The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-04-29

health. will tell you how you can
make the wors; 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 tls3 devils work, to tell
you how to make the worst of it; it is
my work to show you brighter light
in the clouds.
Again, you ought to make the best
of life's fnality. Now, you think /
have very tough subject, You do
not see how | am to strike spark of
light out of the fling of. the tombstone.
There are many people who have an
idea that death is the subnergence of
everything pleasant by everything
doleful. If my subject could close in
the upsettiug of all such preconceived
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? "Oh,' you say,
''those can Judge best of the features
of 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 re-
pulsi,c? You? Iou are too far off.
If want to get Judgment as to what
really the features ~ death are, will
not ask you; ! vii, ask those who
have been within " luunta " death, or
a week of death, or " huu. -, death,
or minute of death. !uc, stand 80
near the features they ca ',i. They
give unanimous testimony Cd they are
Christian people, that death, instead
of being dcmoniac, is cherubic. Of all
the thousands of Christians who nave
been carried through the gates of the
cemetery, gather up their dying cX.
periences, and you will find they near
! ~ all bordered ON a jubilatc. How
often YOU have seen Il dying man join
in the psalm being sung around his
bedside, the middle of the verse OPEN
ing to let his ransomed spirit free
long after the lips could not speak,
looking and pointing upward.
| Some of you talk as though God had
exhausted himself in building this
world, and that all the rich curtains
he ever made he hung around this
| planet and all the flowers he ever
grew he has 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.
Oh, what an ado about dying We
get so attached to the malarial marsh
in which we live that we are afraid to
go up and live on the hilltop. We are
alarmed because vacation is coming.
Eternal sunlight, and best programme
of celestial minstrels and halleluiah,
no inducement. Let us stay here and
keep cold and ignorant and weak. Do
not introduce MS to Elijah. and John
Milton and Bourdaloue. Keep our
feet on the sharp cobblestones of earth
instead of planting them on the bank
of amarath in Heaven. Give us this
small island of leprouS world i'm
stead of the immensities of splendor
and delight. Keep our hands full of
nettles and our shoulders under the
burden, and our neck in the yoke. and
hoppIes on our ankles and handouts
on our wrists. Dear Lord" we seem
to say, keep us down here where we
have to suffer, instead of letting us up
where we might live and reign aud re-
joice."
am amazed at myself and at your
self for this infatuation under which
we all rest. Men, You would suppose
would get frightened at having to stay
in this world instead of getting fright
ened at having to go toward Heaven.
| congratulate anybody who has a
right to die. by that | mean through
81
accident you cannot avoid-your work
consummated. Where did they bury
Lily?" said one little child to another.
"Oh," she replied, they buried her in
the ground" "Oh, no. no; not in the
cold ground, but in the warm ground,
where ugly seeds become beautiful
flowers"
But, says one, sit pains me so
much to think that | must lose the
body with which my soul has so long
companioned." You do not lose it..
You no more lose your body by death
than you lose your watch when you
send it to have it repaired or your
jewel when you send it to have it re-
set, or the faded picture when you
send il to have 1t touched up. or the
| photograph OF iTIenu Nheu you nave
it put in a new locket. You do not
lose your body. Paul will go to Rome
to get his Payson will go to portland
to get his, President Edwards will go
to Princeton to get his, George Cook
man will go to the bottom of the
Atlantic to get his, and we will go to
the village churchyard and the city
cemeteries to get ours; and when we
have our perfect spirit rejoined to on
perfect body, then we will be the kind
of men and women that the resurroc-
tion morning will make possible.