Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1897-02-12

earth and the heavens with beauty and
with gladness let US take into our
home circles all innocent hilaIity, all
brightness and all good cheer A dark
home makes bad boys and bad girls, in
preparation for bad men and bad women.
Above all, my friends, take into your
homes Christian principle Can it be
that in any Of the comfortable homes Of
my congregation the voice Of prayer is
never lifted? What! No supplication at
night for protection? What! No thanks
giving in the morning for care? How,
my brother, my sister will you answer
God in the day Of judgment with refer
ence to your children; 1t is a plain
question, and therefore | ask it, In the
tenth chapter Of jeremiah God says he
will pour out his fury upon the families
that call not upon his name. Oh,parents,
when you are dead and gone and the
moss is covering the inscription Of the
tombstone, Will your children look back
and think Of father and mother at fami-
" prayer? viii they take the old fami-
" Bible and open il and see the mark
Of tears Of contrition and tears Of con-
soling promise. wept by eyes long be-
fore gone out into darkness?
Oh, if you do not inculcate Christian
principle in the hearts Of your children,
and YOU do not warn them against evil,
a-d you 90 not invite them TO holiness
a..d 90 God, and they wander off into
d. pAtion and into infdelity and at
1t make shipwreck Of their immortal
scu... On their deathbed aud in the day
iudemon they viii curse you! Seat
e. ~ ,h. register or the stove, what if
o. lLe wall should come out the history
O. your children? What a history-the
.ual aud immortal life Of your loved
o-,s! Every parent is writing the his
to e Lis child. He is writing it, COM
7 jig il ito a song or tuning it into
g-Can.
" Lind runs back 10 one Of the best
of carly homes. Prayer like a roof
over it. Peace, like an atmosphere IN
it. Parents. personifcations Of faith in
trial and comfort in darkness. Tie two
pillars Of that earthly home long go
crumbled TO dust. But shall / ever for
get that earthly home: Yes when the
flower forgets the sun that warns II.
Yes, when the mariner forgets the star
that guided him. Yes, when love has
gone out on the heart altar and memo
ry has emptied its un into lolgeiiul-
ness. Then, home Of my childhood, l
will forget thee-the family altar Of
fathers importantly and a mothers
tenderness, the voices of affection the
funerals Of our dead Father aid moth
er, with interlocked arms, like inter-
twining branches OF trees, making per
petual arbor Of love and peace and kind
ness. then I Will forget thee; then, ana
only then. You know, my brother, that
100 times yOu have been kept out Of sln
by the memory Of such a scene as ! have
been describing You have often had
raging temptations, but you know what
has held you with supernatural grasp
tell you a man who BIAS had such q
good home as that never gets over it,
and a man who has lad lad early
home never gets over that
A Type of Heaven.
Again, remark that home is a tyre
Of heaven. To bring Us o. that home
Christ left his home Far up and Jar
back in the history of heaven tnDrecame
period when It's most il.U-trious citi-
zen was about to absent himself lie
was not going to sail from beach TO
beach: we have often done that lie
was not going TO par out from one hem
isphere TO another hemisphere; many
of US have dCre that. But he was to
sail from world 20 world. the spaces I'M
/ explored and immensities untraveled.
No world had ever hailed heaven, and
heaven had never hailed amy other
world. I think that the windows and
the balconies were throngcd and that
the pearly beach was crowded with
those who had come to see him sail out
Of the harbor Of light into the oceans
beyond. Ont and out and out, and on
and on and on, and down and down and
down he sped until one night, with
only one to greet him, he arrived. His
Decentralization so unprctending, so
quiet that it was not known on earth
until the excitement in the cloud gave
intimation that something grand and
glorious had happened. Who comes
there? From what port did he sail!
Why was this the place Of his destina-
ton? Iquestion the shepherds l ques-
tion the camel drivers. l question the
angels. l have found out He was an
exile. But The world has had plenty OF
exiles Abraham, an exile from Ur Of
the Chaldees; John, an exile from Ephe-
sus; Kosciusko, an exile from Poland;
Mazzini, an exile from Rome; Emmett
an exile from Ireland; Victor Hugo, an
exile from France; kossuth an exile
from Hungary. But this one OF whom l
speak today had such resoundlng fare
well and came into such chilling recep-
tion-for not even hoStler went out
with his lantern 10 help him in--that
he is more to be celebrated than any
other expatriated one of earth or heaven.
1t is %. 900, 600 miles from here to
the sun. and all astronomers agree in
saying that our solar system Is only one
of the small wheels Of the great ma
chinery Of the universe, turning round
some great center so far distant It Is be-
yond all imagination and calculation,
and if, as some think, that great center
in the distance is heaven, Christ came
far from home when he came here.
Have you ever thought of the homesick-
ness of Christ? Some Of you know what
homesickness is when you have been
only a few weeks absent from the do
mestic circle. Christ was 33 years away
from home. Some Of you feel homesick-
ness when you are hundred OF a thou
sand miles away from the domestic
circle Christ was more millions OF
miles away from home than you could
calculate if all your life you did nothing
but calculate. You know what II is to
b homesick even amid pleasurable sur
roundings, but Christ slept in huts, and
he was athirst, and he was a-hungered,
and he was on the way from being born
In one mans barn TO being buried in