The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-07-26

An oak crowded into an acorn. A Rocky
mountain eagle thrust back into the egg
shell from which it was Matched.
SORROWS TWTCE ENDURED.
Besides that, If you took life over again
you would have to take its deep sadness
over again. Would you want to try again
the grlefs and the heartbreaks and the
bereavements through which you have
gone? What a mercy that We shall never
be called to suffer them again! We may
have others bad enough, but those old
through the process of losing your father
again, or your mother again, or your
companion in life again? If you were
permitted to stop at the sixtieth mile
stone, or the fiftieth milestone, or the
fortieth milestone and retrace your steps
to the twentieth. your experience would
be something like mine one November
day in Italy. ! walked through a great
city with a friend and two guides, and
there were in all the city only four per-
sons, and they were those OF our own
group. We went up and down the
streets, we entered the houses, the muse
ums. the temples, the theaters. We ex-
amined the wonderful pictures on the
walls and the most exquisite MOSAIC on
the floor. In the streets were the deep
worn ruts Of wagons, but not a wagon in
the city. On the front steps Of mansions
the word Welcome" in Latin, but no
human being to greet us. The only
bodies of any of the citizens that we saw
were p%etrified and in the museum at the
gates. OF the S,0W people who once lived
in those homes and worshiped in those
temples and clapped in those theaters
not one left, For 1900 years that city
of Pompeii had been buried before mod
ern exploration ScOoped out of it the ava
Of Vesuvius: Well, he who should be per-
mitted to return on the pathway Of his
earthly life and live it over again would
find as lonely and sad a pilgrimage. 1t
would be an exploration of the dead past.
The old sc~hoolhouse. the old church, the
old home. the old playground, either gone
or occupied by others, and for you more
| decreasing than was Ollr POmnpiidn visit
| that November day.
| Besides that, would you want to risk
the temptations of life over again? From
| the fact that you are here l conclude
may have been unfortunate and uncon-
secrated you have got on SO far tolerably
well, If nothing more than ~tolerable. As
for myself, though my life has been far
from being as consecrated to God as I
would like to lave it, I would not want
| to try 1t over again. lest next time I
would do worse.
BETTER GO FORWARD.
Why, just look at the temptations we
have all passed through and just look
at the multitudes who have gone COM
pletely UNDER Just call over the roll of
your schoolmates and college mates, the
clerks who were with you in the same
store or bank, or the operatives in the
same factory, with just as good pros
poets as you, who have come to COM
plete mishap. Some young man that
l 1Ol0 you mat ne was gong to DE a MIL
| lionaire and own the fastest %trotters on
the turnpike and retire by the time he
was 30 years of age, you do not hear
from for many years and know nothing
! about him until some day he comes into
l your store and asks for 5 cents to get
| a mug of beer.
You, the good mother of a household.
and all your children rising up to call
| you blessed, can remember when you
were quite jealous of the bells of the
village, who was so t~ranscendendly fair
and popular. But while you have these
two honorable and queenly names of
wife and mother, she became a poor
wait of the street and went into -
blackness of darkness forever. Live life
are respectable were. permitted to ex-
pertinent, the next journey would be
demolition. You get through, as Job
| says, by the skin of your teeth. Next
| time you might not get through at ali.
Satan would say, Il know him now
better than 1 did before and nave for so
years been studying his weaknesses, and
I will weave a stronger web Of circum-
stances to catch him next time" And
satan would concentrate his forces on
this one man, and the last state of that
friends. our faces are in the right direc-
ton. Better go forward than backward,
even if we had the choice. The greatest
| disaster I can think of would be for you
to return to boyhood in 1893. Oh, if life
were a smooth Luzerne or Cayuga lake,
[ would like to get into a yacht and sail
| over II, nOL once, OUT CWlCo-y6d, a
thousand times. But life is an uncer-
tain sea and some of the ships crash on
the icebergs of cold Indifference, and
some take fire of evil passions and some
Goodwin sands and some are never
heard Of. Surely on such a treacherous
sea as that one voyage is enough.
DELAYED JOYS.
Besides all this, do you know, if you
could have your wish and live life over
again it would put you so much further
from reunion with our friends in heav
en-? If you are in the noon of life or
the evening of life, you are not very
far from the golden gate at which you
are to meet your transported and EN-,
paradised loved ones. You are now, lei
US say, 20 years, or 10 years, or one year
off from the celestial conjunction. Now
uppose you went back in your earthly
life 30 years, or 40 years, or 80 years,
what an awful postponement of the
time of reunion. 1t would be as though
you were going to San Francisco to a
great banquet, and you got to Oakland
four or five miles this side of it, and
then came back to Baltimore to get a
better start, as though you were going
to England to be crowned, and having
come in sight of the mountains of Wales
you put back to Sandy Hook in order
to make a better voyage. Would YOU
like for many years to adjourn the
of heaven, to adjourn the companion.
ship of heaven, to adjourn the rest Of
heaven, to adjourn the presence OF
Christ in heaven? No, the wheel Of
time turns in the right direction, anC
1t is well it turns SO fast. Three hun.
dred and sixty-five revolutions in &
year and forward rather than 365 revo.
buttons in a years and
But hear we, hear we, while I tell yoJ
how you may practically live you life
over again and be all the better for it
You may put into the remaining years
of your life all you have learned of wis
dom in your past life. You may make
the coming 10 years worth the preceding
40 or so years. When a man says hi
would like to live his life over agar
because he would do so much better
and yet goes right on living as he ha:
always lived, do you not see he stulti
fes himself? He proves that if he coult
go back he would do almost the sam,
as he has done.
If a man eat green apples some Wed
nesday in cholera time and is thrown
into fearful cramps and says on Thurs
day, Il wish 1 had been more pruden
in my diet: oh, if 7 could live Wednes
day over again" and then on FRIDAY
eats apples just as green, he proves tina
it would have been no advantage 70,
him to live Wednesday over again. An
if we, deploring our past life, and witt
i fha ;I1o 0f