The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1898-04-30

choice for your child between 40 years
of annoyance, loss, vexation, exaspera-
ton and b~ereavements, and 40 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
tile cup of many bereavements? In
stead of the complete safety into which
that child has been lifted, would you
! like to hold it down to the risk of this
mortal state? Would you Iiketo keep it
| out on a sea in which there have been
more shipwrecks than safe voyages?
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 ex-
pect to reach by a pilgrimage OF so or
so or 30 years, they reached at a flash?
If the last 10, 900 children who had en-
tered Heaven had gone through the
! average of human life on earth, are
you sure all those 10, 900 children
would have finally reached the blissful
terminus? Besides that, my friends,
you are to look 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 tiowery and musical excur-
sion, you consent. You might prefer
to have them with you, but their jubi-
lant absence satisfies you. Well, your
departed children have only gone out
in a May-day party, amid tiowery and
musical entertainment, amid joys and
hilarities forever. That ought to quell
some of your grief, the thought of
their glee.
So it ought to be hat you could make
the best of all bereavements. The fact
hat you have SO many friends in
Heaven will make your own departure
very cheerful. When you aregoing on a
voyage, everything depends 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 you
have in Heaven the easier it will be to
get away from this world, The more
friends here, the more bitter goodbys;
the more friends there the more glori-
GUS welcomes. Some of you have so
many brothers, sisters, children, friends
in Heaven. that l do not know hardly
how you are going to crowd through.
When the vessel came from foreign
lands, and brought u prince to our har-
Dor, the ships were covered with bunt-
ing, and you remember how the men
of-war Numbered broadsides. but there
vas 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 u mother whose chill
dren are in Heaven? Why, there is no
more grief in it than there is in her
going into a nursery amid the romp
aud laughter of her household. Though
all around may be dark, see you not
the bright light light in the clouds
hat light the irradiated faces of your
glorifed kindred?
So, also, my friends, l would have
you make the best of your siGknesses.
When you see one move off with elastic
step and in full physical vigor, some
times you become impatient with your
lame foot. When a man describes an
object a mile off, and you cannot see
it at all, you become impatient of your
dim eye. When you hear of a well
man making a great achievement you
become impatient with your depressed
nervous system or your dilapidated
health. 1 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 aggravated,
and you more appalling.
But that is the devils work, to tell
you how to make the worst of it; it Is
my work to show you a brighter light
in the clouds.
Again, you ought to make h best
Of LIES finality. Now. you think l
have a cry tough subject. You do
not see how am to strike a spark of
out of the fling of the tombstone.
are many people who have an
idea thai death is the submergence of
everything pleasant by everything
doleful If my subject could close in
the upsetting of all such preconceiyed
notions, it would close well, Who can
Judge best of the features of a
those who are close by him, or those
who are afar off? "Oh," you say,
''those can Judge best of the features
Of a 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-
You? You are too far of.
II | want to get a Judgment as to what
really the features Of death are, ] will
ask you; I will ask those who
rave been within a month of death, or
4 week of death, or an o u of death,
D. a minute OF death. They stand so
lear h features they can tell. They
rive unanimous testimony If they are
people, that death, instead
If being demoniac, is cherubic. OF all
the thousands of Christians who have
oeen carried through the gates of the
cemetery, gather up their dying ex-
oeriences, and You will find they a
Y all bordered on a jubilate. How
you have seen d dying man join
n the psalm being sung around his
bedside, the middle of the verse open.
ng to let his ransomed spirit free!-
ong after the lips could not speak,
ooking and pointing upward.
Some of you talk as though God had
exhausted himself in building this
world, and hat all the rich curtains
lie ever made he hung around this
planet, and all the flowers he ever
rev he has woven into the carpet Of
,ur daisied meadows. No. This world
s not the best thing God can do; this
world is not the best thing that God
las done.
oh, what An ado about dying. We
so attached to the malarial marsh
n which we live that we are afraid to
70 up and live on the hilltop. We are
because vacation is coming.
eternal sunlight, II best programme
" celestial minstrels and hallelujah,
10 inducement. Let us STAY here and
cold and ignorant and weak. Do
lot Introduce US to Elijah, and John
and Bourdaloue. Keep our
Get on the sharp cobblestones of earth
OF planting them on the bank
4 amarath in Heaven. Give us this
mall island of Q leprous world in
OF the immensities of splendor
nd delight. Keep our hands full of
and IL shoulders under the
and our meek in the yoke, and
.onD1as on OuP ankles and handpufPs