Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1900-08-31

swung on the gate. You ransacked C.,
barn. You waded into the brook. Yon
thrashed the orchard for apples and
the neighboring woods for nuts. and
rything around the cd home
stead is of interest to you.
tell you of the old homestead of
eternity. I'm my Fathers house are
many mansions" When we talk of
mansions we think of Chatsworth and
its park nine miles in circumference
and its conservatory that astonishes the
world, its galleries of art that con-
tain the triumphs of Chantrey, Canova
and Thorwaldsen, of the kings and
queens who have walked its stately
halls, or, flying over the heather, have
hunted the grouse. But all the dwell
ing places of dukes and princes and
queens are as nothing to the family
mansion that is already awaiting our
arrival. The hand of the Lord Jesus.
lifted the pillars and swung the doors
and planted the parks. Angels walk
there and the good of all ages. The
poorest man in that houseris million
aire, and the lowest a king, and the
tamest word he speaks is an anthem
and the shortest life an eternity.
It took a Paxton to build for Chats
worth a covering for the wonderful
flower. Victoria Regia. five feet in di-
ameter: But our lily of the valley
shall need no shelter from the blast,
and in the open gardens of God shall
put forth its full bloom, and all Heav-
en- shall come to look at it, and it's
aroma shall be as though the cherubim
had swung before the throne a thou
sand censers. I have not seen it yet.
1 am in foreign land. But my Fa-
Their is waiting for me to come home.
have brothers and sisters there. In
the Bible I have letters from there,
telling me what fine place it is. 1t
matters not much to me whether nm
rich or poor, or whether the world
hates me or loves me, or whether go
by land or by sea, if only I may lift my
eyes at last on the family mansion. It
is not frail house, built in a month,
soon to crumble, but an old mansion,
which is IS firm as the day it was built.
It's walls are covered with the ivy of
many ages, and the urns at the gateway
are abloom with the century plants
of eternity. The queen of Sheba hath
walked it's halls, and Esther and Marie
Antoinette and Lady Huntingdon and
Cecil and Jeremy Taylor and Samuel
Rutherford and John Milton and the
widow who gave two mites and the poor
men from the hospital-these last two
perhaps outshining all the kings and
queens of eternity.
A family mansion means reunion.
Some of your families are very much
scattered. The children married and
went off to st. Louis or Chicago or
Charleston. But perhaps once year
you come together at the old place.
How you wake up the old piano that
has been silent for years. Father and
mother do not play on it. How you
bring out the old relic and rummage
the garnet and open old scrapbooks and
shout and laugh and cry and talk over
old times, and though you may be As
years of age, act as though you were
16. Yet soon it is good-by at the car
window and good-by at the steamboat
wharf. But how will we act at the re-
union in the old family mansion of
Heaven? It is a good while since you
parted at the door of the grave. There
will be Grace and Mary and Martha
and Charlie and Lizzie and all the dar-
lings of your household, not pale and
sick and gasping for breath, as when
you saw them last, but their eyes
bright with the luster of Heaven and
their cheeks roseate with the flush of
celestial summer.
What clasping of hands! What en-
bracings! What coming together of
lip to lip! What tears of joy! You
say: t'I thought there were no tears
in Heaven" There must be, for the
Bible says that "God shall wipe them
away" and if there were no tears there
how could He wipe them away? They
cannot be tears of grief or tears
of disappointment. they must be
tears of gladness. Christ will come
and say: "What. child of Heaven,
is it too much for thee? Dost
thou break down under the gladness of
this reunion? Then I will help thee
And with His one arm around us and
the other arm around our loved ones
He shall hold us up in the eternal jubi-
lee.
While I speak some of you with
broken hearts can hardly hold your
peace. You feel as if you would speak
out and say: "Oh, blessed day, speed on!
Toward thee / press with blistered
feet over the desert way. My eyes fail
for their weeping. I faint from lis
tening for feet that will not come and
the sound of voices that will not speak.
Speed on, oh day of reunion! And then.
Lord Jesus, be not angry with me if
after I have kissed thy blessed feet
I turn around to gather up the long
lost treasures of my heart. Oh, be
not angry with me. One look at thee