Connecticut western news., 1900-08-30
A Celestial Reunion.


 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 a 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 garret, and open old scrapbooks, and shout, and laugh, and cry, and talk over old times, and, though you may be 45 years of age, act as though you were 16! Yet soon 1t Is goodby at the car window, and goodby at the steamboat wharf. But how will we act at the reunion in the old family mansion of heaven? It Is 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 household-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 cheek roseate with the flush of celestial summer.
 What clasping of hands! What em- bracings! What coming together of lip to lip! What tears of joy! You say, q 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 jubilee.
 Prodigals at Home.
 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 I press with blister ed feet over the desert way. My eyes fail for their weeping. faint from llSIeuillS lOI ltct LudL W III hOl COLhCy 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 were heaven. But all these re- unions are heaven encircling heaven, heaven overlapping heaven, heaven commingling with heavenw
 I was at Mount Vernon, and went in- to the dining room in which our first president entertained the prominent men of this and other lands. It was a very interesting spot. But, oh, the ban quoting hall of the family mansion of which I speak! Spread the table, spread it wide; for a great multitude are to sit at 1t. From the tree by the river gather the 12 manner of fruits for that table. Take the clusters from the heavenly vineyards, and press them into the golden tankards for that table. On baskets carry in the bread of which, If a man eat, he shall never hunger Take all the shot torn flags of earthly conquest, and entwine them among the arches. Let David come with his harp, and Gabriel with his for the prodigals are at home, and the captives are free, and the Father hath invited the mighty of heaven and the redeemed of earth to come and dine!
 Copyright, 1900. by Louis Klopsch.l