Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-08-05

is all four Christian dead did not go
down into the dust and the gravel and
the mud. Though it rained all that
funeral day, and the water came up to
the wheels hub as you drove out to
the cemetery, it made no difference TO
them, for they stepped from the home
here to the home there, right into the
ivory palaces. All is well with them.
All is well.
1t is not a dead weight that you lift
when you carry Christian out. Jesus
makes the bed up soft with velvet
here very gently. Put that head which
will never aclfe again on this pillow
of hallelujahs. Send up word that the
procession is coming. Ring the bells
Ring! Open your gates, We ivory pal
acesw And so your loved ones are
there. They are just as certainly there.
having died in Christ, as that You are
here. There is only one thing more
they want Indeed, there is one thing
in heaven they have not got. They
want it. What is it? Your company.
But oh, my brother, unless you change
your tack you cannot reach that har-
Dor. You might as well take the
Southern Pacific railroad, expecting
in that direction to reach Toronto, as
to go on in the way some of you are
going, and yet expect to reach the
ivory palaces. Your loved ones are
looking out of the windows of heaven
now, and yet you seem TO turn your
back upon them. You do not seem to
know the sound of their voices as well
as you used to or to be moved by the
sight of their dear faces. Call louder,
We departed onesl Call louder from
the ivory palaces.
Mystery Solved.
When think of that place and think
of my entering it, feel awkward.
feel as sometimes when | have been
exposed to the weather, and my shoes
have been bemired, and my coat is
soiled, and my hair is disheveled, and
/ stop in front of some fine residence
where | have an errand. l feel not
fit to 90 in as am and sit among the
guests. So some of us feel about heav-'
en-. We need to be washed; we need
to be rehabilitated before we go into
the ivory palaces. Eternal God, let
the surges of thy pardoning mercy roll
over us. l want not only to wash my
hands and my feet; but, like some
skilled diver, standing on the pier
head, who leaps into the wave and
comes up at far distant point from
where he went in, so l want to go
down, and so l want to come up o
Jesus, wash me in the waves Of thy
salvation!
And here l ask you to solve a mys-
terry that has been expressing me for
80 years. have been asking it of
studying theology half a century, and
they have given me no satisfactory
answer. | have turned over all the
books in my library, but got no solu
ton to the question, and today l come
and ask you for an explanation. By
what logic was Christ induced to ex-
change the ivory palaces of heaven
for the cruclhXlon agonieS OF earth!
shall take the first thousand million
years in heaven to study out that prob
lem; meanwhile and now taking it as
the tenderest, mightiest of all facts
that Christ did come, that he came
with spikes in his feet, came with
thorns in his brow, came with spears
in his heart, TO save you and to save
me. "God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son, that who
soeyer believeth in him should not per-
ish, but have everlasting life" o
Christ, whelm all our souls with thy
compassion! Now them down like
summer grain with the harvesting
sickle of thy grace! Ride through to-
day the conqueror, thy garments smell
ing 'of myrrh and aloes and cassia
out of the ivory palaces