have to take our turn and wait
for the Christian workers who, amid
physical sufferings and mental priva-
ton and environment of squalOr, have
done their work; and on the principle
that in proportion as one has been self
sacrificing and suffering for Christ's
sake on earth will be their celestial
preferment
In this world God never does his best.
He can hang on the horizon grander
mornings than have ever yet been kim
died, and rainbow the sky with richer
colors than have ever been arched, and
attune the oceans to more majestic
doxologies than haver ever yet been at
tuned; but as near as l can tell,
and 1 speak it reverently, Heaven
is the place where God has
done his best. He can build no.
greater joys, lift no mightier splen-
doris, roll no loftier anthems, march
no more imposing professions, build no
greater palaces, and spread out and in
terjoin and wave no more transporting
magni6cence. think Heaven is the
best Heaven God can construct, and it
| IS all yours 1Or Lnc serious ASKING.
How do you like the offer? Do you
think it is really worth accepting? If
SO, pray for it.
Get not Up from that pew where you
are sitting, nor move one inch from
where you are standing, before you get
a full title for it, written in the blood
of the Son Of God, who would have all
men come to life present and everlast-
ing. If you have been in military life
you know what soldiers call the
''long roll" All the drums beat
it because the enemy is ap-
preaching, and all the troops must
Immediately get into line. What sour
rying around the camp and putting of
the arms through the straps of the
knapsack and saying "GoOd-by" to COM
rades you may never meet againI
Some of you Germans or Frenchmen
may have heard that long roll just be-
fore Sedan. Some of you Italians may
have heard that long roll just before
Bergamo. Some of you northern and
southern men may have heard it.
inst before the hattie of the