Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1901-01-03

| last for our souls from the other shorei
| everything about this gospel from the 9TH
er shore; pardon from the other shorei
mercy from the other shore; pity from the
other shore; ministry of angels from the
other shore; power to work miracles from
| the other shore; Jesus Christ from the
other shore. "This is faithful saying
| and worthy of all acceptation that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sim
ners," and from foreign shore see the
ferryboat coming, and it rolls with the
surges of a SaviourA suffering, but as il
strikes the earth the mountains rock and
| the dead adjust their apparel S. that they
| may be fit to come out. That boat tou,hes
the earth, and glorious Thomas Walsh
gets into it in his expiring moment, say
ing: He has come! He has come! My
beloved is mine, and | am His" Good
Sarah Wesley got into that boat, and as
she showed off from the shore she cried:
| "Open the gates!" I bless God that as
| the beat came from the other shore to
take David and his men across SO when
we are about to die the boat will come
from the same direction. God forbid that
l should ever trust to anything that
starts from this side
| Again, my subject suggests that when
| we cross over at the last the King will
| be on board the boat. Ship carpentry in
Bible times was in its infancy. The boats
were not sllillfully made, and l can very
easily imagine that the women and chill
| dren of the kings household might have
| been nervous about going on that boat,
afraid that the oarsman or the helmsman
| might give out and that the boat might
| be dashed on the rocks, as sometimes
| boats were dashed in the Jordan, and
| then I could have imagined the boat
starting and rocking and they crying out,
| "Oh, we are going to be lost; we are 60
| ing down." Not so. The king was on
| ha nd nd
| children and all the household of the king
| knew that every care was taken to have
| the king, the head of the empire, pass in
| safety.
Blessed be God that when we leave this
world we are not to have great and
| perlous enterprise of getting into heaven;
not dangerous Franklin expedition to
| find the northwest passage among ice
bergs; only a ferry. That accounts for
something you have never been able to
understand. You never supposed that
| very nervous and timid Christian people
could be so unexcited and placid in the
last hour. The fact is, they were clear
! down on the bank, and they saw there
was nothing to be frightened about, such
short distance-only ferry. With one
ear they heard the funeral psalm in their
memory, and with the other ear they
heard the song of heavenly salutation.
| The willows on this side the Jordan and
the Lebanon cedars on the other almost
interocked their branchcs-only ferry.
My subject also suggests the fact that
when we cross over at the last we shall
find solid landing. The ferryboat, as
| spoken of in my text, means place to
start from and place to land. David and
his people did not find the eastern shore
OF the Jordan any more solid than the
western shore where he landed, and yet
to great many heaven is not real place
70 you heaven is fog bank in the dis.
tance. After the resurrection has come
you will have a resurected foot and some
thing to tread on and resurrected eye
and colors to see with it and resurrected
ear and music to regale it.
Smart men in this day are making
great deal of fun about st. Johns mate.
rialistic descriptions of heaven. Well
now, my friends, If you will tell me what
will be the use of resurrected body in
heaven with nothing to tread on and moth
ing to hear and nothing to handle and
nothing to taste then ] Will laugh, too.
Are you going to float about in ether
forever, swinging about your hands and
feet through the air Unfortunately, one
moment sweltering in the centre of the sun
and the next moment shivernS in the
mountains of the moon?
That is not my heaven. Dissatisfied
with Johns materialistic heaven, theologi.
cal thinkers are trying to patch up heav.
en- that will do for them at last. | never
heard of any heaven | want to go to ex.
cept St. Johns heaven
l believe / shall hear Mr.. Toplady sing
yet and Isaac Watts recite hymns
and Mozart play. "Oh," you say, where
would you get the organ?", The, Lord
will provide the organ. Don't you bother
about the organ. l believe / shall yet see
David with q harp, and | will ask him to
sing one of the songs OF Zion.
| believe after the resurrection | shall
see Masslon, the great French pulpit or.
ator, and l shall hear from his own lips
how he felt on that day when he preached
the kings funeral sermon and flung his
whole audience into q paroxysm of grief
and solemnity.
And so you and l will be met at the
landing. Our arrival will not be like step.
ping ashore at Antwerp or Constantnople
among n crowd of strangers. 1t will be
among friends. good friends, those who
are warm hearted friends. and all their
friends. We know people whom we have
never seen by hearing somebody talk about
them very much. We know them almost
as well as if We had seen them.
And do You not suppose that our par
ents and brothers and sisters and children
in heaven have been talking about us all
| these years and talking to their friends?
| So that, | suppose, when we cross the
| river at the last we shall not only be met
by all those Christian friends whom we
knew on earth, but by all their friends.
They will come down to the landing to
meet us. Your departed friends love you
now more than they ever did.
You will be surprised at the last to find
how they know about all the affairs OF
YOUR life. Why, they are only across the
ferry, and the boat is coming this way.
and the boat is going that way do not
know but they have already asked the
Lord the day, the hour, the moment when
You are coming across and that they know
now. but | do know that YOU will be met
at the landing. The poet Southey said he
thought he should know Bishop Heber in
heaven by the portraits he had seen OF
him IN London, and DIR. Randolph said he
thought he would know William Cowper,
the poet, in heaven from the pictures he
had seen OF him in England, but we viii
| know our departed kindred by the pOr.
traits hung in the throne room OF our
| hearts.
On starlight nights You look up--and l
/ SuunuZe IN 10 40 with any apa who ba.