Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-04-20

was Droken everything seemed to dissolve.
hardly have you put the black apparel In
the wardrobe before you have again to
take It out. Great and rapid changes in
and rejoiced in it, but the charm was gone
as as soon as the Grape hung on the doorbell
Ihe one upon whom you most depended
was taken away from you. A cold marble
slab lies on your heart to-day. Once, as
the children romped through the house,
you put your hand over your aching head
and said, "Oh, II I could only have it
stfll!' oh, 1t is too still now. You lost
your patience when the tops and the
strings and the shells were left amid floor;
but, oh, you would be willing to have the
trinkets scattered all over the floor again
IL they were scattered by the same hands.
With what ruthless plowshare bereave-
ment rips up the heartl But Jesus knows
all about that. You cannot tell Him any
thing now In regard to bereavement. He
had only few friends, and when He lost
one 1t brought tears to His eyes. Lazarus
had often entertained Him at his house.
Now Lazarus is dead and buried, and
Christ breaks down with emotion the con-
vulsion OF grief shuddering through all the
ages Of bereavement. Christ knows what
1t is to go through the house missing
familiar inmate. Christ knows what it is
to see an unoccupied place at the table.
We're there not four of them-Mary and
Martha and Christ and Lazarus? Four OF
them. But whereas Lazarus? Lonely and
afflicted Christ, His great loving eyes filled
with tearsl Oh, yes, yes! He knows all
about the loneliness and the heartbreak.
He took the vinegar!
Then there is the sourness Of the death
hour Whatever else we may escape, that
acid sponge will be pressed to our lips. I
sometimes have q curiosity to know how
| will behave when come to die. Whether
l will be calm or excited, whether will be
filled with reminiscence or with anticipa-
tfon. l cannot say. But come to the
point I must and you must. An officer
from the future world will knock at the
door of our hearts and serve on us the
render. And we will wake up after these
autumnal and wintry and vernal and sum-
merry glorles have vanished from our
vision. We will wake up into realm
which has only one season, and that the
season OF everlasting love.
But you say: 81 don't want to break out
from my present associations. 1t is so
chilly and so damp to go down the stairs
of that vault. 1 don't want anything
drawn so tightly over my eyes. II there
were only some way of breaking through
the partition between worlds without tear
ing this body all to shreds! I wonder IL
the surgeons and the doctors cannot COM
pound Il mixture by which this body and
soul can all the time be kept together. Is
there no escape from this separation"
None, absolutely none. A great many men
tumble through the gates OF the future, as
1t We're, and we do not know where they
have gone, and they only add gloom
and mystery to the passage, bur Jesus
Christ so nightly stormed the gates of
that future world that they have never
since been closely shut. Christ knows
what 1t is to leave this world, of the
beauty of which He was more apprecia-
tive than we ever could be. He knows
the exquisiteness of the phosphorescence
OF the sea; He trod it. He knows the
glories OF the midnight heavens, for they
ness pillow. He knows about the lilies; He
twisted them into His sermon. He knows
about .he fowls of the air; they whirred
they way through His discourse. He knows
about the sorrows OF leaving this beautiful
wcld. Not a taper was kindled in the
in cold sweat and dizziness and hem
morhage and agony, that have put Him in
sympathy with all the dying. He goes
through Christendom and gathers up the
stings out Of all the death pillows, and He
puts them under His own neck and head.
To all those to whom life has been an
a"erbity-a dose they could not swallow,
draft that set their teeth on edge and a.
rasping-1 preach the omnipotent sympa-
thy OF Jesus Christ. The sister OF Her
schell. the astronomer, used to spend much
OF her time polishing the telescopes
worlds nigh, and 1t is my ambition now
this hour to clear the lens Of your spiritual
vision so that, looking through the dark
night of your earthly troubles you
may behold the glorious constella-
tien . on of, OF sayiSur,s VIC mercy and
try to carry all your Ills alonel Do not put
your poor shoulder under the Apennines
when the Almighty Christ is ready to lift
up all your burdens. When you have
trouble OF any kind, you rush this way and
that way, and you wonder what tE.- man
will say about 1t and what that man ~ say
about it, and you try this prescription and
that prescription and the other prescrip-
tion. Oh, why do you not g~ straight to
the heart Of Christ, knowing that for our
own SHINING and suffering race He took the
vinegar?
There was vessel that had been tossed
on the seas for great many weeks and
gave cut, and the crew were dying OF
thirst. After many days they saw a sail
against the sky. They signaled it. When
the vessel came nearer, the people on the
suffering ship cried to the captain of the
other vessel: "Send us some waterl We
are dying for lack OF water!' And the
captain on the vessel that was hailed re-
sponded: "Dip your buckets where you are.
You are in the mouth ofthe Amazon, and
there are scores OF miles of fresh water
all around about you and hundreds OF
feet deep!' And then they dropped their
buckets over the side OF the vessel and
brought up the clear, bright, fresh water
and put out the fire of their thirst So I
hail you to-day, after II long and perilous
voyage, thirstiDg as you are for pardon,
and thirsting for comfort, and thirsting
for eternal life, and ask you what is the
use OF your going in that death-struck
state, while all around you is the deep,
clear, wide, sparkling flood of Gods SYM
pathetic mercy? oh, dip your buckets
and drink and live forever! "Whosoever
will. let him come and take Of the water oil
life freely"
Yet there are people who refuse this
divine sympathy, and thew try to fight
their own battles, and drink their own
vinegar, and carry their own burdens, and
their life, instead OF being a triumphal
march from victory to victory, will be a
hobbling on from defeat to defeat until
they make final surrender to retributive
disaster. Oh, wish l could to-day gather
up In my arms all the woes of men and
women, all their heartaches, all their disap-
pointments, all their chagrins, and just
toLy fba,,, r;rI,t k.,f fhaf faak I,