Owingsville outlook. [volume] (Owingsville, Ky.) 1879-192?, 1897-03-11
dier lying there a-dying under the
starlight, began to sing.
There Is a land OF pure delight

And when he came To the next line
there were scores of voices singing:
Where slints immortal reign
The song was caught up all through
the fields among the wounded until it
was said there were at least 10, 600
wounded men uniting their voices as
| they came to the verse:
There everlasting spring abidcs
And ncver-witheriug flowers:
tbs hut a narrow stream divides
| THIS hcav emily land from ours
oh, IT is n great religion to live by,
and a 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 for eter-
/ nifty, and lie is yours, and Heaven is
yours, and all is yours. Some of you,
| like the young man of the text, have
gone far astray know not the his
tory but you know it, you know it.
When n young man went forth into
| life, the legend says, his guardian an
gel went forth with him, and getting
him into field the guardian angel
, swept n circle clear around where
| the young man stool 1t was 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.
I But one day a tcmptress, with dia-
monded hand, stretched forth and
/ crossed that circle with the hand, and
| the tempted soul took it, and by that
one fell grip was brought beyond the
circle and died. Some of you have
stepped beyond that circle. Would
Won 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 sickness, she could not
move her mead or move her hand. She
was waiting for the hour when the
ministers of state should gather in
angry contest, and worried and worn
ont by the coming hour, and in mo-
mentary absence of the nurse, in the
power, the strange power which de-
| lirium 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:
DO You see anything peculiar
about that clocl?" She made no
answer, but soon died There is
n clock scene in every history. Ii some
of you would rise from the bed of leth-
argy 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, nowr'
oh. come home to your Fathers house
Come home, oh prodical, from the will
dcrness. Come home, come home!
But ! notice that when the prodigal
came there was the fathers JOY. lie
did not greet him with any formal
out and say, You are unfit to enter;
go and wash in the trough by tina
well and then You can come in; we
have had enough trouble with you"
All, no! When the proprietor of that
estate proclaimed festival, it was an
outburst of fathers love and u
fathers joy. God is your father.
have not much sympathy with the de-
scription of God | sometimes hear,
as though he was Turkish sultan,
hard and unsympathetic, and listen
| ing not to the cry of his subjects. A
man told me he saw in one of the east
ern lands a king riding along, and
two men were in alteration, and
| oh hn -
eaten his rice, and the king said:
Then Stay the man, and by post
norton examination find whether he
5 eaten the rice" And he was slain.
ii! the cruely of scene like that
OUR God is not a sultan, not a deHpot,
but Fathbr kind, loving, forgiving,
and he makes all heaven ring again
when prodigal comes back. II have
no pleasure" lie says, lin the death
of him that dieth." All may be saved.
II man does not get to Heaven, it is
because he will not go there. No
difference the color, no difference the
history, no difference the antecedents,
no difference the surroundings, no
difference the sin. When the white
horses of Christ's victory are brought
Out " inc ctcEudk
umph, 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 ex-
press that gladness it takes all the riv-
ers of pleasure, all the thrones of pomp
and all the ages of eternity. 1t is a
Joy deeper than all depth and higher
than all height, and wider than all
width, and vaster than all immensely.
1t overtops, it undergirds, it out
weighs all the united splendor and
JOY of the universe, and who can tell
what Gods joy is? You remember
reading the story of a king, who on
some great day of festivity scattered
silver and gold among the people, who
sent valuable presents to his courtiers;
but methinks, when soul comes
back. God is so glad that to express
His Joy He filings out new worlds into
space, and kindles up new suns, and
rolls smong the white-robed anthems
of the redeemed n greater hallelujah,
while with a voice that reververates
among the mountains of frankincense
and is echoed back from the everlast-
ing gates lie cries: This, my son, was
dead, and he is alive again.
At the opening of the exposition in
New Orleans | saw a Mexican flutist,
and he played the solo, and then after
ward the eight or ten bands of music,
accompanied by the great organ came
in; but the sound of that one flute as
compared with all the orchestras was
greater than all the combined joy OF
the universe when compared with the
resounding heart of Almighty God.
For ten years father went three times
day to the depot. His son went of
in aggravating circumstances, but the
father said: "He will come back" The
strain wac too much aud his mind
parted, and three times a day the
father went In the early morning he
watched the train, it's arrival, the step
ping out of the passengers, and then
the departure of the train. At noon
he was there again watching the ad
vance of the train, watching the de-