The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1898-04-29
olouds-that light the irradiated faces
of your glorified kindred?

olouds-that light the irradiated faces
of your glorifed kindred?
Making tho Worst of Things.
So also, my friends, would have
you make the best of your sicknesses.
When you see one move off with elastic
step and in full physical vigor, some
times you become impatient with your
lame foot. When a man describes an
object a mile off, and you cannot see it
at all, you become impatient of your
dim eye. When you hear of well man
making a great achievement, you be-
come impatient with your depressed
nervous system or your dilapidated
health. / will tell you how you can
make the worst of it. Brood over it;
brood over all these illnesses, and your
nerves will become more twitchy and
your dyspepsia more aggravated, and
your weakness more appalling. But
that is the devil S work, to tell you how
to make the worst of it. 1t is my work
to show you a bright light in the clouds
Which of the Bible men most attract
your attention? You say, Noses Job,
David, jeremiah Paul. Why, what a
strange thing it is that you have chosen
those who were physically disordered!
Moses-I know he was nervous from the
clip he gave the Egyptian. Job-his
! blood was Initiated and diseased, and
his skin distressfully eruptiye. David
he had a running sore, which he speaks
of when he says, my sore ran in the
night and ceased not. jeremiah bad
enlargement of the spleen. Who can
doubt it who reads Lamentations? Paul
he had a lifetime sickness which the
commentators have been guessing about
! for years. not knowing exactly what the
apostle meant by ga thorn i'll the flesh. "
[ do not know either, but it was some
thing sharp, something that stuck him.
gather from all this that physical dis
order may be the means of grace to the
soul. You say you have SO many tempta-
lions from bodily ailments and if yoa
were only we'll you think you could be
a good Christian. While your tempta-
tions may be different they are no more
than those of the man who has an appe-
tite three times day and sleeps eight
hours every night.
Views of Heaven.
From my observation [ judge that
invalids have a more rapturous view OF
the next world than well people and
will have higher renown in heaven.
The best view of the delectable noun
tains is through the lattice OF the sick
room. There are trains running every
hour between pillow and throne, be-
bandages and robes, between crutch and
palm branch. Oh, wish some of you
people who are compelled to cry: my
head, my head My foot, my foot! My
back, my back" would try some Of the
Lords medicine You are going to be
we'll anyhow before long Heaven is an
old CITY, but has never yet reported one
case of sickness or one bill Of mortality.
No ophthalmia for the eye No pneu-
monia for the lungs. No pIeurlsy for the
side. No neuralgia for the nerves. NC
rheumatism for the muscles. "The in
habitants shall never say, am sick. "
"There shall be no more pain. -.
Again, you ought to make the best OF
life's finality. Now, you think | have a
very tough subject. You do not see how
| am to strike spark Of light out OF
the flint of the tombstone, There are
many people who have an idea that
death is the submergence vi everything
pleasant by everything doleful. Ii my
subject could close in the upsetting Of
all such precOnceiyed notions, it would
close well. Who can judge best of the
features of man-those who are close
by him, or those who are afar off:
ooh, " You say, "those can judge best
, of the features of a man who are close
by him..
Now, my friends, who shall judge of
the features Of death-whether they are
lovely or whether they are repulsiye:
You? You are too far off. If | want to
get a Judgment as to what really the
features of death are, | will not ask you;
will ask those who have been within Il
month of death or a week OF death or
an hour of death or minute of death,
They stand SO near the features, they
can tell. They give unanimous testl-
mony, if they are Christian people, that
death, instead Of being demoniac, Is
cherubic OF all the thousands OF Chris
tians who have been carried through the
gates of the cemetery, gather up their
dying experiences and you will find
F they nearly all bordered On a Jubllate.
How often you have seen a dying man
Join i'll the psalm being sung around his
, bedside, the middle Of the verse opening
to let his ransomed spirit free, long
after the lips could not speak looking
, and pointing upward.
Not Gods Best Work.
Some of you talk as though God had
! exhausted himself in building this
+ world and that all the rich curtains be
ever made he hung around this planet
a and all the flowers he ever grew he has
E woven into the carpet of our daisied
, meadows. No. This world is not the
best thing God can do; this world Is
not the best thing that God has done.
, one week of the year is called bios
, som week-called so all through the
f land because there are more blossoms IL
] that week than in any other week OF
, . tha wear BlOSsOm week And that Is