The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-11-11

4Q0ed- NsI one anger VIII De B0nes hut /
one hierarch gone, not n OF your
practicing the music viii be better. the
procession will be longer, the rainbow
brighter, the coronation grander. Heav- |
with magnificent addenda. Why
viii you complain when you are only
waiting for something better.
ALWAYS BRIGHT.
gard to the changes in heaven and the
new improvements in heaven is because
4 think 1t Will be a consolation to busy
and enterprising good people. ! see
very well that you have not much taste
for q heaven that was all o n and
finished centuries ago. After you have
beer active forty or fifty or sixty years
it would be d shock to stop you sud-
denly and forever, but here is a pro-
gressive heaven, an ever accumulative
heaven, vast enterprise on foot there
before the throne of God. Aggressive
knowledge, aggressive goodness, ag-
gressiye power, aggressive grandeur.
You will not have to come and sit down
on the banks of the river of life in ever
lasting ~inoccupation. Oh, busy men, I
tell you Of a heaven where there is
something to do! hat is the meaning
of the passage, They rest not day nor
night" In the lazy n of resting.
I speak these words on h changes
in eaven and the new Improvements
in heaven also because / want to cure
some of you Of the delusion that your
departed Christian friends have gone
into dizziness and silence and uncon-
seriousness. They are in a stirring, pic
turesque, radiant, ever accumulative
scene. When they left their bodies,
they only got rid of the last hindrance.
v1I-,x - Or-a1I
Hill or Noun Auburn than you in holi-
day attire, having seated yourself at a
banquet, can be said to be in a dark
closet where you have left the old ap-
parel that was not fit to wear to the
banquet. A soldier cannot use a sword
until he has unsheathed it, and the
body of you departed was only the
sheath of a bright and glittering spirit
which God has lifted and is swaying n
the heavenly triumph. According to
what I am telling you at present, YOU
departed Christian friends did not go
so much into the company of the mar
tyrs, and the apostles, and the pro-
phets, and the ~potentates of heaven as
into the of grandfather and
grandmother, and the infant sister that
tarried just long enough to absorb you
tenderest affection, and all the home
circle. When they landed, it was not
as you land in Antwerp o r Hamburg
or Havre, wandering up a strange
wharf, looking at strange faces, ask
ing for a strange hotel. They landed
amid your glorified relatives, who were
waiting to greet them.
NO FROZEN SPLENDOR.
Oh, does not this bring heaven near
err? Instead of being far off, it comes
down just now, and it puts it's arms
ornl1n1 n1r nanIc on6 Un fool ire hroofh
on our faces. 1t melts the frigid splen-
dor of the conventional heaven into a
domestic scene. It m very close to
us. If We had u choice in heaven,
whom would we first see? Rather than
look at the great p~Otentates of heaven
we Woul meet our loved ones. I var
to see Moses INC Paul and Joshua, but
I woul a great deal rather see my
father, who went away thirty years
ago. I want to see the great Bible he
roines, Deborah and Hannah and Abb
gail, but I would rather see my mother
han to see the archangel.
n alto wd .htsi otlnkiI KPawaydkw
I do not think it was suDerstitious
when, n Wednesday night, I stood by
a deathbed within a few blocks Of the
church where I preached, and on the
same street, and saw one OF he aged
Christians of the church going into
SiOIy. AllcI L Hdu pIdySu Will u0I L
said to her: I'VE nave all loved you
very much and will always cherish
your memory in the Christian church.
You will see my son before I see him.,
and l wish o would give him our
love" She said, II will, I WILL" and in
twenty minutes she was in heaven
the last words she ever spoke. 1t was
a swift message to the skies. If you
had your choice between riding in a
heavenly chariot and occupying the
grandest palace in heaven. and sitting
on the throne e. highest to the throne
of God and not seeing your departed
loved ones, and on the other hand
dwelling in the humblest place in heav-
en-, without crown or throne, and with
out scepter, yet having your loved ones
around o you would choose the lat
ter. I say these things because I want
you to know it is a domestic heaven,
and consequently it is all the time i'm
proving. Every one hat goes up
makes it a brighter place, and the at
fractions are increasing month by
month and day by day, and heaven. so
vastly more of a heaven, a thousand
times more of heaven, than it used to
be, will be a better heaven yet. oh. I
say this to intensity your anticipation.
THE JUBILEE.
1 enter HEAVIER one day. It is almost
empty. / enter the temples of worship,
and there are no worshipers. 1 walk
down the street, and there are no pas
sengers. L go into the orchestra, and 1
find the instruments are suspended in
he baronial halls of heaven, the
great organs Of eternity, with multi
tudinous banks of keys, are closed. But
l see a shining one at the gate , as
though he We're standing on guard, and
l say: Sentinel, what does this mean?
l thought heaven was a %populous city.
Has there been some great plague
sweeping off the population" Have
you not heard the news?" says the
sentinel. There is a world burning,
there is a great conf1agration out yon-
der, and all heaven has gone out to
look at the conf1agration and take the
victims out of the ruins. This is the
day for which all other days are made.
This is the Judgment. This morning
all the chariots, and the cavalry, and
the mounted infantry rumbled and gall
Hoped down the sky" After I had lis
tnrn1 RI tho sarf;roI r 41lro 1cc 49,