Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1898-05-05

Is the loss OF children. II
your departed child had lived as long
as you have lived, do you not suppose
that he would have had about the same
amount Of trouble and trial that you
have had? If you could make choice
for your child between forty years of
loss, vexation, exaspera-
ton and bereavements, and forty years
In heaven, would you take the respon-
sibility of choosing the former? Would
you snatch away the cup of eternal
bliss and put into that child's hands the
cup of many bereavements? Instead
OF the complete safety into which that
child has been lifted, would you like
to hold it down to the risks of this
mortal state? Would you like to keep
1t out on sea in which there have
been more shipwrecks than safe voy-
ages? Is it not a comfort to you to
know that that child, instead of being
besoiled and flung into the mire of sin,
is swung clear into the skies? Are not
those children to be congratulated that
the point of celestial bliss which you
expect to reach by pilgrimage of fifty
or sixty or seventy years. they reached
at flash? If the last ten thousand
children who had entered heaven had
gone through the average of human
life on earth, are you sure all those ten
thousand children would have finally
reached the blissful terminus? Besides
that, my friends, you are to look at
this matter as self-denial on your
part for their benefit. If your children
want to go off in May-day party; If
your children want to go on flowery
and musical excursion, you consent.
You might prefer to have them with
you, but their jubilant absence salts
fies you. Well, your departed children
have only gone out in May-day par
ty, amid fowery and musical entertain
ment, amid joys and hilarities forever.
That ought to quell some of your grief,
the thought of their glee.
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 plan
ct, and all the flowers he ever grew he
has woven into the carpet of our dais-
led 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
land because there are more blossoms
in that week than in any other week of
the year. Blossom week! And that
is what the future world is to which
the Christian is invited-blossom week
forever. It is as far ahead of this
world as Paradise is ahead of Dry Tor
tugas, and yet here we stand shivering
and fearing to go out, and we want to
stay on the dry sand, and amid the
stormy petrels, when we are invited to
arbors of jessamine and birds of par
adise.
One season I had two springtimes.
I went to New Orleans in April, and
I marked the difference between going
toward New Orleans and then coming
back. AS went on down toward New
Orleans the verdure, the foliage, be-
came thicker and more beautiful. When
I came back, the further I came toward
home the less the foliage, and less and
less it became until there was hardly
any. Now, it all depends upon the di-
rection in which you travel. If
spirit from heaven should come toward
our world, he is travelling from June
toward December, from radiance to-
ward darkness, from hanging gardens
toward icebergs. And one would not
be very much surprised if spirit of
God sent forth from heaven toward our
world should be slow to come. But
how strange it is that we dread going
out toward that world when going is
from December toward June-from the
snow of earthly storm to the snow Of
Edenic blossom-from the arctics Of
trouble toward the tropics of eternal
joy.
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 MINISTRIES and hallelujah,
no inducement. Let us stay here and
keep cold and ignorant and weak. Do
not introduce us to Elijah, and John
Milton and Bourdaloue. Keep our feet
on the sharp cobble-stones of earth in
stead of planting them on the bank of
amaranth in heaven. Give us this
small island of leprous world instead
of the immensities of splendor and de-
light. Keep our hands full of nettles,
and our shoulder under the burden,
and our neck in the yoke, and topples
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 and rejoice"
am amazed at myself and at your
self for thu 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. I
congratulate anybody who has right
to die. BY that I mean through sick