Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-01-25

kindred are the Oarsmen, the fires of the
setting day tingeing the tops of the pad
dies.
Oh, have you never sat by such
deathbed? In that hour you hear the de-
parting soul cry: sHark! LookP' You
hearkened, and you looked. A little
child pining away because of the death
of its mother, getting weaker and weak
er every day, was taken into the room
where hung the picture of her mother.
She seemed to enjoy looking at it, and
then she was taken away, and after
awhile died. In the last moment that
wan and wasted little one lifted her
hands, while her face lighted up with
the glory of the next world and cried
out, sMotherl" Do you tcll me she did
not see her mother? ShC0d So in my
first settlement at Belleville plain man
said to me: s'What do you think heard
last night? Twas in the room where one
of my neighbors was dying. He was
good man, and he said he heard the an
gels of God singing before the throne. /
haven t much poetry about me, but l lis
tened, and | heard them too y Said /,
81 have no doubt of it. Why, we are
to be taken up to heaven at last by min
istering spirits. Who are they to be?
Souls that went up from Madras or An
tioch or Jerusalem? Oh, no, our glori-
fed kinded are going to troop around us.
Heaven is not stately, formal place,
as I sometimes hear it described, very
frigidity of splendor, where people stand
on cold formalities and go roundabout
with heavy crowns of gold on their
heads. No, that is not my idea of heav-
en-. My idea of heaven is more like this:
You are seated in the eveningtide by the
fireplace, your whole family there, or
nearly all of them there While your are
seated, talking and enjoying the even
ing hour, there is a knock at the door,
and the door opens, and there comes in
brother that has been long absent. He
has been absent, for years you have not
seen him, and no sooner do you make
up your mind that it is certainly he
than you leap up, and the question is
who shall give him the first embrace.
That is my idea of heaven-a great
home circle where they are waiting for
u.s.. Oh, will you not know your moth
er's voice there? She who always called
you by your first name long after others
You were never anything but James or
John or George oreIhomas or Mary or
Florence to her. Will you not know
your child IS voice-she of, the bright eye
and the rudy cheek and the quiet step,
who came in from play and flung her
self into your lap, very shower of
mirth and beauty? Why, the picture is
craven in your soul. 1t cannot wear
out. If that little one should stand ON
the other side of some heavenly hill and
call to you, you would hear her voice
above the burst of heavens great or
chestra. Know it? You could not help
but know it.
Consolation.
Now bring you this glorious con-
ISOLATION of future recognition. If you
could get this theory into your heart, it
would lift a great many shadows that
are stretching across it. When / was a
lad, used to go out to the railroad
track and put my ear down on the track,
and / could hear the express train rum
bling miles away and coming ON, and
today, my friends, if we only had faith
enough, we could put our ear down to
the grave of our dead and listen and
the chariots OF resurrection victory.
Oh, heaven, sweet heaven! You do
not spell heaven as you used to spell it
-h-e-a-v-e-n, heaven. But now when
you want to spell that word you place
side by side the faces of the loved ones
who are gone, and in that irradia -on of
light and love and beauty and JOY you
spell it out as never before in songs and
O We whose hearts are
down under the sod of the cemetery,
cheer up at the thought of this reunion!
Oh, how much you will have to tell
them when once you meet themi
How much you hSve been through |
since you saw them last! On the shiny |
shore you will talk it all over The |
heartaches, the loneliness, the sleepless |
nights, the weeping until you had no |
more power to weep because the heart |
was withered and dried up. Story of |
vacant chair and empty cradle and lit |
tie shoe only half worn out, never to be |
worn again, just the shape of the foot |
that once pressed it. And dreams when
you thought that the departed had come
back again, and the room seemed bright |
with their faces, and you started up to
greet them, and in the effort the dream
broke, and you found yourself standing
amidroom in the midnight - alone.
Talking it all over, and then, hand in
hand, walking up and down in the light
No sorrow, no tears no death. Oh, |
heaven, beautiful heaven! Heaven
where our friends a&s heaven where we
expect to he. In the east they take
cage of birds and bring it to the tomb of
the dead, and then they open the door
Of the cage, and the birds, flying out,
sing And I would today bring cage
Of Christian consultations to the grave
Of your loved ones, and would open