The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1898-11-23


the picture? l plant !; on this platform
! direct it toward you. Sit still or
stand still while | take the pictures. 1t
shall be an instantaneous picture.
There! | have it. 1t is done. You
can see the picture in its imperfect
state and get some idea of what it will
be when thoroughly developed. There
is your resurrccted body, so brilliant
that the MONDAY sun is patch Of
midnight compared with it. There is
your soul, so pure that all the forces Of
diabolism could not spot it with an i'm
per e,.ion. There is your being, so
mighty and so swift that fight from
heaven TO Mercury on Mars or Jupiter
and back again to heaven would not
weary YOU, and world on each shoul-
der would not c~ush you. An eye that
shall never shed a tear. An enegy that
shall never fcela fatigue 4 brow that
shall never throb with pain. You are
young again, though you died of de-
crepitude. You are well again. though
you coughed or shivered yourself into
the tomb Your everyday associates
are the apostles and prophets and mar
tyrs ard most exalted souls, masculine
and feminine, of all the centuries. The
archangel to you no embarrassment.
God himself your present and everlast-
ing JOY. That is an instantaneous pic
ture of what you may be and what am
sure some Of YOU will be.
If YOU realize that it is an imperfect
picture, my apology is what the apostle
John said, 1T doth not yet appear
what we shall be-" ''To this end was
I born" i'll did not think so, would
be overwhelmed with melancholy. The
world does very well for a little while,
50 or 100 or 15U years, and I think that
human longevity may yet be improved
up to that prolongation, for now there
is so little room between our cradle and
our grave we cannot accomplish much,
but who would want to dwell in this
world for all eternity. Some think this
earth will finally. be turned into hea-
ven. Perhaps it may. but it would
have to undergo radical repairs and
thorough climinations and evolutions
and revolutions and transformations in
finite to make it desirable for eternal
residence. All the east winds would
have to become west winds and all the
winters changed to springtides and al
the volcanoes extinguished and the
oceans chained to their beds and the
epidemies forbidden entrance and the
world so fixed up that it would take
more to repair this old world than to
make an entirely new one. But must
say I do not care where heaven is, if
we can only get there, whether gar
denied America or an emparadlsed
Europe or a world central to the whole
universe, 'To this end was | born.
If each one of US could say that, we
would 60 with faces shining and hopes
exhilarant amid earth's worst misfor-
tunes and trials. Only little while,
and then the rapture. Onlya little
while, and then the reunion. Only a
little while, and then the transfgura-
ton.
In the seventeenth century all Eu-
rope was threatened with wave Of
Asiatic barbarism, and Vienna was es-
pecially besieged. The king and his
court had fed, and nothing could save
the city from being overwhelmed unless
the king of Poland, John Sobieski, to
whom they had sent for help. should
with his army come down for the relief
and from every roof and tower the iu-
habitants of Vienna watched and wait.
ed and hoped, until on the morning OF
Sept. II the rising sun throw an unusu-
al and unparalleled brilliancy. 1t was
the reflection Of the sun on the swords
and shields and helmets of John Sobl-
eski and his army coming down over
the hills to the rescue, and that day
not only Vienna, but Europe was saved:
And see you not, ye souls: besieged
with sin and sorrow, that light breaks
in; the swords and the shields and the
helmets Of divine rescue bathed in the
rising sun Of heavenly deliverance? Let
everything else go rather than let hea-
ven 60.
What strange thing it must be to
feel oneself born to an earthly crown,
but you have been born for throne on
which you may reign after the last
monarch of all the earth shall have
gone to dust. I invite you to start now
for your own coronation to come in and
take the title deed to your everlasting.
inheritsnce. Through an impassioneo
prayer take heaven and all Of its rap
lures.
What poor farthing is all that this
world can offer you compared with par
don here and life immortal beyond the
stars, unless this side of them there be
place large enough and beautiful
enough and grand enough for all the
ransomed. Wherever it be, in what
world. whether near by or far away, in
this or some other constellation, hail,
home of light and love and blessedness!
Through the atoning mercy of Christ,
NAV we all get there,