The Iola register., 1901-10-04


"house of many mansions" will stand,
as 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 eternal. Suppose by right influ-
ence we aid in transforming bad man
into a good man, dolorous man into
a happy man, a disheartened man into
a courageous man, every stroke of
that work done win be immortalized.
There may never be so much as one
line in a newspaper regarding it or
no mortal tongue may ever whisper it
into human ear, but wherever that soul
shall go your work upon it shall go,
wherever that soul rises your work
on it will rise, and so long as that soul
will last your work on it will last. Do
you suppose there win 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 word, turned him
round from the wrong way to the right
way? No such insanity will ever smite
a heavenly citizen. 1t is not half as
well on earth known that Christopher
Wren planned and built st. Paul's as
it will be known in all Heaven that YOU
were the instrumentality OF building
a temple for the sky. We teach
Sabbath class or put Christian tract
in the hand of passerby or testify
for Christ in a prayer-meeting or
preach a sermon and 90 home discour-
aged. as though nothing had been ac-
cump,ished. when we had been char
acter building with a material that no
frost or earthquake or rolling of the
centuries can damage or bring down.
Oh. this character building! The
structure lasting independent OF
passing centuries, Independent of
crumbling mausoleums, 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 tele-
scoped railway trains, and all the
wheels of consultations and galaxies
should stop. and down into one chasm
| of immensity all the suns and moons
and stars should tumble like the mid
night express at Ashtab bula. that would
not touch us and would not hurt God,
for God is a spirit, and character and
memory are immortal, and over that
grave of wrecked material universe
might truthfully be written: THE
righteous shall he held in everlasting
remembrance" O Time, we defy theel
o Death, we stamp thee i'm the dust of
thine own sepulchersl o Eternity, roll
on till the last star has stopped rotat-
ing and the last sun is eXtingushcd on
the sapphire pathway and the last
moon has illuminated the last night
and as many years have passed as all
the scribes that ever took pen could de-
scribe by rs many figures as they could
write in all the centuries of all time,
but thou shalt have no power TO efface
from any soul in glory the memory of
anything we have done to bring il to
God and Heaven.
/ What Joy, what honor. can there be
, comparable to that of being remem-
/ bered by the mightiest and most af-
/ fectionate being in the universe? =?
Think of it, to hold an everlasting
place in the heart of God! The heart
of God! The most beautiful palace in
| the universe. Let the archangel build
some palace as grand as that il he
can. Let him crumble up all the stars
| of yesternight and tomorrow night
and put them together as mosaics for
/ such a palace floor. Let him take all
| the sunrises and sunsets of all the DAYS
/ and the auroras of all the nights and
hang them up as upholstery at its win
| dows. Let him take all the rivers and
| all the lakes and all the oceans and toss
| them into the fountains of this pal
ace court. Let him take all the gold
| of all the hills and hang it in its chan.
! deliers and all the pearls of the seas
/ and all the diamonds of all the fields,
| and with them arch the doorways of
| that palace and then invite into all
! the glories that Esther ever saw at a
| Persian banquet or Daniel ever walked
/ among in Babylonian castles or Jo-
seph ever witnessed in Pharaoh's
throneroom and then yourself enter
this palace of archangelic construction
and see how poor a palace it is COM
| pared with the greater palace that
some of you have already found in
the heart Of a loving and pardoning
God and into which all the music and all
the prayers and all the sermonic CON
siderations of this day are trying to
introduce you through the blood of the
slain Lamb.
Oh. where is oblivion now? From
the dark and overshadowing word tha II
| it seemed when | began it has become
something which no man or woman or
child who loves the Lord need ever fear.
Oblivion defeated. Oblivion dead. OBJ
livion sepulchered. But | must not
be so hard on this deyouring monster.
for into its grave go all our sins when
| the Lord for Christ's sake has for
| given them. just blow a resurrec-
! ton trumpet over them when once OBJ
livion has snapped them down. Not
one of them rises. Blow again. Not a
stir amid all the pardoned iniquitfes
of a lifetime. Blow again. Not one
of them moves in the deep grave