St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1898-05-28

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fore long. Heaven is an old city, but
has never yet reported one case of
sickness or one bill Of mortality. No
opthalmia for the eye. No pneumonia
for the lungs. No pleurisy for the
side. No neuralgia for the nerves. No
rheumatism for the muscles. 1.-THE ih-
habitants shall never say: am sick -
"There shall be no more pain"
Again, you ought to make the best Of
iife's finality. Now, you think I have
a very tough subject. You do not see
how am to strike q spark of light out
of the flint of the tombstone. There
are many people who have an idea that
death is the submergence of every
thing pleasant by everything doleful.
Ii my subject could close in the upset
ting of all such preconceived notions,
it would close well. Who can Judge
best of tbs features of a man-those
who are close by him, or those who are
afar off? Oh You say, ''those can
judge best of the features of q man
who are close by him.
Now. my friends, who shall Judge of
the features of death--whether they
4
sive? You? You are too far off. If
want to get judgment as to what
really the features of death are, /
would not ask you; will ask those
who have been within a month of death,
or an hour of death, or a minute of
death. They stand SO near the features
they can tell. They give unanimous
testimony if they are Christian peo-
pie that death, instead Of being demo-
MAC, is cherubic. OF all the thousands
of Christians who have been carried
through the gates Of the cemetery,
gather up their dying experiences, and
you will find they nearly all bordered
| on a jubilate. How often you have
seen a dying man join in the psalm be-
ing sung arounl his bedside, the mid
die of the verse opening to let his ran
somed spirit free!-long after his lips
could not speak, looking and pointing
upward.
One week of the year is called blos-
som week-called 50 all through the
land because they are more blossoms
in that week than in any other week
of the year. Blossom week! And tina.
is what the future world is to which
the Christian is invited-blossom week
forever. 1t is as far ahead of this world
as Paradise is ahead of Dry Tortugas,
and vet here we stand shivering and
fearing to go out, and we want to stay
on the dry sand. and amid the stormy
petrels, when we are invited to arbor3
of jessamine and birds of paradise.
I hnl txx-n
went to New Orleans in April, and l
marked the difference between going
toward New Orleans and then coming
back. As went on down toward New
Orleans, the verdne, the foliage, be-
came thicker and more beautiful.
When / came back. the further came
toward home the less the foliage, and
less and less it became until there
was hardly any. Now, it all de-
ponds upon the direction in which
You travel. Ii spirit from Heaven
should come toward our wo.ld, he is
travelling from June toward December,
from radiance toward darkness, from
hanging gardens toward iccbergs. And
one would not be very much surprised
if a spirit of God sent forth from
Heaven toward our world should be
slow to come. But how strange it is
that we dread going out toward that
world when going is from December
toward June-from the snow of earthly
storm to the snow OF tine Edenic BIOS
som-from the artics of trouble toward
the tropics eff eternal JOY.
Oh, what an ado about dying! We
get SO attached to the malarial marsh
in which we live that we are afraid to
go up and live on the hilltop. We are
alarmed because vacation is coming.
Eternal sunlight, and best programme
of celestial minstrels and hallelujah,
no inducement. Let us stay here and
keep cold and ignorant and weak. Do
not Introduce us to Elijah, and John
Milton and Bourdaloue. Keep our feet
on the sharp cobblestones of earth in
stead of planting them on the bank of
amarant h in Heaven. Give us this
small island of leprous world instead
of the immensities of splendor and de-
light. Keep our hands full of nettles,
and our shoulder under the burden, and
our neck in the yoke, and hopples ON
our ankles, and handouts on our wrists.
Dear Lord" we seem to say, ''keep us
down here where we have to suffer, in
stead of letting us up where we might
live and reign and rejoice"
1 am amaze | at myself and at your
self for this infatuation, under which
we all rest. Men you would suppose
would get frightened at having to stay
in this world instea1 of getting fright
ened at having to go toward Heaven. l
congratulate anybody who has right
to die. BY that m.Ln through sick
cident you can not avoid-your work
consummated. Where did they bury
Llly?" said one little child to another.
''Oh,r she replied, they buried here in
the grounda' "Ol, no, no; not in the
cold ground, but in the warm grou nd,
where ugly seeds become beautiful
flowers"
But" says one, lit pains me 80
much to think that must lose the
body with which my soul has SO long
companioned." You do not lose it.
You no more lose your body by death
than you lose your watch when you
send it to have it repaired, or your
jewel when you send it 20 have it re-
set, or the faded picture when you
send it to have it touched up or the
photograph of friend when
you have it put in new
locket. You do not lose your body.
Paul will go to Romc to get his, Pay
son will go to Portland to get his,
President Edwards will go to Princeton
to get his, George Goodman will go to
the bottom of the Atlantic to get his,
and we will go to the village church |
yards and the city cemeteries to get |
ours; and when We have our perfect |
spirit rejoined to our perfect body, |
then we will be the kind Of men and |
women that the resurrection morning
will make possible.
So you see you have not made out |
any dolefui story yet. What have you |
proved about death? What is the case |
you have made out? You have made |
ont just this--that death allows US to |
have perfect body, free of all aches,