Connecticut western news., 1897-11-04
At the Center.

LOGS DOC our COmIuOu SeuSo t6SACu us that it is better to be at the center than to be clear out on the rim of the wheel, holding nervously fast to the tire, lest we be suddenly hurled into light and eternal felicity? Through all kinds of optical instruments trying to peer in through the cracks and the keyholes of heaven-afraid that both doors of the celestial mansion will be swung wide open before our entranced vision-rush ing about among the apothecary shops of this world, wondering if this is good for rheumatism and that is good for neuralgia and something else is good for bad cough, lest we be suddenly ushered into land of everlasting health where the inhabitant never says, "1 am sick'
 What fools we all are to prefer the circumference to the center. What dreadful thing it would be if we should be suddenly ushered from this wintry world into the Maytime orchards of heaven and if our pauperism of sin and sorrow should be suddenly broken up by a presentation of an emperor's castle surrounded by parks, with springing
 
 angels of God walk two and two. We are like persons standing on the cold steps of the national picture gallery in London, under umbrella in the rain, afraid to go i'll amid the Turner's and the Titians and the Raphaels. come to them and say, "Why, don't you go in- side the gallery?'' "Oh," they say, i've don't know whether we can get in." I say, Don't you see the door is openp'' "Yes," they say, "but we have been so long on these cold steps, we are so attached to them, we don't like to leave" "But, :" say, ''it is so much brighter and more beautiful in the gal lery you had better go in. '' "No," they say, i've know exactly how it is out here, but we don't know exactly how it
 is inside"
 So we stick to this world as though we preferred cold drizzlSto warm habi- tation, discord to cantata, sackcloth to royal purple-as though we preferred a piano with four or five of the keys out of tune to an instrument fully attuned, as though earth and heaven had ex-
 changed apparel and earth had taken on
 bridal array and heaven had gone into
 deep mourning, all it's waters stagnant, all it's harps broken, all chalices cracked at the dry wells, all the lawns sloping to the river plowed with graves, with
 dead angels under the furrow. Oh, want to break up my own infatuation, and want to break up your infatuation with this world. I tell you if we are
 ready, and if our work is done, the sooner we go the better, and if there are blessings in longevity I want you to know right we'll there are also blessings in an abbreviated earthly existence. Fortunate Escapes.
 If the spirit of this sermon is true, how consoled you ought to feel about members of your family that went ear ly. "Taken from the evil to come," this book says. What fortunate escape they had. How glad we ought to feel that they will never have to go through the struggles which we have had to go
 through. They had just time enough to get out of the cradle and run up on the springtime hills of this world and see how it looked, and then they started for better stopping place. They were like ships that put in at St. Helena, staying there long enough to let passengers go up and see the barracks of Napoleon 8 captivity, and then hoist sail for the port of their own native land. They on- ly tooa this world in transitu. It is hard for us but it IS blessed for them.
 And if the spirit of this sermon is true, then we ought not to go around signing and groaning when another year is going, but we ought to go down on one knee by the milestone and see the letters and thank God that we are S85 miles nearer home. We ought not to go around with morbid feelings about our health or about anticipated demise We ought to be living not according to that old maxim which used to hear in my boyhood that you must live as though every day were the last; you must live as though you were to live forever, for you will Do not be nerv- ous lest you have to move out of shan ty into an Alhambra.
 One Christmas day witnessed some thing very thrilling. We had just dis tributed the family presents Christmas morning when I heard great cry of
 distress in the hallway. A child from a neighbours house came in to say her fa-
 ther was dead. It was only three doors off, and think in two minutes we were
 there There lay the old Christian sea
 captain, his face upturned toward the window, as though he had suddenly seen the headlands, and with an illumi-
 mated countenance, as though he were l just going into harbor. The fact was he
 had already got through the Narrows.
 In the adjoining room were the Christ mas presents waiting for his distribu- ton. Long ago, one night when he had
 narrowly escaped with his ship from
 CT, he had made his peace with God, l and kinder neighbor or better man than Captain Pendleton you would not find this side of heaven. Without mo-
 ment's warning the pilot of the heaven ly harbor had met him just off the lightship.
 Faith In God.
 He had often talked to me of the good
 ness of God and especially of time
 when he was about to enter New York
 harbor with his ship from Liverpool,
 and he was suddenly impressed that he | ought to put back to sea- Under the protest of the crew and under their very
 threat he put back to sea, fearing at the same time he was losing his mind, for it did seem so unreasonable that | when they could get into harbor that
 night they should put back to sea. But
 they put back to sea, and Captain Pen- dleton said to his mate, "You call me
 at 10 o'clock at night" At 12 o'clock
 at night the captain was aroused and
 said: What does this mean? thought
 told you to call me at 10 o'clock, and
 here it is 12. !" Why" said the mate,
 ''I did call you at 10 o'clock, and you | got up, looked around and told me to keep right on the same course for two
 hours, and then to call you at 12 o'clock" '" Said the captain: "Is it pos