The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-12-21

heard the funeral psalm in their mem-
DRY, and with the other ear they heard
the ~ of heavenly salutation. The
willows on this side the Jordan and
the Lebanon cedars on the other almost
interlocked their branches. Only a
ferry.
My subject also suggests h fact
that when We cross over at the last we
find a solid landing. The ferry
boa as spoken OF in my text means a
place to start from and a place TO land.
David and his people did not find the
eastern shore of the Jordan any more
solid than the western shore where he
landed, and yet to a great many hea-
ven is not a rea place. To you heaven
Is a fog bank in the distance. Now, my
heaven Is a solid heaven After the
resurrection has come you will have a
resurrected foot and something to
tread On n a resurrected eye and
colors to see with il and a resurrected
a and music to regaie it. Smart men
in his day are making a great deal of
fun about St. Johns materialistic de-
scriptions Of heaven. Well. now. my
friends, If you will tell me what will be
h use of resurrected body In heaven
with nothing to read on and nothing
to hear n nothing to handle and
nothing to taste then I will laugh too.
Are you going to oat about in ether
forever, swinging about your hands
and feet through the air indiscriminate-
ly, one moment sweltering in the GEN.
ter of the sun and the next moment
Shivering in the mountains of the
moon? That is o nv heaven. Dis
satisfied with Johns materialistic hea-
ven, theological tinkers are trying to
patch up a heaven that will do for
them at last. / never heard of any
heaven 1 want to go to except St.
Johns heaven. / believe I shall hear
Mr.. Toplady sing yet and Isaac Watts
recite hymns and Mozart play. oh"
you say, where would you get the Or
gan? The Lord will provide the organ.
Don't you bother about the organ. I
believe 1 snnsll vet see David with a
harp, and will ask him to sing one of
the songs of Zion. I believe after the
resurrection I shall see Massillon, the
great French pulpit orator, and I shall
hear from his own lips how he felt on
that day when he preached the kings
funeral sermon n flung his whole au-
dience into a paroxysm of grief and
solemnity. I have no patience with
your transcendental, selatinous, CASE
Gus heaven. The Kings ferryboat,
starting from a wharf on this side, will
GO to a wharf on the other side.
WELCOME AT THE LANDING.
Again, my subject teaches that when
we cross over at the last we shall be
met at the landing. When David and
his family went over in the ferryboat
spoken of in the text, they landed
amid a nation that had come out to
greet them. AS they stepped from the
deck Of the boat to the shore there
were thousands CT people who gathered
around them to express a satisfaction
that was beyond description. And so
you and I will be met at h landing.
Dur arrival will not be like stepping
ashore at Antwerp or Constantinople
among a crowd of strangers. 1t will
who are warm hearted friends, and all
their friends. We know people whom
we have never seen by hearing some
body talk about them very mucn; we
know them almost as we'll as If we had
seen them. And do you not suppos
that our parents and brothers and sis
tiers and children in heaven have been
talking about us all these years, and
talking to their friends? So that, I
suppose, when we cross the river at the
last we shall not only be met by all
those Christian friends whom we knew
on earth, out by all their friends. They
will come down to the landing to meet
us. Your departed friends Low you
now more than they ever did. You
Will De surprised at the last to IND
how they know about all the affairs Of
your life. Why, they are only across
the ferry. n the. boat is coming this
way, and the boat is going hat way.
l do not know but they have already
asked the Lore the day. the hour, the
moment when you are coming across
and that they know now, but I do
know that you will be met at the land
ing. The poet Southey said he thought
he would know Bishop Heber in heaven
by the portraits he had seen of him in
London and DR.. Randolph said he
thought he would know William Cowper
the poet. in HEAVIER from the pictures
he had seer of him in England; but we
will know our departed kindred by the
portraits hung in the throneroom of
our hearts.
On starlight nights o look up-and
1 suppose it is so with any one who has
friends in beaverton starlight nights
you look up, and you cannot help but
think of those who have gone, and I
suppose they look down and cannot
help but think Of us. But they have
the advantage os us. We know not
just where their world of Joy is; they
know where we are.
MEETING ON THE OTHER SHORE.
There was a as well as
Christian beauty in the life of DR..
Adonirant Judson. the Baptist mission
AIRY, when he concluded to part from
wife, she to come to America to restore