St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1899-09-02

u1lus cry IuHs NuIG tuAS GIOukS A0Au
Iexus! Cure this scarlet fever!" And
,thers: Cure this ophthalmia! Give
.ase and rest to this spinal distress!
straighten this club foot!" Christ
made every house where He stopped y
do not believe that in the
10 centuries which have gone by since.
His heart has got hard. / feel that we
ran come now with all our wounds of
soul and get His benediction. O Jesus,
here we are! We want healing. We
want sight. We want health. We want
life. 'The whole need not a physician.
but they that are sick" Blessed be
God that Jesus Christ comes through
this assemblage now, His garments
of myrrh"--that means fra
aloes"-they mean bitter
sacrifcial melnOries-'.and cassia'-
that means medicine and cure.
According to my text, He comes 'out
of the ivory palaces" You know, or,
Il you do not know, / will tell you now
that some of the palaces of olden time
were adorned with ivory. Ahab and
Solomon had their homes furnished
with it. The tusks of African and Ash
attic elephants were twisted into all
manners of shapes, and there were
stairs of ivory and chairs of ivory and
tables Of ivory and pillars of ivory and
windows of ivory and fountains Of
ivory that dropped into basins of ivory
and rooms that had ceilings of ivory.
Oh, white and overmastering beauty!
Green tree branches sweeping the
white curbe. Tapestry trailing the
snowy floors. Brackets of light fash
ing ON the lustrous surroundings. Sil-
very music rippling on the beach OF the
arches. The mere thought of it almost
stuns my brain, and You say: Oh, II
l could only have walked over such
floors! III could have thrown myself
in such a chair! If ] could have heard
the drip and dash of those fountains!"
You shall have something better than
that if you only let Christ introduce
YOU. From that place He came, and to
that place He proposes to transport you.
for His garments smell OF myrrh and
aloes and cassia out of the ivory pal
aces" What u place Heaven must be!
The Tuileries of the French. the Wind
sor castle of the English, the Spanish
alhambra, the Russian kremlin. are
mere dungeons compared with it! Not
SO many castles ON either side of the
Rhine as on both sides of the river OF God
the ivory palaces! One for the an
gels, insufferably bright, winged. fire
eyed, tempest charioted; one for the
martyrs, with blood red robes from un-
der the altar; one for the King, the
steps of Ills palace the crown of the
church militant; one for the singers,
who lead the one hundred and forty
and four thousand; one for you ran
somcd from sin; one for me, plucked
from the burning. Oh, the ivory PAL
aces!
To-day it seems to me- as if the win
dows of those palaces were illumined
for some great victory, and I look and
see climbing the stairs of ivory and
walking On floors of ivory and looking
from the windows of ivory some whom
we knew and loved on earth. Yes. /
know them. There are father and
mother, not SO years and 70 years as
when they left MS, but biithe and young
as when on their wedding day. And
there are brothers and sisters, merrier
than when we used 10 romp across the
meadows together. The cough gone.
The cancer cured. The erysipelas
healed. The heartbreak over. Oh, how
fair they are in the ivory palaces! And
your dear little children that went out
from you-Christ did not let one of
them drop as He lifted them. He did
not wrench one Of them from you. No.
They went as from one they loved well
to one whom they loved better. II
should take your little child and press
It's soft face against my rough cheek,
might keep it little while; but when
You. the mother, came along it would
struggle to go with you. And so You
stood holding your dying child when
Jesus passed by in the room and the
little one sprang out to greet Him.
That is all. Your 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
uptothe 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 il wen with them.
All is we'll.
1t is not dead weight that you lift
when you carry q Christian out. Jesus
makes the bed up soft with velvet prom
ises. and He says: Put her down here
very gently. Put that head which will
never ache again on this pillcwof halle
Fluiahs. Send up word that the process
sion is coming. Ring the bells. Ring!
Open your gates, We ivory palaces!
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. In
deed, there is one thing in Heaven they
have not got They want it. What is
it? Your company! Eut. oh, my
brother. unless you change your tack
you cannot reach that barbor! You
might as well take the Southern Pa
ciiic railroad. expecting in that direc-
tion to reach Toronto, as to go on in the
way some OF you are going and yet ex-
pect to reach the ivory palaces Your
loved ones are locking out Of the WIN
dows Of Heaven now. and yet you seem
to turn your back upon them. lou 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 ones! Call
louder from the ivory palaces!
| When think of that place and think
of my entering it, 1 feel awkward ! feel
as sometimes when have been exposed
to the weather, and my shoes have been
bemired. and.luy coat is soiled, and my
hair is disheyeled. and stop in front OF
some fine residence where have an err
rand. feel not fit to go in as am and
sit among the guests. So some OF us
feel about Heaven. We need to be
washed, we need TO be rehabilitated
before VIC 60 into. the ivory palaces.
Eternal God. let the surges of Thy par
doning mercy roll over MS! want not
only to wash r;y hands and my feet
but, like some skilled diver standing at
the pier head. who leaps into the wave
ard comes up at n far distant point