Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-06-28

set. No man gets through life without
having pommeling. Some SANDER comes
to gore and trample you, and what are
you to DO! l tell you plainly that all who
serve Christ must suffer persecution. 1t is
the worst sign in the world for you to be
Be. be able e.,I to }. say, II have not an enemy in
Bible against the one Of whom everybody
speaks well. II you are at peace with all
the world and everybod likes you and
approves your work, it is because you are
an idler in the Lords vineyard and are
not doing your duty. All those who have
served Christ, however eminent: all have
been maltreated at some stage of their ex-
perience. You know it was so in the time
of George Whitefeld when he stood and
invited men into the kingdom of God.
What did the learned DR.. johnson say of
mountebank. How was it when Robert
Hall stood and spoke as scarcely any unin-
spired man ever did speak of the glories
of heaven? And as he stood Sabbath af-
ter Sabbath preaching on these themes
his face kindled with the glory. John
Foster, a Christian man, said of this man,
Robert Hall is only acting, and the smile
on his face is a reflection of his own van
ity." John Wesley turned all England
upside down with Christian reform, and
yet the punsters were after him. and the
meanest jokes in England were perpetrated
pulpit is true of the pew: it is true of the
street; it is true of the shop and the store
All who live godly in Christ Jesus must
suffer persecution.
And l set it down as the very worst sign
in all your Christian experience if you are
any Of you at peace with all the world.
The religion of Christ is war. 1t is a
challenge to ''the world, the flesh and the
devil" and if you will buckle on the whole
armor of God you viii find great host
disputing your path between this and
heaven.
Again, I commend the behavior of the
disciples to all the bereaved. How many
in garb of mourning! How many emblems
of sorrow you behold everywhere. God
has His own way of taking apar a fam.
lily. We must get out OF the way for com.
ing generations. We must get off the
stage that Others may come on. and for
this reason there is long procession reach.
ing down all the time into the valley of
shadows. This emigration from time into
eternity Is so vast an enterprise that we
cannot understand it. Every hour we hear
the clang of the sepulchral gate. The
sod must be broken. The ground must be
plowed for resurrection harvest Eternity
must be peopled. The dust must press our
eyelds. 1T is appointed unto all men
once to die" This emigration from time
into eternity. keeps three efourths Of the
families of the earth in desolation. The
air is rent with farewells, and the black
tasseled vehicles of death rumble through
every street. The body of the child that
was folded so closely to the mothers heart
is put away in the cold and the darkness
the rose scatters. The boy in the harvest
field of Shunem says. My head. my
head!' and they carry him home to die on
the. lap OF his mother. Wldowhood stands
with tragedies of woe struck into the pal
lor of the check Orphanage cries in var
for father and mother. Oh. the grave is
cruel! With teeth of stone it clutches fol
it's prey. Between the closing gates of the
sepucher our hearts are mangled and
crushed.
But Christ is always near-before you,
behind you, within you. No mother ever
threw her arms around her child with such
warmth and ecstacy of affection as Christ
has shown toward you.
Close at hand, nearer than the staff upor
which you lean, nearer than the cup you
put to your lip, nearer than the handker.
chief with which you wipe away your tears:
l preach Him an ever present, all sympa
thizing, compassionate Jesus. How can
you stay away one moment from Him with
your griefs! Go now. Go and tell Jesus.
1t is often that friends have no power
to relieve us. They would very much like
to do it, but they cannot disentangle our
finances, they cannot cure our sickness
and raise our dead, but glory be to God
that He to whom the disciples went has all
power in heaven and on earth. and at ouI
call He will balk our calamities and at
just the right time, in the presence of an
applaudlng earth and resounding heaven,
will raise our dead. He is mightier than
Herod lie is switter than the storm He
is grander than the sea. He is vaster than
eternity. And every sword of Gods ON.
impotence will leap from its scabbard and
the resources of infnity be exhausted rath.
er than that Coos child shall not be de.
hvered when he cries to Him for rescue.
Suppose your child was in trouble. How
much would you endure to get him out:
You would say, Il don't care what it will
cost. l must get him out of that trouble"
Do you think God is not so good father
as you! Seeing you are in trouble and
having all power, will He not stretch out
His arm and deliver youy He will. He is
mighty to save. He can level the mount
ain and divide the sea, and can extinguish
the fire and save the soul. Not dim OF
eye, not weak of arm, not feeble of re-
sources. but with all eternity and the uni
verse at His feet. Go and tell Jesus. Will
you?
Ye whose cheeks are wet with the night
dew of the grave, We who cannot look up,
We whose hearts are dried with the breath
of sirocco, in the name of the religion of
Jesus Christ, which lifts every burden and
wipes away every tear and delivers every
captive and lightens every darkness, l i'm
pure you uoN ~ anu tcil JeSus.
A little child went with her father, a
sea captain, to sea, and when the first
storm came the little child was very much
frightened, and in the night rushed out of
the cabin and said. Where is father,
where is father?' Then they told her,
Father is on deck guiding the vessel and
watching the storm" The little child i'm
mediately returned to her berth and said,
It's all right, for fathers on deck"
o We who are tossed and driven in this
world, up by the mountains and down by
the valleys and at your wits ends, | want
you to know the Lord God is guiding the
ship. Your Father is on deck. He will
bring you through the darkness into the
harbor. Trust in the Lord. Go and tell
Jesus.
If you go to Him for pardon and sym
pathy, all is well. Everything will bright
en- up, and JOY will come to the heart, and
sorrow will depart, your sins will be for
given, and YOUR foot will touch the up
ward path, and the shining messengers
that report above what is done here will
tell it until the great arches of God re-