The Monitor-register., 1897-02-12


SO Nassau ST., New York.
funerals of our dead. Father and moth
er, with interlocked arms, like inter
twining branches of trees, making per-
petual arbor of love and peace and kind
ness, then will forget thee; then, and
only then. You know, my brother, that
100 times you have been kept out of sin
by the memory of such a scene as l have
been describing. You have often had
raging temptations, but you know what
has held you with supernatural grasp
I tell you a man who has had such
good home as that never gets over it,
and man who has had a bad early
home never gets over that.
A Type of Heaven.
Again, I remark that home is type
of heaven. To bring us to that home
Christ left his home. Far up and far
back in the history of heaven there came
a period when its most illustrious citi-
zen was about to absent himself. He
was not going to sail from beach to
beach; we have often done that. He
was not going to put out from one hem
isphere to another hemisphere; many
of us have done that. But he was to
sail from world to world, the spaces un-
explored and immensities untraveled.
No world had ever hailed heaven, and
heaven had never hailed any other
world. I think that the windows and
the balconies were thronged 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. Out 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 unpretending, 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? question the shepherds. ques-
ton the camel drivers. [ question the
angels. I 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
speak today had such resounding fare
well and came into such chilling recep-
tion-for not even hostler went out
with his lantern to help him in-that
he is more to be celebrated than any
other eXpatriated one of earth or heaven.
1t is 93,000,000 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
i'll 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
inconsistencies is when you have been
only 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 Or 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 it is to
be 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
another mans grave. have read how
the Swiss, when they are far away from
their native country, at the sound of
their national air get SO homesick that
they fall into melancholy, and some-
times they die under the inconsistencies
But, oh, the homesickness of Christi
Poverty, homesick for celestial riches
Persecution, homesick for hosanna. Wea-
riness, homesick for rest. Homesick for
angelic and archangelic companion
ship. Homesick to go out of the night
and out Of the storm and the worlds
execration and all that homesickness
suffered to get us home!
Inc heavenly Home,
At our best estate we are only pill
grims and strangers here. ftHeaven is
our home" Death will never knock at
the door of that mansion, and in all
that country there is not a single grave.
How glad parents are in holiday time
to gather their children home againl
But have noticed that almost always
there is a son or daughter absent
absent from home, perhaps absent from
the country, perhaps absent from the
world. Oh, how glad our heavenly Fa-
ther will be when he gets all his chill
dren home with him in heaven! And
how delightful it will be for brothers
and sisters to meet after long separa-
ton! Once they parted at the door of
the tomb; now they meet at the door of
Immortality. Once they saw only
Through a glass darkly;" now it is
''face to face" corruption, incorrup-
ton; mortality, Immortality. Where
are now all their sins and sorrows and
troubles? Overwhelmed in the Red sea
Of death while they passed through dry
shod
Gates of pearl, capstones of amethyst,
thrones of dominion do not stir my soul
so much as the thought of home, Once
there, let earthly sorrows howl like
storms and roll like seas. Home! Let
thrones rot and empires wither. Home!
Let the world die in an earthquake
struggle and be buried amid procession
of planets and dirge of spheres. Home!
Let everlasting ages roll in irresistible
sweep. Home! No sorrow, no crying.
No tears, no death, but home, sweet
home; home, beautiful home, eyerlast-
ing home, home with each other, home
with angels, home with God.
The Dream.
One night, lying on my lounge when
very tired, my children all around about
me in full romp and hilarity and laugh
ter. on the lounge, half awake and half
asleep, dreamed this dream: was in
far country. 1t twas not Persia, although
more than oriental luxuriance crowned
the cities. 1t was not the tropics, al
though more than tropical fruitfulness
filled the gardens, It was not Italy, al
though more than italian softness filed
the air. And I wandered around look
ing for thorns and nettles, but / found
that none of them grew there, and
saw the sun rise, and watched to see
it set, but it sank not. And saw the
people in holiday attire, and I said
"When will they put off this and pus
on werkmen's garb and again delve ip
the mine or swelter at the forge?" But
they never put off the holiday attire.
And wandered in the suburbs of the
city to find the place where the dead
sleen and looked all along the line of