The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-08-04
The SEMI-WkkKLY MESSENGER: FRIDAY. A. GUST 4, 1924.

the white curbs. Tapestry trailing the
snowy floors. Brackets of light fash
ing on the lustrous surroundings. Sill
very music ripping on the beach of
the arches. The mere thought OF ii al
most stuns my brain, and you say:
"Oh, IL I could only have walked over
suck floors, If I could have thrown N.Y.
self in such a chair. II / could have
heard the drip and lash Of those foun-
tains." You shall have something bet
ter h that If you only let Christ
introduce you. From that place he
came, and to that place he propose to
transport you. for his garments smell
of myrrh and aloeS and casSia out Of
the ivory palaces" What a place
heaven must be, The bueleries OF the
French, the Windsor castl e of the
English, the Spanish Alhambra, the
Russian kremlin, are mere dungeons
compared with it! Not SO many castles
on either side Of Rhine as on both
sides of the river of God-the ivory
palaces! One for the angels, ~insuffera-
bly, bright, winged, fire eyed, tempest
charioted; one for the martyrs, with
blood red robes from under the altar;
n for the King, the steps Of his
palace the crown of the church mill
tant; one for the singers, who lead the
one HUNDRED and forty and four thou
sand; one for you, ransomed from sin;
one for me, plucked from the burning.
On, the ivory palaces!
Today it seems to me as if the win
dow of those palaces were illuminated
for some great victory, and l look n
see climbing the stairs Of ivory and
| walking on floors of ivory n looking
from the windows of ivory some whom
we knew and owed on earth. Yes, 1
know them. There are father and
mother, not 50 years and 70 years as
when they left us, but little and young
nc whap on fhoir 6djn daU Ana
there are brothers and sisters, mer-
rier than when we used to romp across
the meadows together. The cough
gone. The cancer cured. The eryesipe-
las healed. The heartbreak over. Oh,
how fair they are in the ivory pal
aces! And your dear little children
that e 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 n they
loved we'll to one whom they loved bet
ter, If I hou take your little child
and press it's soft face against my
rough cheek, I might keep it a 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 n sprang
out to greet him. That is all. Your
Christian dead did not go down into
Tic uuSI III llc SldNSl III III Iluu
Though it rained all that funeral day
and the water came up to the 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 pal
aces. All is we'll with them. All is we'll.
It is not a dead weight that you lift
when you carry a Christian out. Jesus
make 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 pro-
cession is coming. Ring the bells.
Ring! Open your gates, We ivory pail
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? You company! But
oh, my brother, unless you change u
tack you cannot reach that harbOr! o
might as well take the Southern Pacific
railroad, expecting in that direction to
reach Toronto, as to go on III the way
some of you are going and yet expect
to reach he ivory palaces. Your loved
ones are looking out of the windows OF
heaven now, n yet you seem to turn
your back upon them. You do not seem
to know the u 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, I feel awkward. I
feel as sometimes when 1 nave been
exposed to the weather., and my shoes
have been bemired, and my coat is soil
ed and my hair is diSheveled, and 1
stop in front of some fine residence
yx1o pa r ho1 We q ~ nrro nd fn01 not "A
to go in as I am and sit among the
guests. SO some of us feel about heav-
en-. 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 roll over
us! I want not only to wash my hands
and my feet, but, like some skilled div.
err standing on the pier head, who leaps
into the wave and comes up at a far
distant point from where he went in,
so I want to go down, and SO l want
to come up. 0, Jesus, wash me in the
waves of thy salvation!
AND here I ask o ito solve a mystery
that has been depressing me for 80
years. I have been asking it of doc
tors of divinity who have been study
ing theology half a century, and they
have given me no satisfactory answer.
1 have turned over all the books in my
library, burt got no solution to the
question, and today 1 come and ask
you for an explanation. By what logic
was Christ induced to exchange the
ivory palaces of heaven for the cruel
fixion agonfes Of earth? 1 shall take
the first thousand million years in heav-
en- to study out that problem, mean
while and now, taking it as the tender
est, mightiest Of all facts that Christ
did come, that he came with spikes in
his feet, came with thorns in his brow,
20 M with cpoor in hic hoort RI 80 W.
o and to save me. God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whatsoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlast-
ing life" Oh, Christ, whelm all our
souls with thy compassion! Now them
down like summer grain with the har-
vesting sickle of thy grace! Ride
through today the conqueror, thy gar
ments smelling "of myrrh and aloes n
cassia out Of the ivory palaces"
Colonel w. A. Bohbitt, of Kinston, has
been elected commander Of the Kinston
naval reserves. He is a native Of Gran
willie.