The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1899-01-04
Soicts q Share of Your Valued Patronage. Prompt ad PoHe At1ehtnn

the matter Of safety, whether you go
now or 60 some other year-whether
this year or the next year. Both your
feet on the rock, the waves may dash
around you. You can say, "God is our
refuge and s%trength-a very present
help" You are en- the rock, and you
may defy all eaAh and hell to over
throw you. 1 congratulate yen. lgive
you great joy. 1t is happy new year
to you.
l can see no sorrow at all in the fact
that our years are going. You hear some
people say. II wish | could go back
again to boyhood." would rot vast
to 60 back again to boyhood. l am
afraid l might make a worse life out of
it than l have made. You could not
afford to go back to Doyhood if it were
possible. You might do a great deal
worse than you have done. The past is
gone! Look out for the future! 10 all
Christians it is a time of gladness. l
am glad the years are going. You are
coming on nearer home. Let your q
tenance light up with the thought
nearer homel
Now, when one can sooner get to the
center of things is be not to be con-
graduated? Who wants to be always in
the freshman class? We study God III
this world by the Biblical photograph
of him, but We all know we can in five
minutes of interview with a friend get
a more accurate idea Of him than we
can by studying him SO years through
pictures or words. The little child that
died at six months Of age knows more
of God than all Andover and all Prince
ton and all New Brunswick.
The Center OF the Wheel.
Does not our common sense teach US
that it is better to be at the center than
to be clear cut On the rim Of the wheel,
holding ~pervously fast to the tire lest
we be suddenly buried into light and
eternal felicity? Through all kinds of
optical instruments trying to peer in
through the cracks and the keyholes of
beaven-afraid that both doors of the
celestial mansion will be swung wide
open before our entranced vision-rush-
ing about among the %apothecary shops
of this world wondering if this is good
for rheumatism and that is good for
neuralgia ard something else is good
for a bad cough, lest we be suddenly
ushered into a land Of everlasting health
where the inhabitant never says, Il am
sickr"
What fools we all are to prefer the
circumference to the center. What a
dreadful thing it would be if we should
be suddenly ushered from this wintry
world into the May time orchards OF
heaven, and if our pauperism of sin and
sorrow should be suddenly broken up
by a presentation of an emperor's castle
surrounded by parks with springing
fountains and paths, up and down
which angels of God walk two and two!
In 1885 the French resolved that at
Client they would have a kind of mu-
steal demonstration that had never been
beard of. 1t would be made up Of the
chimes of bells and the discharge Of
nnon The experiment was a.perfect
success. What with the ringing of the
bells and the report of the ordnance the
city trembled and the hills shook with
the triumpbal march thai was as strange
as it was overwhelming. With a most
glorious accompaniment will Gods
dear children go into their high resi-
dence when the trumpets shall sound
and the last day has come. At the sig
nal given the bells of the towers, and
Of the lighthouses, and of the cities
will strike their sweetness into a last
chime that shall ring into the heavens
and float off upon the sea, joined by the
boom of bursting mine and magazine,
augmented by all the cathedral towers
of heaven-the harmonies of earth and
the symphonies of the celestial realm
making up one great triumphal march,
fit to celebrate the ascent of the re-
deemed to where they shall shine as the
stars forever and ever.