The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1899-08-11

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
promises, and he says, put her down
here very gently. Put that head which
will never ache again on this pillow OF
hallelujahs Send up word that the
procession is coming. Ring the bells!
Ring! Open your gates, yesivory pal
aces" 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 we'll take the South
ern 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 pala-
ces. 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 we'll as you used to, or
to be moved by the sight Of their dear
faces. Call louder, We departed ones!
Call louder from the ivory palaces!"
When I think of that place and think
of my entering it, feel awkward; I
feel as sometimes when | have been ex-
posed 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. feel not fit
to go in as I am, and sit among the
guests. So some of us feel about
heaven. 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
rel over us! want not only to wash
my hands and my feet, but, like some
skilled diver, standing on the pier
head, who leaps into wave and comes
up at far distant point from where he
went in, so I want to go down, and SO
l want to come up. Jesus, wash me
in the waves of thy salvation!
And here l ask you to solve mys-
terry that has been depressing me for
thirty years. l have been asking 1t OF
doctors of divinity who have been
studying theology for half century.
and they have given me no satisfactory
answer. l have turned over all the
books in my library but got no solution
to the question, and today l come and
ask you for an explanation. BY what
logic was Christ induced to exchange
the ivory palaces of heaven for the
crucifixion agonies of earth? l shall
take the first thousand million years
in heaven to study out that problem;
meanwhile, and now, taking 1t 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 whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life" Oh, Christ.
whelm all our souls with thy compass
sion! Now them down like summer
grain with the harvesting sickle of thy
grace! Ride through today the con-
queror, thy garments smelling OF
myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out or
the ivory palaces!