The Penn's Grove record., 1901-01-18

a hhHWtl Va bF "a SUI PtA0~ SNpNe
1t was no surprise to me.
The simple reason is farmers wives have
no diversion. 1t is breakfast, dinner and
supper, sewing, securing, scrubbing, knit
ting. mending, year in and year out. That
mother is the milliner, the mantuamaker,
the nurse, the doctor. the accountant, OF
the whole family. She plans the ward.
robe of spring, summer, of autumn, OF
winter, cutting, fitting, completing gar
ments, out of which the children soon
grow and must have something else. The
newspaper does not come, or if coming
there is no time to read it. No selection
of good books. The ~neighbors calling in
are full of the same grinding routine. No
wonder so many of them go into dementia.
Now, the mother of whom j speak has
gone through all the drudgery mentioned,
and her children have turned out well,
good and useful men and women, orna-
ments OF society, pillars in the house of
God, and that whole family, after the
years nave passed by and their work is
done, will meet in the heavenly country.
From such a family some will certainly
have preceded her, and the time of her
expected arrival will be announced to all
the members Of that family already glori-
he'd, and to the old earthly ~neighbors who
put down their tolls a little sooner than
she did. and she will have the warmest
kind of home coming. and she will go
through the gate as easily as ever she
lifted the latch off her front door coming
from the old country meeting house where
she used to worship. Go in, motherl
Heaven has been waiting for you a good
many years. Got rid of all your aches
and pains and WEAKNESS, have you? Go
anywhere in heaven. and they will be glad
to see you. On the highest throne you
will find one who said, Behold thy moth
err" Sit anywhere you please. You will
be at home anywhere. Take your pick
out of that sheaf of scepters. What The
wrinkles have all gone out of your face,
and the once rheumatic step has become
like that of the bounding roe. Just as |
expected. you aged, ~gloriiied soul, you had
an abundant entrance.
There is another kind of spirit who will
nave radiant admission to the upper do
minion. There is a fact which ought to
have most emphatic pronouncement. All
over the world to-day there are men and
women of consecrated wealth. They are
multiplying by the day and hour. People
who feel themselves the Lords stewards,
and from their opulence they are making
a distribution which pleases the heavens.
The checkbook in the Office drawer of that
man has on its stubs a story OF benetcence
clear up into the sublime. In all the
round of the worlds suffering and ignor-
ance and woe you cannot mention one
worthy object to which that prosperous
and good man has not made contribution.
He is not irritated, as many are, by solici-
tation for aims. In some poor woman, in
thin shawl, holdis in her arms a child
with rheum in its eyes, this good man sees
the Christ who said, ''Inasmueh as ye
have done it unto one Of the least of
these, we have done it unto Me-
Well, this man of consecrated affiuenee
is about to go out of this world. He feels
in brain and nerve the strain of the early
struggles by which he won his fortune,
and at sixty or seventy years collapses un.
der the exhaustions of the twenties and
thirties of his lifetime. When the morn
ing papers announce that he is gone there
is excitement not only on the avenues
where the mansions stand, but all through
the hospitals and asylums and the homes
of those who will henceforth have no
helper. But the excitement of sadness on
earth is a very tame affair compared with
the excitement of gladness in heaven; The
guardian angel of that good mans life
swept by his dying pillow the night be.
fore and on swift wing upward announced
that in a few hours he would arrive, and
there is a mighty stir in heaven, He
comes!' cries seraph to seraph. The
Kings heralds are at the gates to say,
Come, we blessed" and souls who were
saved through the churches hat good
man supported and hundreds who went
up after being by him helped in their
earthly struggle will come down off their
thrones and out of their palaces and
through the streets to hail him into the
land which they reached some time before
through his Christian philanthropy. Now,
that is what | call an abundant entrance.
You see, 1t is not necessary to be a failure
on earth in order to be a success in heaven.
Rut pronniSa that all thnsa who have
lived for others and been truly Christian,
whether on a large scale or a small scale,
will have illustrious introduction into the
impearled gateway. Here and there in
some large family you see an attractive
daughter who declines marriage that she
may take care OF father and mother in old
days. This is not al abstraction. | have
known such. You have probably known
such. There are in this world womanly
souls as big as that. They ch~eerfully en-.
dure the whimsicalities and querulousness
which sometimes characterize the aged
and watch nights when pneumonia Is
threatened and are eyes to the blind and
sit in close rooms lest the septuagenarian
be chilled and count out the right number
OF drops at the right time.
After years of tilial. fidelity on the part
of this self sacrificing daughter the old
folks go home. Now the daughter is free
from marital alliance, but the damask rose
in her cheek is faded, and the crows feet
have left their mask on the forehead, and
the gracefulness is gone out OF the figure,
and the world calls her by a mean and
ungallant name. But, my Lord and my
God, surely Thou wilt make it up for that
girl in heavenly reward On all the banks
of the river of life there is no castle OF
emerald and carbuncle richer than that
which awaits her. Its windows look right
out upon the Kings park. and the white
horses of the chariot are being harnessed
to meet her at the gate, and if there are
no others to meet her father and mother
will be there to thank her for all she did
for them when their strength failed and
the grasshopper became a burden, and
they will say: MY daughter, how kind
you were to us even until the last. How
good it is to be together in heaveni That
is the Kings chariot corae for you. Mount
and ride to your everlasting homei" Now,
tnat is what / call an abundant entrance.
Know right well that in whatever sta.
ton of life you now move, and whether
your intellectual faculty be brilliant or
dull, and your worldly resources opulent
or poor, you may have at the gate of
heaven jubilant and triumphant reception.
All soldiers cannot be Hannibals and
Marlboroughs, all admirals cannot be Du-
points and Farraguts, all authors cannot
be Bacons and Southeys, neither can all
Christians be Pauls and Richard Cecils.
Do your best right where you are, asking
Gods help, and you will not only win glo-
rious admission, but you will make all
your life in heaven a grander and higher
life.
Oh, child of God, if you had never
thought OF it before, l present the start
ling fact that you are now deciding not
only the style of your heavenly reception,
but the grade OF your association and en-
joyment of the world without end. Are
you satisfied with yourself that you can
afford to throw away raptures and ignore
heavenly possibilities and elect yourself to
lower status and classify yourself amid
the less efficient when you may mount a
higher heaven
While l thus discourse l am aware that
some have not taken the first step toward
heaven, and they feel like Jacob Strawn,
who took some ministers of the gospel on
the top of his house to show his farms,
reaching in every direction as far as eye
could see. He was asked how many acres
he owned, and he replied, 10000. How
much is it worth per acre." was asked,
and he replied, Fifty dollars, at least"
''Then," said the minister, you are worth
50, 900 600" Eyes" said Strawn, and /