The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1898-03-12

ing. What / do thou lknowcst not
now: but thou shalt know hereafter. v
Nou will know why God took TO Him
self that only child Next door there
was Il household Of seven children.
WHY not take Il from that group,
instead of our only one: Why single
ont the dwelling in which there vas
oniv one heart beating responsive to
vours? Why did Coo give you n
child at all. if He meant to take il
away? Why fill the cup OF your glad
ness Drumming, II he meant to dash it
down. Why allow the tendrilS of your
heart to wind around that object. and
then, when every fiber Of your own
life seemed to be iutorlocked with the
child's life, with strong hand to tear
You apart, until you fall, bleeding and
crushed, your dwelling desolate, your
hopes blasted, your heart broken? Do
you suppose that God will explain that?
Yea. He will lake it palmer than
any mathematical problem-as plain as
thai two and two make four. In the
light of the throne you will see that
it was right-all right. just and
true are all thy ways, thou King of
saiuts!'
Here is a man who cannot get IN in
the world. He always seems to buy at
the wrong time and to sell at the worst
disadvantage. He tries this enter
prise, and fails; that business, and is
disappointed. The man next door to
him has a lucrative trade, but he lacks
customers. A new prospect opens.
His income is increased. But that
year his family are sick; and the profits
are expended in trying to cure the all
---4 IL 80 - ls-a~Yrra-a1 1Anly
Becomes faithless as to success. Be-
gins to expect disasters. Others wait
for something to turn up; he waits for
it to turn down, Others, with only
half as much education and character,
get on twice as well. He sometimes
guesses as to what It means. He says,
Perhaps riches would spoil me. Per-
haps poverty is necessary to keep me
humble. Perhaps l might, If things
were otherwise. be tempted into dissi-
pations." But there is no complete So
luton of the mystery. He sees through
a glass darkly, and must wait for n
higher unfolding. Will there be an
explanation? Yes; God will take that
man in the light of the throne, and
say, ''Child immortal, hear the expla-
nation! You remember the falling Of
that great enterprise-your misfortune
in 1857; your disaster in 1852. This is
the explanation" And you will an
swer, ut is all right"
Isee, every day, profound mysteries
of providence. There is no question
we ask oftener than why? There are
hundreds of graves in Oak hill and
Greenwood and Laurel hill that need
to be explained. Hospitals for the
blind and lame, asylums for the idiotic
and insane. ~almshouses for the desti-
tute and a world of pain and misfor-
tune that demand more than human
solution. All! God will clear it all up.
In the light hat pours from the
throne, no dark mystery can live.
Things now utterly inscrutable will
be iilumined as plainly as though the
answer were written on the jasper
wall, or sounded in the temple an
them. Bartimeus will thank God thnt
he was blind; and Lazarus that he was
covered with sores; and Joseph that he
was cast into the pit; and Daniel that
he WIGS denned with lions; and Paul
hat he vas humpbaeked; and David
that he was driven from J~erusalem;
and that the sewing-woman that
she could get only a few pence for
making n garment; and that invalid
hat for 30 years he could not lift his
head from the pillow; and that widow
that she had such hard work to earn
bread for Ter children. You know
hat in a song different voices carry
different parts. The sweet and over
whelming part of the hallelujah of
Heaven will not be carried by those
who rode in high places, and gave
-, -,vNt,ao,rg ~ fa..to IN I'm &c. hut not1nnH
children will sing it, beggars will sing
it, redeemed hod-carrier5 will sing It,
those who were once the o~ff-scouring
of the earth will sing 1t. The hallelu-
jah will be all the grander for earth's
weeping eyes, and aching heads, and
exhausted hands, and scourged backs,
and martyred agonies.
Again: the thought OF the text Is
Just when applied to the enjoyments
of the righteous il Heaven. 1 think
we have but little idea of the number
of the righteous in Heaven. lnfidels
say: Your Heaven will be q very
small place compared with the world
of the lost; for. according to your
teaching, the majority of men will be
destroyed" l deny the charge. ]
suppose that the multitude of the
finally lost as compared with the
multitude of the finally saved, will be
a handful. l suppose that the few
sick people in the hospital to-day, as
compared with the hundreds of thou
sands of well people in the city, would
not be smaller than the number of
those who shall be cast out in suffer
ing, compared with those who shall
have upon them the health of Heaven.
For we are to remember that we are
living in comparatively the beginning
of the Christian dispensation, and that
this world Is to be populated and re-
deemed, and that ages of light and
love are to flow on. If this be so, the
multitudes of the saved will be in vast
majority.
Take all the congregations that nave
to-day assembled for worship. Put
them together and they would make
but a small audience compared with
the thousands and tens of thousands,
and ten thousand times ten thousand,
and the hundred and forty and four
thousand that shall stand around the
throne. Those flashed up to Heaven in
martyr fires; those tossed for many
years upon the invalid couch; those
fought in the armies of liberty, and
rose as they fell; those tumbled from
high scaffoldings, or slipped from the
mast, or were washed off into the sea.
They came up from Corinth. from
Laodicea, from the Red sea bank and
Gennesaret's wave, from Egyptian
brick yards, and Gideon's threshing
floor. Those, thousands of years ago,
slept the last sleep; and those are this
moment having their eyes closed and
their limbs stretched out for the
sepulchre.
We are told that Heaven is a place of
happiness; but what do we know
about ~happiness2 Happiness in this
world is only n halfAedged thing; c
fowery path, with a serpent kissing
across 1t; IA broken pitcher, from which
the water has dropped before we could
drink it; a thrill of -eXhilaration, fol.
lowed by disastrous reactions. To
help Us understand the joy of Heaven,
the Bible takes us to a river. We stand
on the grassy bank. We see the q alter
flow on with ceaseless waves But the
filth of the cities are emptied into it;
and the banks are torn; and unhealthy
exhalations spring up from it; and we
fail to get an iQed OF the river of life