Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1899-04-14
NUMBER ID.

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than now inhabit the earth. Gambling
saloons and rummeries, and places
where dissoluteness reigns supreme,
enough in number to so round aud
round the earth. Discouragements,
iealousies, revenges, malevolences, dis
appointments, swindles, arsons, conila-
grations and cruelties which make con-
tinued existence of the human race
wonderment Was any valuable bun
die ever so imperiled as this bundle of
life? Oh look at the address and get
that bundle going in the right way!
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and soul, and mind, and
strength" Heaven with its l2 gates
standing wide open with invitation. All
the forces of the Godhead pledged for
cur heavenly arrival II we will do he
right thing. All angeldom ready for
our advance aud guidance. All The
lightnings of Heaven so many drawn
swords for our protection. What
pity, what an everlasting pity, If this
bundle Of life, so well bound and so
plainly directed, does not come out at
the right station, but becomes a lost
bundle, cast out amid the rubbish of
the universe!
Know also that this bundle of life will
be gladly received when it comes to the
door of the mansion for which il was
bound and plainly directed, With what
alacrity, and glee we await some pack
age that has been foretold by letter;
some holiday presentation; something
that will enrich and ornament our
home; some testimony of admiration
and affection With what glow of ex-
pectation we unite the knot and take off
the cord that holds it together in safe
| ty, and with what glad exclamation we
unroll the covering and see the gift or
purchase in all its beauty of color and
proportion. Well, what day it will
be when your precious bundle of life
shall be opened in the house of "many
mansions amid sanity and angelic
and Divine inspection! The bundle may
be spotted with the marks of much ex-
posture. 1t may bear inscription after
inscription to tell through what ordeal
ii has passed. Perhaps spashed OF wave
and scorched of flame, but all ii has
within unchanged of the journey. And
with what shouts of JOY the bundle of
life will be greeted by all the voices Of
the heavenly home circle!
In our anxiety at last to reach Heaven
we are apt TO lose sight Of the glee or
welcome that awaits us if we get in at
all. We all have friends up there. They
will somehow hear that we are coming.
Such close and swift and constant COM
munication is there between those up
lands and these lowlands that we will
not surprise them by sudden arrival
If loved ones on earth expect our COM
ing visit and are at the depot with car
riage to meet us, surely we will he met
at the shining gate by old friends now
sainted and kindred now glorifed. If
there were no angel of God to meet us
and show us the palaces and guide us to
our everlasting residence, these kin
dred would show us the way and point
out the splendors and guide us TO our
celestial home, powered and fountained
and arched and illumined by a sun that
never sets. viii it not be glorious, the
going in and the settling down after
all the moving about and upsettings OF
earthly experience? We will soon know
all our neighbors, kingly, queenly,
prophetic, apostolic, seraphic, archan-
gelic. The precious bundle of life
opened amid palaces and grand marches
and accamatons, They will all be so
glad we have got safely through. They
saw us down here in the struggle. They
saw us when we lost our way. They
knew when we got off the right course.
None of the 80 ships that were overdue
at New York harbor in the storm OF
week before last was greeted so heart
ily by friends on the dock or the steam
tugs that went out to meet them at
Sandy Hook as we will be greeted in the
heavenly world if by the pardoning
and protecting grace OF God we come
TO celestial wharfage. We shall have
to tell them Of the many wrecks that we
have passed on the way across wild seas
and amid Caribbean cyclones. 1t will
be like our arrival some years ago from
New Zealand at Sydney, people sur
prised that we got in at all, because we
were two days late, and some of the
ships expected had gone 10 the bottom,
and we had passed derelicts and aban-
doned crafts all up and down that aw.
mi channel-our arrival in Heaven all
the more rapturously welcomed be-
cause Of the doubt as TO whether we
would ever get there at ALL
Once there it will be found that the
safety of that precious bundle of life
was assured because it was bound IN
with the life of God in Jesus Christ.
Heaven could not afford to have that
bundle lost, because it had been said in
regard to its transportation and safe
arrival: Kept by the power of God
through faith unto complete salvation"
The yeracity Of the heavens is involved
in its arrival. If God should fail to keep
His promise TO just one ransonied soul
the pillars Of Jehovah's throne would
fall, and the foundations Of the eternal
city would crumble, and infinite Eoyer-
ties would dash down all the chalices
and close all the banqueting halls, and
the river of life would change its course,
sweeping everything with desolation,
and frost would blast all the gardens,
and unreasonable sickness Stay the inn
mortals, and the new Jerusalem be-
come an abandoned city,with no chariot
wheel on the streets and no worshipers
in the temple--a dead Pompeii of the
skies, buried Herculaneum Of the
heavens Lest anyone should doubt
the God who cannot lie smtes His on
nipotent hand on the side of His throne
| and takes affidavit denlar RIM. "a L