St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1897-04-10

wounded. on the field, one Christian
soldier lying there a-dying under the
starlight, began to sing:
There Is . land OF pure delight
And when he came to the next line
there were 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 1t least 10000
wounded men uniting their voices -
they came to the verse:
There everlasting spring abides
And ncver-withering flowers;
lis but narrow stream divides
This heavenly land from ours
Oh. it is great religion to live by,
and q 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 gone
far astray. l know not the history,
but you you know it, you know it
| When q 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
kept = circle clear around where the
young man stood. 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. But one day temptress,
with diamonded hand. stretched
forth and crossed that circle with the
hand, and the tempted soul took il. 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 momentary
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: do 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 dclirium 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,
Nov, now. now. now Oh, come
home to your Fathers house. Come
home, oh, prodigal, from the wilder
ness. Come home, come home!
But notice that when the prodigal
came there was the fathers JOY. He
did not greet him with any formal
''How do you do?" He did not come
out and say: ''You are unfit to enter;
60 wash in the trough by the well, and
then you can come in; we have had
enough trouble with you.- All, no!
When the proprietor of that estate pro-
claimed festival, it was an outburst of
a fathers love and a fathers joy. God
is your father. l have not much SYM
patty with the description of God l
sometimes hear, as though He were
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 a 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 slays f4e man. and BY post
norton examination find whether he
has eaten thesice.rs And he was slain. |
All! the crueo of scene like that.
Our God is not 2. sultan. not q despot,
but Father.kind, loving. forgiving,
and He makea Al5Icaven ring again
when prodi9k comes back. Il have |!
no pleasure" He says, I'm the death of |
him that dietkfi :All may be saved.
If man does hot get to Heaven. it is |
because he ~1416t 60 there. No diff
ference the; s4(pr, NO difference the his
tory, no difference the antecedents. no
difference the surroundings, no diff
f4PncestAE6P. When the white horses |
Of Chrsts victory are brought out to |
cs1ebfatesthe>eterna triumph you may
ride one of them, and as God is greater |
than all, His JOY is greater, and when a i
soul comes back there is in His heart the |
surging of an infinite ocean of gladness; |!
and to express that gladness it takes all |
the rivers of pleasure, all the thrones |
Of pomp and all the ages Of eter-
nifty. It is JOY deeper than all depth |
and higher than all height, and wider |
than all width, and vaster than all i'm |
mensity. 1t overtops, it undergirds, it /
outweighs 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 festivfty scattered |
silver and gold among the people, who |
sent valuable presents to his courtiers;
but methinks, when a soul comes back |
God is so glad that to express His joy
He filings out new worlds into space,
l
among the white-robed anthems Of the |
redeemed greater hallelujah, while
with = voice that reverberates among
the mountains of frankincense and is
echoed back from the everlasting gates
He cries: This, my Son, was dead,
and He is alive again.
At the opening of the exposition in
New Orleans l saw . 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, Is
compared with al the orchestras, was
greater than all the combined joys of
the universe when compared with the
resounding heart Of Almighty God.
For ten years father went three times
a day to the depot His son went OF in
aggravating circumstances, but the
father said: .'He will come back" The
strain Was too much, and his mind
parted, and three times . day the fl