The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1902-02-28
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1
world over bright as MONDAY! And
now they sit yonder in the martyrs
gallery. For them the fires of perse-
cution have gone out; the swords are
sheathed and the mob hushed. Now
they watch us with an all observing
sympathy. They know all the pain.
all the hardship, all the anguish, all
the injustice, all the privation. They
cannot keep still. They cry: ''Cour-
age! The fire will not consume; the
floods cannot drown; the lions cam
not devour. Courage down there in
the arena!"
look again, and 1 see another gall
lery-that of eminent Christians.
What strikes me strangely is the
mixing in companionship of those
who on earth could not agree. There
is Albert Barnes and around him the
presbytery who tried him for hetero-
doxy! Yonder are Lyman Beecher
and the church court that denounced
him! Stranger than all, there are
| John Calvin and James Arminius!
Who would have thought that they
would sit so lovingly together?
There are George Whitefeld and the
ministers who would not let him
] SOAlC IlIO OCSdOSO OhOy
thought him fanatic. There are the
sweet singers Toplady, Montgomery.
Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts and Mrs.
Sigourney. If heaven had had no mu-
sic before they went up, they would
have started the singing. And there
the band of missionaries-David
Abeel, talking of China redeemed;
and John Scudder, of India saved;
and David Brainerd, of the aborigines-
evangelical; and Mrs. Adoniram judi
son, whose prayers for Burma took
heaven by violencei All these Chris
tians are looking into the arena
Our struggle is nothing to theirs!
Do we in Christ's cause suffer from
the cold? They walked Greenlands
icy mountains. Do we suffer from
the heat? They sweltered in trop-
les. Do we get fatigued? They faint
ed, with none to care for them but
cannibals. Are we prosecuted? They
were mathematical. And as they
look from their gallery and see us
falter in the presence of the lions
1 seem to hear Isaac Watts address
ing us in his old hymn, only little
changed
Must you be carried to the skies
On howery beds of ease
While others fought to win the prize
Or sailed through bloody seas?
Toplady shouts in his old hymn:
Your harps, We trembling saints.
Down from the willows take;
Loud to the praise of love divine
Bid every string awake.
While Charles Wesley, the Metho-
dist, breaks forth in words a little
varied:
A charge to keep you have,
A God to glorify,
A never dying soul to save
And fit it for the Skyi
look again, and see the gallery of
our departed. Many of those in the
other galleries we have heard of, but
these we knew. Oh, how familiar their
faces They sat at our tables, and we
walked to the house of God in COM
pany. Have they forgotten us? Those
fathers and mothers started us on the
road of life. Are they careless as to
what becomes of us? And those chill
dren-do they look with stolid indiffer-
ence as to whether we win or lose this
battle of life? They remember the day
they left us. They remember the agony
of the last farewell. Though years in
Heaven, they know our faces. They
remember our sorrows. They speak
our names. They watch this fight for
Heaven. Nay, 1 see them rise up and
lean over and wave before us their
recognition and encouragement. That
gallery is not full. They are keeping
places for us. After we have slain the
lion they expect the King to call US,
saving: "Come up higher!" Between
the hot struggles in the arena 1 wipe
the sweat from my brow and stand on
tiptoe, reaching up my right hand to
clasp theirs in rapturous handshaking,
while their voices come ringing down
from the gallery, crying: 'Be thou
faithful unto death, and you shall have
a crown!"
But here pause, overwhelmed with
the majesty and the JOY of the scene!
Gallery of the King! Gallery of an
gelsl Gallery of prophets and apos-
ties, Gallery of martyrs! Gallery of
saints! Gallery of friends and kindredI
majestic circles of light and love!
Throngs, throngs, throngsi How shall
we stand the gaze of the universe?
Myriads of eyes beaming on us! Myri-
ads of hearts beating in sympathy for
u.s. How shall we ever dare to sin
again? How shall we ever become dis
couraged again? How shall we ever
feel lonely again? With God for us and
angels for us and prophets and apos-
ties for us and the great souls of the
ages for us and our glorified kindred
for us-shall we give up the fight and
die? No, Son of God, who didst die to
save us! No, We angels, whose wings
are spread forth to shelter us! No, We
prophets and apostles, whose warm
ings startle us! No, We loved ones,
whose arms are outstretched to receive
u.s. No; we will never surrender!
Sure 1 must fight If I would reign,
Be faithful to my Lord,
And bear the cross endure the pain.
Supported by thy word
Thy saints in all this glorious
Shall conquer though they die;
They see the triumph from afar
And seize it with their eye.
When that illustrious day shall rise
And all thine armies shine
In robes of victory through the skies,
The glory shall be thine.
NV hearers, shall we die in the arena
or rise to join our friends in the gal
lerv? Through Christ we may come
off more than conquerors. soldier
diving in the hospital rose up in bed the
last moment and cried: Here, herel"
His attendants put him back on his pill
low and asked him why he shouted
"Here," "Oh, L heard the roll call of
Heaven, and was only answering to
INV oameio I wonder whether after