The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-10-16
Tbey cannot forget an earthly kindness

cable. They have no strength to hurl into
oblivion that benefaction. Has Paul for
gotten the inhabitants of Malta, who ex.
tended the island hosDitalitv when be and
others with him had felt. added to ship
wreck, the drenching rain and the sharp
cold? Has the victim of the highwayman
on the road to Jericho forgotten the good
Samaritan with q, medlrament OF on and
wine and free ride to the hostelry? Have
the English soldiers who went up to God
from the Crimean battlefelds forgotten
Florence Nightingale?
Through all eternity will the NortherR
and Southern soldiers forget the Northern
and Southern women who administered
to the dying boys in blue and gray after
the awful fights in Tennessee and Vir-
rinia and Georgia, which turned every
house and barn and shed into a hospital
and incarnadined the Susqueharna and
the James and the Chattahoochee and
the Savannah with brave blood? The
kindnesses you do to others will stand as
long in the appreciation OF others as the
gates of heaven will stand, as the house
of many mansions" will stand, az long as
the throne of God will stand.
Another defeat of Oblivion will be
found in the character OF those whom we
rescue, uplift or save. Character is eter.
nal. Suppose by right influence we aid
in transforming a bad man into good
man, dolorous man into happy man,
disheartened man into courageous man,
every stroke of that work done will be i'm
mortalized There may never be so much
as one line in newspaper regarding 1t or
no mortal tongue may ever whisper 1t into
human ear, but wherever that soul shall
90 your work upon it shall go, wherever
that soul rises your work on it will rise,
hot
work on it will last. Do YOU suppose
there will ever come such an idiotic lapse
in the history of that soul in heaven that
it shall forget that you invited him to
Christ; that you, by prayer or gospel
work, turned him round from the wrong
way to the right way? No such insanity
will ever smitc heavenly citizen.
It is not half as we'll on earth known
that Christopher Wren planned and built
st. Pauls as it will be known in all heaven
that YOU were the instrumentaity of
building temple for the sky. We teach
a Sabbath class, or put a Christian tract
in the hand of a passer-by, or testify for
Christ in a prayer meeting, or preach
though nothing had been accomplished,
when we had been character building, with
a material that no frost or earthquake or
rolling of the centuries can damage or
bring down.
Oh. this character building! The struc.
ture lasting independent of passing CEN
turies. independent of crumbling mauso-
leums, independent Of the whole planetary
system. Aye, if the material universe,
which seems all bound together like one
piece of machinery. should some day meet
with an accident that should send worlds
crashing into each other like telescoped
railway trains. and all the wheels OF con,
stellations and galaxies should STOP, and
down into one chasm of immensity all the
suns and moons and stars should tumble
like the midnight express at Ashtabula,
that would not touch US and would not
hurt God, for God is a spirit, and charac'
ter and memory are immortal, and over
that grave of a wrecked material universe
might truthfully be written, "The righte-
Gus shall be held in everlasting remem-
brance." o time, we defy thee! Q death,
we stamp thee in the dust of thine own
sepulchers! o eternity, roll on till the last
star has stopped rotating and the last sun
is extinguished on the sapphire pathway,
and the last moon has illumined the last
night, and as many years have passed as
all the scribes that ever took pen could
describe by as many figures as they COULD
write in all the centuries of all time. but
thou shalt have no power to etface from
any soul in glory the memory of ANYTHING
we have done to bring it to God and
heaven!
There is another and more complete
defeat for oblivion, and that is in the
heart of God Himself. You have seen a
sailor roll I'D his sleeve and show you his
arm tattooed with the figure of favorlte
ship, perhaps the first one in which ne
ever sailed. You have seen soldier roll
L. obo. tot
with the figure of a fortress where he was
rarrisoned or the face of great general
Under whom he fought. You have seen
MANY hand tattooed with the face Of a
loved one before or after marriage. This
custom of tattooing is almost as old as the
world. 1t is some colored liquid pune
tured into the flesh so indeiibly that moth
ing can wash it out. 1t may have been
there fifty years. but when the man goes
into his coffin that picture will go with
him on hand or arm. Now, God says that
He has tattooed US upon His hands. There
can be no other meaning in the forty-ninth
chapter of Isaiah, where God says, BE.
hold I have craven thee on the palms of
Nv hands" 1t was as much as to say.
'I cannot open My hand to help hut l
think of vou I cannot spread abroad My
hands to bless but think of you. Wher-
ever I 60 up or down the heavens l take
these two pictures Of you with Me. They
are so inwrought into My being that l
cannot lose them. As long as My hands
last the memory Of you will last. Not on
the back of MY hands, as though to ap.
nouuce you to others, but on the palms
cf NV hands for Myself to look at and
study and love. Though I hold the winds
in NY fist, no cyclone shall uproot the in.
scription OF your name and your face, and
though I hold the ocean in the hollow Of
Nv hand it's billowing shall not wash out
the record of NV remembrance. Behold,
I have craven thee on the palms OF My
hands.
What Joy, what honor, can there be
comparable to that of being remembered
by the mightiest and most atfectionate
being in the universe? Think of ito
hold an everlasting place in the heart OF
God! The heart of God! The most beau
tiful palace in the universe. Let the arch
angel build some palace as grand as that
if he can. Let him crumble up all the
stars Of yesternigllt and tomorrow night
and put them together as mcsaics for such
a palace floor. Let him take all the sun.
rises and sunsets of ell the days and the
auroras of all the nights and hang them
as upholstery at its windows Let him
| take all the rivers and all the lakes and
all the oceans and toss them into the foun'
tains of this palace court.
Let him take all the gold of all the hills
and hang it in its chandeliers and all the
pearls Of all the seas and all the diamonds
Of ali the fields and with them arch the
doorways of that palace and then invite
into it all the glories that Esther ever saw
at a Persian banquet or Daniel ever
walked among in Babylonian castles or
Joseph ever witnessed in Pharaoh's throne
room and then yourself enter this castle
of archangelic construction and see how
poor a palace it is compared with the
greater palace that some of you have Al,
| ready found in the heart of loving and
| .n.Ln.;nn End and into which all the