Connecticut western news., 1898-03-17

ter, George Bancroft, sit down with him at his table, hut tell me, ye who know most of the worlds history, what other king ever asked the abandoned and the forlorn and the wretched and the out cast to come and sit beside him?
 Oh, wonderful invitation You can take 1t today and stand at the head of the darkest alley in any city and say "Comel Clothes for your rags, salve for your sores, a throne for your eternal reigning." A Christ that talks like that and acts like that and pardons like that -do you wonder that Stephen stood looking at him? I hope to spend eternity doing the same thing. must see him. 1 must look upon that face once olouded with my sin, but now radiant with my pardon. I want to touch that hand that knocked off my shackles. want to hear that voice which pronounced my deliv- erance. Behold him, little children, for if you live to threescore years and ten you will see none so fair. Behold him, ye aged ones, for he only can shine through the dimness of your failing eyesight. Behold him, earth. Behold him, heaven. What moment when all the nations of the saved shall gather around Christ All faces that way. All thrones that way, gazing on Jesus.
 His worth if all the nations knew
 Sure the whole earth would love him too.
 Death of Martyr.
 I pass on now and look at Stephen stoned. The world has always wanted to get rid of good men. Their very life is an assault upon wiokedness. Out with Stephen through the gates of the city. Down with him over the precipices. Let every man come up and drop stone upon his head. But these men did not so much kill Stephen as they killed themselves. Every stone rebounded upon them. While these murderers were transfixed by the scorn of all good men, Stephen lives in the admiration of all Christendom. Stephen stoned, but Stephen alive. So all good men must be pelted. All who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution. It is no eulogy of a man to say that every body likes him. Show me any one who is doing all his duty to state or church, and I will show you men who utterly abhor him.
 If all men speak we'll of you, 1t Is be- cause you are either laggard or dolt. If a steamer makes rapid progress through the waves, the water will boil and foam all around 1t. Brave soldiers of Jesus Christ will hear the carbines click. When see man with voice and money and influence all on the right side, and some caricature him, and some sheer at him, and some denounce him, and men who pretend to be actuated by right motives conspire to cripple him, to cast him out, to destroy him, say, Stephen stoned"
 When see man in some great mor- al or religious reform battling against grogshops, exposing wiokedness in high places, by active means trying to puri- fy the church and better the worlds es- tate, and I find that some of the news papers anathematize him, and men, even good men, oppose him and de- nounoe him, because, though he does good, he does not do it in their way, say, "Stephen stoned. The world, with infinite spite, took after John Frederick Oberlin and Paul and Stephen of the text. But you notice. my friends. that while they assaulted him they did not succeed really in killing him. YdS may assault good man, but you cannot kill him.
 The Way to the City.
 On the day of his death Stephen spoke before few people in the sanhedrin; now he addresses all Christendom. Paul the apostle stood on Mars hill address ing handful of philosophers who knew not so much about science. as modern schoolgirl. Today he talks to all the millions of Christendom about the won- ders of justification and the glories of John Wesley was howled down by the mob to whom he preached, and they threw bricks at him, and they denounced him, and they jostled him, and they spat upon him, and yet today. in all lands, he Is admitted to be the great father of Methodism. Booths bull let vacated the presidential chair, but from that spot of ooagulated blood on the floor in the box of Ford's theater there sprang up the new life of nation. Stephen stoned. but Stephen alive.
 Pass on now and see Stephen in his dying prayer. His first thought was not how the stones hurt his head nor what would become of his body. His first thought was about his spirit. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. The murder CT standing on the trapdoor, the black cap being drawn over his head before the execution, may grimaee about the future, but you and have no shame in confessing some anxiety about where we are going to come out. You are not all body. There is within you soul. l see it gleam from your eyes, and l see 1t irradiating your countenanoe. Some simes am abashed before an audience, not because come under their physical eyesight, but because realize the truth that stand before so many immortal spirits. The probability is that your body wLl at last find sepuloher in some of the cemeteries that surround your town or city. There Is no doubt but that your obsequies will be decent and respectful, and you will be able to phkAOw yOhA hCdu ahoCk bhO AhhP3O Ok the Norway spruce or the cypress or the blossoming fir. But this spirit about which Stephen prayed-what direction will that take9 What guide will escort it? What gate will open to receive iti What cloud will be cleft for its path way? After it has got beyond the light of our sun will there be torches lighted for 1t the rest of the wayi Will the. soul have to travel through long deserts before 1t reaches the good land? If we should lose our pathway, will there be a castle at whose gate we may ask the way to the city? Oh, this mysterious spirit within us It has two wings, but 1t is in a cage now. It is locked fast to keep it, but let the door of this cage open the least and that soul is off. Eagles wing could not catch it. The