The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-05-06

at this matter as a self denial on your
part for their benefit. If your children
want to go off in a May day party, if
your children want to go on a .fiOwery
and musical excursion, you consent
You might prefer to have them with
you, but their jubilant absence salts
fies you. Well, you departed children
have only gone out on a May day
party, amid fiowery and musical en-
~tertainment, amid joys and hilarities
forever. That thought ought to quell
some Of your grief, the thought of their
glee.
So it ought to be hat o could
mako the best Of all bereavements.
The fact that you have so many
friends in heaven will make your own
departure very cheerful. When you
are going on a voyage, everything de-
Ponds upon where your friends are
if they are on the wharf that you leave
or on the wharf toward which you are
going to sail. In other words, the
more friends here the more bitter
goodbys; the more friends there the
more glorious welcomes. Some Of you
have so many brothers, sisters, chill
dren, friends in heaven that l do not
know hardly how you are going o
crowd through. When the vessel
came from foreign lands and brought
a prince to our harbor, the ships were
covered with bunting, and you remem-
Der how the men-Of-war %thundered
brOadsides, but there was no JOY there
compared with the JOY which shall be
demonstrated when you sail up the
broad bay of heavenly salutation. The
more friends you have there the easier
your own transit. What is death to
a mother whose children are in heav-
en-? Why, there is no more grief in it
than there is in her going into a nur-
sery amid the romp and laughter of
her household. Though all around
may be dark, see you not the bright
light in the clouds-that light the ir-
radiated faces of your glorified kim
dred?
MAKING THE WORST OF THINGS.
So, also, my friends, 1 would have
o make the best Of your ~sicknesses.
When you see one move off with elias
tic step and in full physical vigor,
sometimes you become impatient with
you lame foot. When a man de-
scribes an object a mile off, and you
cannot see it at all, o become inn
hear of a we'll man making a great
achievement, become impatient with
depressed nervous system or your di-
l%apidated health. I 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 ag-
gravated, and your weakness more ap~
FALLING. But that is the devils 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
ycNr attention? You say, Moses, Job,
David, jeremiah, Paul. Why, what a
strange thing it is that you have
CHOSEN those who were physically dis
ordered! Moses-I know he was nerv-
u from the clip he gave the Egyp-
tan. Job-his blood was vituated
and diseased, and his skin d~istressful-
ly eruptive. David-he had a running
sore, which he speaks of wnen he says.
My sore ran in the night and ceased
not Jeremiah had enlargement. Of
the spleen. Who can doubt it who
reads Lamentations? Paul-he had
a lifetime sickness which the COM
mentatOrs have been guessing about
years, not knowing exactly what the
apostle meant by "a thorn il the
fiesh.' I do not know either, but it
was something sharp, something that
stuck him. l gather from all this that
physical disorder may be the means
OF grace to the soul. You say you
have 60 many temptations from bodily
and if you were only we'll you
think you could be a good Christian.
While your temptations may be differ
enr they are no more than those of the
man who has an appetite three times
a day and sleeps eight hours every
night.
VIEWS OF HEAVEN.