Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1897-03-18

while all the streets Of Paris were APP
plaCding him; Henry VIII. consuming
with hatred against poor Thomas a
Beckct-an illustrations of the fact
that this world can not make man
happy. The very man who poisoned
the pommel of the saddle on which
Queen Elizabeth rode shouted i'll the
street, God save the Queen" One
moment the world applauds, and the
next moment the world mathematics.
Oh, come over into this greater JOY this
sublime solace, this magnificent beati-
tude. The night after the battle of
Shiloh, and there We're thousands of
wounded ON the field, one Christian
soldier lying there a-dying under the
starlight, began to sing;
There is n land Of pure delight
And when he came to the next line
there We're scores of voices singing:
Where saints immortal reign.
The song was caught up all through
the fields among the wounded until it
was said there were at least 10000
wounded men uniting their voices as
they came to the verse:
And nevcr-withering tiowerSi
Ills but q narrow stream divides
This heavenly land from ours
Oh. it is great religion to live by,
and great religion to die by. There
is only one heart-throb between YOU
and that religion. Just look into the
face of your pardoning God and sur
render yourself for time and eternity,
and He is yours. and Heaven is yours,
and all is yours. Some of you, like
the young man of the text, have gene
far astray. | know not the history,
but you you know 1t, you know it.
| When young man went forth into
life, tie legend says, his guardian an
gel went forth with him, and getting
him into field, the guardian angel
kept circle clear around where the
young man stood. 1t was a circle Of
virtue and honor, and he must not step
beyond that circle. Armed foes came
down, but were obliged to halt
at the circle. They could not
pass. But one day temptress,
with diamonded hand, stretched
forth and crossed that circle with the
hand, and the tempted soul took it, and
by that one fell grip was brought be-
yond the circle and died. Some of you
have stepped beyond that circle. Would
you not like this day, by the grace of
God, to step back? This, say to you,
is your hour of salvation. There was
in the closing hours of Queen Anne
what is called the clock scene. Flat
down on the pillow in helpless sick
ness, she could not move her head or
move her hand. She was waiting for
the hour when the ministers OF state
should gather in angry contest. and
worried and worn out by the
coming hour, and in momcntary
absence of the nurse, in the
power, the strange power which
delirium sometimes gives one,
she arose and stood in front of the
clock, and stood there watching the
clock when the nurse returned. The
nurse said: $40 you see anything pc
culiar about that clock?" She made no
answer, but soon died. There is clock
scene in every history. If some of you
would rise from the bed of lethargy
and come out from your delirium of sin
and look on the clock of your destiny
this moment, you would see and hear
something you have not seen or heard
before, and every tick of the minute,
and every stroke of the hour, and every
swing of the pendulum, would say,
''Now. now, now, now" Oh, come
home to your Fathers house. Come
home, oh, prodigal, from the wilder
ness Come home, come home!
But l notice that when the pr3digal
came there was the fathers joy. lie
did not greet him with any formal
GLOW do you do?" He did not come
out and say: "You are unfit to enter;
go wash in the trough by the we'll, and
then you can come in; we have had
enough trouble with you" All, no!
When the proprietor of that estate pro-
claimed festival, 1t was an outburst of
a fathers love and fathers Joy. Cod
is your father. l have not much SYM
pathy with the description of God
sometimes hear, as though lie were a
Turkish sultan, hard and unsympa-
thetic, and listening not to the cry OF
his subjects. A man told me he saw in
one of the eastern lands king riding
along, and two men were in alterca-
ton, and one charged the other with
having eaten his rice, and the king said:
Then Stay the man, and by post
norton examination find whether he
has eaten the rice And he was slain.
All. the cruelty of scene like that.
Our God Is not a sultan, not a despot,
but Father-kind, loving, forgiving
and He makes all Heaven ring again
when prodigal comes back. 81 have
no pleasure" He says, 10 the death O.
him that dieth" All may be saved.
II q man does not get TO Heaven, it is
because he will not go there. No diff
ference the color. no difference the his
tory. no difference the i.ntecedents. no
difference the surroundings, no diff
ference the SIN. When the white horses
of Christ's victory are brought out TO
celebrate the eternal triumph you may
ride one Of them, and as God Is greater
than all. His JOY is greater, and when a
soul comes back there Is in His heart the
surging Of an infinite ocean Of gladness;
and to express that gladness IL takes all