Connecticut western news., 1898-12-29


 of Haddiugton, who said: "I desire to depart and be with Christ, and, though l have lived 60 years very comfortably in this world would turn my back up- on you all to be with Christ. There is no one like Christ-no one like Christ. l have been looking at him these many years and never yet could find any fault in him but was of my own mak- ing, though he has seen 10, 900 faults iu me. Oh, what must he be in himself when it is he that sweetens heaven, sweetens Scripture, sweetens ordinances, sweetens earth, sweetens trial" Of John Janeway, saying ill his last mo- ments: ''I have done with prayer and all other ordinances. Before few hours are over l shall be in eternity singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. I shall presently stand on Mount Zion with an iunumerable company of an- gels and with spirits of just men made perfect and with Jesus, the mediator of tLe new covenant. Halleluiahp' Some one ought to preach course of sermons on triumphant Christian deathbeds, and then let some one preach a sermon on triumphant infidel death beds-that is, if he can hear or read of one of this latter kind. l never heard of one. Do tell us of one. There never was one. And had the babe of Bethelehem died the same week in which he was born there never would have been trium- phant Christian deathbed. It is the wonderful story of Christ, now rapidly filling the earth, that makes trium- nbapt Chr;ctsap T Tho Potbla- hem stnr had to give way before the rising sun, which was to become the monday Sun of Righteousness.
 A Grand Thought.
 Are you ready now for thought that overtowers all other thoughts in impor- tance aud grandeur? Pray that you may be ready. It as far exceeds anything 1 have said as all the gold mines of Cal ifornis, developed and undeveloped, ex- ceed the thimbeful of gold dust which in 1S46 California miner brought from mill race and put upon the desk of surprised capitalist. In remarking uron t6. narrow escape which you and I and the world made let me say that had the Herodio raid on that room of the Bethlehem khan been successful raid or had some cold taken by the child ill that flight toward Cairo been fatal, heaven would have been to us an eternal impossibiity. With our fallen nature unchanged, unregenerated, unrecon- struoted through Jesus Christ, the hu- man race would be no more fit for heaven than noisome weed is fit for queens garland. no more than a shattered base viol is fit to sound in a Dusseldorf mu- sical jubilee. If at one time Garibaldi seemed to hold in his right hand the freedom of Italy and Washington seem- ed at one time to hold in his right hand American independence and Martin Luther seemed to hold in his right hand the emancipation of the church of God for all nations, so in grander and better sense the infant born in that Bethlehem stall held in one hand the ransom of earth and in the other the rapture of heaven. He started that night for three places which he must reach or we never could reach heaven, Gethsemane and Cavalry and Olivct, the first for agoniz- ing prayer, the second for excruciating suffering, the third for glorious ascen- sion, as the law of gravitation relaxed for once to let him up out of his exile. Had his life been only one day or one year of duration, instead of 33 years, had he died in Bethlehem or in Cairo or in the desert between, not a church would ever have been built, not hos pitsl ever opened, not a nation ever freed, not civilization ever inaugu- rated, not a soul saved. Oh, what a crisis that was in the worlds history What crisis in the eternitiesl I think that the angels who composed the choir for the Christmas cantata above Bethle- hem were not the only angels around that night. 1 think there were some who, instead of holding librettos of celestial music, stood all up and down the steeps of heaven with drawn swords, keen and two edged. That cradle must be defended. That flight into Egypt must be lowered over by winged cohort. That humble stopping place in Cairo must be watched by celestial bands de- scending amid the Egyptian pyramids and the sphinx which had already stood there for ages celebrating kings, none of whom ever had such glory as will be won by that Prince sleeping in his mothers arms under their long shad- ows. Hear it, all ye people-in that babe's survival our heaven was involved. And shall we not add to our usual Christmas congTatulation at Saviour's birth the joy at the babe's rescue?
 The Worlds Christmas Gift.
 Now let the Christmas table be spread. Let it be an extension table made mp of tho tables of your house. holds, and added to them the tables of celestial festivity, all together making table long enough to reach across hemisphere-yes, long enough to reach from earth 10 heaven. Send out the in- vitations to all the guests whom we would like to have come and dine. Come all tue raDsomed of earth and all the crowned of heaven. As at ancient banquets the king, who was to preside, came in after all the guests had taken their places at the table. So perhaps it may be now. Let the old folks who sat at either end of your Christmas table 10 or 20 or 40 years ago Do seated, their aches and pains all gone. Behold, they cit doru" in tho exbilaratinn of everlast