The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1900-08-30

emotions of gladness and thanksgiv-
ing and triumph
What think you Of the family prop
erty? 1t is considered an honor to
marry into family where there is
great wealth. The Lord, the bride
groom of earth and heaven, offers you
his heart and his hand, saying in the
words of the Canticles. Rise up my
love, my fair one, and come away"
And once having put on thy hand the
signet ring of his love. you will be en-
lowed with all the wealth of earth
and all the honors of heaven.
The Family Homestead.
Almost every family looks back to
homestead-some country place where
you grew up. You sat on the doorsill,
You heard the footsteps of the rain on
the garnet roof. You swung on the
gate. You ransacked the barn. You
waded into the brook You thrashed
the orchard for apples and the neigh
boring woods for nuts, and everything
around the old homestead is of inter-
est to you. l tell you of the old home
stead of eternity. "In my fathers
house are many mansions" When we
talk of mansions we think of Chats
worth and it's park nine miles in cir
conference and it's conservatory that
astonishes the world, its galleries of
art that contain the triumphs of Chan
trey, Canova and Thorwaldsen, of the
kings and queens who have walked its
stately halls, or, flying over the heath
er, have hunted the grouse. But all the
dwelling places of dukes and princes
and queens are as nothing to the fam
lily 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.
| TheIpoorest man in that house is mil
lionaire and the lowest king, and the
tamest word he speaks is an anthem
and the shortest life an eternity.
1t took Paxton to build for Chats
worth 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
| AoA
| shall come to look at it, and it's aroma
shall be as though the cherubim had
swung before the throne thousand
censers. l have not seen it yet am
in foreign land. But my Father is
waiting for me to come home l have
brothers and sisters there In the
Bible | have letters from there, telling
me what fine place it is. 1t matters
not much to me whether am rich or
poor, or whether the world hates me or
loves ME, or whether I go by land or
by sea, if only l may litt my eyes at
last on the family mansion. 1t is not
a frail house. built in month, soon
to crumble, but an old mansion, which
is as firm as the day 1t was built. Its
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 in it's
halls, and Esther and Marie Antoinette
and Lady Huntington 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 al 1.-The kings and queens of
eternity.
The Family Reunion.
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 relics and rummage
the garnet and open old scrapbooks and
shout and laugh and cry and talk over
old times and. though you may be
forty-five years of age, act as though
you were sixteen. Yet soon it is COOL
by at the car window and goodby at
the steamboat wharf. But how will
we act at the reunion in the old family
mansion in heaven? 1t 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 darlings of your house
hold, not pale and sick and gasping for
breath, as when you saw them last,
but their eye bright with the luster
of heaven and their check 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, L 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 can
not be tears of grief or disappoint-
ment. 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 glad
ness of this reunion? Then l 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 jubilee.
While l speak some of you with
broken hearts can hardly hold your
peace. You feel as if you would speak
out and say: ooh, blessed day, speed
on! Toward thee press with blister
ed feet over the desert way. Ny eyes
fail for their weeping. faint from lis