Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1900-06-23

bath after 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 q reflection
Of his own vanity" John Wesley turn
ed all England upside down with Chris
tian reform, and yet the punsters were
after him, and the meanest jokes in
England were perpetrated about John
Wesley. What is true Of the pulpit Is
true of the pew; 1t is true Of the street;
It Is true Of the shop and the store. All
who will live godly In Christ Jesus
must suffer persecution. And l set 1t
down as the very worst sign In all
your Christian experience II you are
any of you at peace with all the world.
The religion Of Christ is war. 1t Is
challenge to "the world. the flesh and
the devil" and II you will buckle on
the whole armor Of God you will find a
great host disputing your path between
this and heaven.
Pence For the Troubled. ------
But what are you to do when you are
assaulted and slandered and abused, as
| suppose nearly all of you have been
In your life? Go out and hunt up the
slanderer? Oh, no, silly mani While
you are explaining away falsehood In
one place 80 people will just have heard
of 1t In other places. counsel you to
another course. While you are not to
omit any opportunity OF setting your
selves right, / want to tell you Of One
who had the hardest things said about
him, whose sobriety was disputed,
whose mission was secuted, whose
companionship was denounced, who
was pursued as babe and spit upon
as a man, who was howled at after he
was dead. will have you go unto him
with your bruised soul In some humble
child prayer saying: II see thy wounds
wounds Of head, wounds Of feet,
wounds of heart. Now look at my
wounds and see what | have suffered
and through what battles | am going,
and | entreat thee by those wounds Of
thine sympathize with me-" And he
will sympathize and he will help. Go
and tell Jesus.
Again, | 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 apart a family. We must get
out Of the way for coming generations.
We must get Off the stage that others
may come on, and for this reason there
is long procession reaching down all
the time into the valley Of shadows.
This emigration from time into eterni-
ty is so vast an enterprise that we can
not 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 eyelids. 1T is appoint
ed unto all men once to die" This en-
igration from time into eternity keeps
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 dark
ness. The laughter freezes to the girls
lip, and the rose scatters. The boy In
the harvest field Of Shunem says, MY
head, my headw and they carry him
home to die on the lap Of his mother.
Widowhood stands with tragedies Of
woe struck into the pallor Of the
cheek. Orphanage cries in vain for
father and mother. oh, the grave is
cruel! With teeth of stone 1t clutches
for its prey. Between the closing gates
of the sepulcher our hearts are man.
gled and crushed.
God Always Present.
Is there any earthly solace? None.
We come to the obsequies, we sit with
the grief stricken. we talk pathetically
to their soul, but soon the obsequies
have passed, the carriages have left us
at the door, the friends who stad for
a few days are gone. and the heart sits
In desolation listening for the little feet
that will never again patter through |
the hall or looking for the entrance Of
those who will never come again, sigh
ing into the darkness, ever and anon |
coming across some book or garment or
little shoe or picture that arouses for
mer association, almost killing the |
heart; long days and nights Of suffer
ing that wear out the spirit and ex-
punge the bright lines of life and give |
haggardness to the face and draw the
flesh tight down over the cheek bone |
and draw dark lines under the sunken
eye, and the hand Is tremulous, and the |
voice Is husky and uncertain, and the |
grief is wearing, grinding, Accumulate
Ing. exhausting.
merely to look up into brazen and un-
plying sky? Are they to walk blast
ed heath unfed Of stream. unsheltered |
by overarching trees? Has God turned |
us out on the barren common to die?
Oh, no, no. no! He has not He comes
with sympathy and kindness and love.
He understands all our grief. He sees
the height and the depth and the length
and the breadth of 1t. He is the only
one that can fully sympathize. Go and
tell Jesus. Sometimes when we have
trouble we 90 to our friends, and we
explain 1t, and they try to sympathize,
but they do not understand 1t. They
cannot understand it. But Christ sees
all over 1t and all through 1t. He not
only counts the tears and records the
groans, but before the tears started,
before the games began, Christ saw
the inmost hiding place of your sorrow,
and he takes it, and he weighs 1t, and
be measures 1t, and he plties 1t with an
all absorbing pity. Bone Of our bone.
Flesh of our flesh. Heart Of our heart.