The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-09-16

your sword, ana Jnen give me your
hand" Surrender of our resistance to
God must precede Gods proffer of par
don to us. Repentance before for
giveness You must give up your re-
bellious sword before you can get a
grasp of the Divine hand.
Oh, what a glorious state of things
to have the friendship of Godl Why.
we could afford to have all the world
against us and all other worlds against
us IL we had God for us. He could in
q minute blot out this universe, and in
another minute make a better uni
verse. / have no idea that God tried
hard when He made all things. The
most brilliant thing known to us is
light, and for the creation of all that
He only used a word OF command.
As out of flint frontiersman strikes
a spark, so out of one word God
struck the MONDAY sun. For the
making of the present universe
do not read that God lifted so much as a
finger. The Bible freq uently speaks
of Gods hand and Gods arm and Gods
shoulder and Gods foot; then suppose
he should put hand and arm and
shoulder and foot to utmost tension,
what could He not make? That God
of such demonstrated and undemon-
strated strength, you may have for
your present and everlasting friend,
not a stately and reticent friend, hard
to get at, but as approachable as a
country mansion on a summer day,
when all the doors and windows are
open. Christ said, II am the door 4"
And He is wide door, high door, a
palace door, an always open door.
My four-year-old child got hurt and
did not cry until hours after, when
her mother came home, and then she
burst into weeping, and some of the
domestics, not understanding human
nature, said to her: why did you
not cry before?" She answered:
There was no one to cry to-" Now,
l have to tell you that while human
sympathy may be absent, divine SYM
patty is Away accessible. Give God
your love, and get His love- your service,
and secure His help; your repentance,
and have His pardon. God a friendP
Why, that means all your wounds
medicated, all your sorrows soothed,
and If some sudden catastrophe should
hurl you out of earth it would only
hurl you into Heaven.
If God is your friend, you cannot go
out of the world too quickly or sud
denly, so far as your own happiness is
concerned. There were two Chris
tians who entered Heaven; the one
was standing at window in perfect
health, watching a shower, and the
lightning instantly slew him; but the
lightning did not flash down the sky
as swiftly as his spirit flashed upward.
The Christian man who died on the
same day next door had been for
year or two falling in health, and for
the last three months had suffered
from disease that made the nights
sleepless and the days an anguish.
Do you not really think that the case
of the one who went instantly was
more desirable than the one who en-
tered the shining gate through long
lane Of insomnia and congestion? In
the one case il was like your standing
YEARLY at door, knocking and wait
ing, and wondering if it will ever open,
and knocking and waiting again, while
in the other case it was a swinging
open of the door at the first touch Of
your knuckle. Give your friendship
to God, and have Gods friendship for
you, and even the worst accident will
be victory.
How refreshing is human friendship;
and true friends, what priceless treas
ures! When sickness comes, and trou-
BILE comes, and death comes. we send
for our friends first of all, and their
appearance in our doorway in any
crisis is reinforcement, and when they
have entered we say: Now it is all
right" Oh, what would we do with
out personal friends, business friends,
family friendsP But we want some
thing mightier than human friendship
in the great eXigencies When Jona-
than Edwards, in his final hour, had
given the last good-by TO all his earth
ly friends, he turned on his pillow
and closed his eyes, confidently say
ing: Now, where is Jesus of Nazareth,
my true and never-failing friend?"
Yes, / admire human friendship as
seen in the case of David and iona
than, of Paul and Onesiphorus, of
Herder and Goethe, of Goldsmith and
Reynolds, of Beaumont and Fletcher,
of Cowley and Harvey, of Erasmus and
Thomas Moore, of leasing and Men
delssohn, of Lady Churchill and
Princess Anne, of Orestes and Pylades,
each requesting that himself might
take the point of the dagger, so the
other might be spared; of Epami-
nondas and Pelopidas, who locked
their shield in battle, determined to
die together; but the grandest, the
mightiest, the tenderest friendship in
all the universe is the friendship be.
tween Jesus Christ and believing
soul. Yet, after all | have said, feel
| have only done what James Mar
shall, the miner did in 1s4s in Cali
fornia, before its gold mines were
known. He reached in and put up
on the table of his employer, Capt
Suffer, a thimbleful of gold dust.
where did you get that?" said his en-
ployer. The reply was; ~ got IL this
morning from mill race from which