The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-01-06

MI
parth-
Eahrisi
esscd
etnie-
the
blessed are
billy WELD the
se who can
pear or roll a
most wounded
Bof on the most
w theory OF our
II curSing, prayer
fully vse you.
70 nc pEet p s~ords
2Idwide tiger
ospel opposi-
ard been aug
of feTocity,. by
Buld this VOID nave
You need not eemind
wars since the opening
OF orr Christian era:
Earth has been again ard
Herated into an Aceldama
Improved wearonry of death
1hore rapidly Of fire. Prussian
CnlOd0tT WHICH III 90 Slai z NAN
lions with unprecedented havoc
Eclipsed by c~ontrivances that can sweep
4 vaster numDer to death by one volley
facilities for slaughter by Instantly or
dering armies to where they can do the
most wholesale murder say IL all TINS
woe has been wrought. how much worse
would il nave been If the ChriStly reve-
lation had not been let down from heaven
on five runged ladder of musical scale
and there had been no preaching of
good will all up and down C~hristendom
for Is centuries! The Bethlehem man
ger has given the most potent sugges-
ton of peace the world has ever re-
ceived. The cavalry horses cannot eat
out of that manager.
LIGHT ON DARK PILLOWS.
1 take another step forward in show
ing the narrow escape you and 1 had
and the world had in the secretion OF
Christ's birthplace from the Herodic de-
| t~ectives, and the clubs with when they
would have dashed the babes life out,
when / say that without the life that
| began h night in Bethlehem the world
would have had no illumined ~deathbeds.
Before the time Of Christ good people
closed their earthly lives in peace. while
| depending upon the Christ to come. and
there were antediluvian saints and AS
syrian saints and Egyptian saints and
Grecian saints and Jerusalem saints long
before the clouds above Bethlehem be-
came a balcony filled with the best sing
erS of a world where they all sing, but
cannot read that there was anything
| more thar a q~uieting guess that came to
those before Christ deathbeds. Job said
something bordering on the confident:
skin worms that would destroy, his
body. Abraham and Jacob had a little
light on the dying pillow, but compared
with the after Christ deathbeds it was
like the dim talloW candle of old beside
the modern cluster of lights electric. l
know Elijah went up in memorable man
ner. but it was a terrible way TO go
a whirlwind of fire that must have been
| splendid to look at by those who stood
on the banks of the Jordan, but it was
a. style of ascent that requi1 ed more
nerve than you and 1 ever had, to be a
placid occupant of a chariot drawn by
such a wild team. The triumphant death
beds, so far as l know, We're the after
Christ ~deathbeds. What a procession of
hosannas have marched through the dy-
ing room of the saint of the last 10 cen
turtles! What cavalcade of mounted halle
luiahs has galloped through the dying
visions Of the last 1000 years save 100!
Peaceful deathbeds in the years b. c.!
Triumphant ~deathbeds, for the most
/ part, reserved for the years "A. D.! Be
hold the d~eathbeds CT the Wesleys, of
the Doddridges, of the Leigh Richmonds.
of the Edward Paysons; of Vara, the
converted heather cnieftain, crying in
his last moments: The canoe is in the
sea. The sails are spread. She is ready
for the gale. l have a good Pilot to guide
me. My outside man and my inside man
differ. Let the one rot till the trumpet
shall sound, but let my soul wing, her
way to the throne of Jesus" OF dying
John Fletcher, who entered his pulpit to
preach, though his doctors forbade him.
and then descended to the communion
self under the wings of the cherubim be-
fore the mercy seat thousands of peo-
pie a few days after following him to
the grave, singing
With heavenly weapons he has fought
The battles of the Lord,
Finished his course and kept the faith
And gained the great reward.
Of Pastor Emile Cook, the great French
evangelist, who sat in my church in
Brooklyn one Sunday morning and in a
few days shipwrecked and dying, after
his wife said to him, God will help you,
ing: ssBut I have it. Peace! I have it,
OF Prince Albert, quoting with his last
breath Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let
soldier who had been shot through the
mouth and could not talk, and when the
chaplain approached him motioned for
Christian, prepared to die. tally round
the flag! Rally round the nag!' Of John
Brown of Haddington, who said: Il de-
though 1 have livel 60 years very COM
fortably in his worl1, L would turn MY
back upon you ali 10 be with Christ.
Christ. I have been looking at him these
many years and never yet could find any
fault in him but wa OF my own max
ing, though he has seen 10000 faults n
me. Oh, what must he be- in himself
when it is he that sweetens heaven.
sweetens Scripture, sweetens ordinances,
sweetens earth, sweetens trial" OF John
| Janeway, aging i'm his last moments:
Il have done with prayer and all other
ordinances. Before a few hours are over
1 shall be in eternity singing the song
of Moses and the Lamb. / shall presently
stand on Mount Zion with an innumer-
able company of angels and with spirits
of just men made perfect and with Jesus,
the mediator of the new covenant. Hal
leluiah!' Some one ought to preach a
course of sermons or triumphant Chris
tan d~eathbeds, and then let some one
preach a sermon OF triumphant infidel
| deathbeds-that is, if he can hear or read
of one of this latter kind. 1 never heard
of one. DO tell US of one. There never
was one And had the babe of Bethlehem
died the. same week in which he was
born there never would have been a
triumr,hant Christian deathbed. IT is ttA