The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-12-04
IN MEMORY OF THE DEAD
Services Held by the He'll Gate
Lodge of Elks.
SERMON BY REV. LINLEY
The Message OF the Day Told in Flo
qusnt Words-Preparing for the
Dawn OF the Everlest-
ing Day.

Missoua, Dec 3,-The memorial
services of He'll Gate lodge of Ellks We're
held tonight at the Church of the Holy
Spirit where the memorial sermon was
delivered by Rev. c. II. Linley The
sermon was as follows:
20 death, where is thy sting? o
grave, where is thy victory?" Corn-
thians XIV, 3d.
Brother Elks: According to our
grand lodge laws, the first Sunday in
December of each year is dedicated to a
sacred session. On that day every
lodge of Elks throughout our country
commentaries the memories of our de-
parted brothers. 1t is known to us as
the 'Elks' Memorial day" And so to-
night we have adjourned from this SEES
sion to meet in Gods house that we
may hear of this wonderful mystery of
death. which shall one day enter into
our lives and close them in mortalitys
sleep. 1t is no new thing.
The hills. rockribbed and ancient as
the sun;
The wales, stretching in pensive quiet
ness between;
The venerable woods rivers that move
in majesty
And the complaining brooks that
makes the meadows green;
And poured round all, old oceans gray
and melancholy waste
Are but the solemn decorations, all, of
the great tomb of man."
Death is everywhere. We cross the
waters and enter Italy's fair Naples.
Upon the shores of it's lovely bay fair
ifSr yX-hN 10 Tnr
riot with song, whose temples waited
sweet incense to the heavens and whose
streets We're filled with busy throngs of
men. The earthquake came, deluge
of fiery ashes fell and she became the
city of the dead To-day. her ro0fless
walls pillared columns, are silent mon
uments of the past.
We turn to history and its pages are
filled with the deeds of empires in
whose strong grasp kingdoms We're
held, into whose Golfers the nations of
the earth paid tribute and whose armies
We're as the sands CT the seashore. men
without number. To-day the archaeolo-
Gist. with spade in hand uncovers
those buried yesterday. THE proudest
monuments of human art moulder into
dust. The works of nature wax old and
decay"
We talk about death; we behold its
ravages almost daily sad professions
led by it to the grave. and vet how
much, after all, do we really know of
it's mysteries and invisible messages?
This we see around us-tired nature
wearied with her work, laying down
her cares. The heart that has been
moved to sympathy or swelled with
misunderstanding its beat; the tongue,
whose elouuence has moved or SANDER
poisoned-lying strangely silent; the
eyes that have fondly gaZed or tiercely
misunderstanding in uplifted stare: ana
when we look upon the silent form with
clasped hands, an answer comes: This
is death. To sleep, to rest, to end the
heartaches of life, an entrance into
where the wicked cease from troubling
and the weary are at rest.
And so the pale rider of death goes
forth into mans home and touching
one, calls him away, whilst fearful
eyes and breaking hearts follow his
chariot wheels to where the dead reign
alone.
so shalt thou rest.
The gay will laugh when thou art gone,
The solemn brood of care plod on;
And each one, as before, will chase his
favorite phantom,
Yet all these shall leave their mirth and
their employments
TO make their bed with thee, one by
one
And then, the poet. touched with the
inspiration which comes from our text,
20 death, where is thy sting?" con-
tinues:
so live that when thy summons come
to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade where each
shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go, not like the quarry slave at
night.
Scourged to his dungeon but sustained
and soothed
BY an unfaltering trust, approach thy
grave
Like one who wraps the draperes of
his couch
About him and lies down to pleasant
Dreams
Looking at death we are led to think
of two things especially touched upon
by the apostle in the words of the text
20 DEATH where is thy sting in which
he tells us that the sting of death is sin
and then he speaks Of thanks being
given to God for the greatest victory
that we can win over death through our
Lord, Jesus Christ. The sting of death,
that which hurts, rankles, poisons and
kills, he calls the law of sin and death
as opposed to the law of the Spirit of
Life. Under that law of sin and DEATH
man sins, man dies. We do not enter
into any question how or when he
sinned or whether he figuratively or
literally was told of a certain fruit,
Thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die" Whatever way We take
it, man broke the command of the
Most High, sinned and died. not, l take
it, purely physical death, for death
preyed upon life long before man be-
came the living, spiritual being that
God made him, but 1t was to have a
mortal body and a soul dead in tres
passes and sins. If the temptation had
been resisted and overcome, mans pass
ing away might have been a falling
asleep; falling into sleep. as one has
said, like as a gentle nurse puts the
child to sleep, then to wake on the
sweet morn of eternity's day. To un-
fallen Adam, death would be no death.
He walks his earthly course of hun
dredS of years and then in the even