The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1902-02-06

c,
decides our happiness. With the bare
necessities of life many are unspeaka-
bly, happy. while others with all the
luxuries are representations of misery.
Your heart right, all is right; your
heart wrong, all is wrong
| But we must tighten the cords OF our
harp and retune it while we celebrate
gospel advantages The highest style
| of civilization the world has ever seen
| is American civilization and it is built
out of the gospel of pardon and good
morals. That gospel rocked our cradle,
and it will epitaph our grave 1t soothes
| our sorrows, brightens our hopes, in
spires our courage. forgives our sins
and saves our souls. 1t takes a man
who is all wrong and makes him all
| right. What that gospel has done for
you and me is story that we can
never fully tell. What it has done for
the world and will yet do for the ma
tions it will take the thousand years of
the millennium to celebrate. Oh, what
world this will be when it rotates in
it's orbit redeemed planet, girdled
riched by orchards whose fruits are
specklass ana redundant and the last
pain will have been banished and the
last tear wept and the last groan ut
tered, and there shall be nothing to
hurt or destroy in all Gods holy noun
tain! All that and more will come to
pass, for the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it,
So far | have mentioned nine of the
| ten strings of the instrument of graft
tude. | now come to the tenth and the
| last. | mention it last that it may be
the more emorable-heavenly antici
patton. BY the grace of God we are
| going to move into place so much
better than this that on arriving we
will wonder that we were for SO many
years so loath to make the transfer.
After we have seen Christ face to face
and rejoiced over our departed kindred
| there are some mighty spirits we Will
want to meet soon after we pass
through the gates. We want % see and
will see David, a mightier king in
heaven than he ever was on earth, and
we will talk with him about psalmody
and get from him exactly what he
meant when he talked about the in-
strument of ten strings. We will con-
front Moses, who will tell of the law
giving on rocking Sinai and of his
mysterious burial, with no onesbut God
present. We will see Joshua, and he
will tell us of the coming down of the
walls of Jericho at the blast of the
rams horn and explain to us that
miracle-how the sun and moon could
stand still without demolition of the
planetary system. We will see md
talk with Daniel, and he will tell us
how he saw BelshaZzar's banqueting
hall turned into a slaughter house and
how the lions greeted him with loving
faWn instead of stroke of cruel paw
We will see and talk with Solomon,
whose palaces are gone, but whose in.
splred ep1grams stand out stronger and
stronger as the centuries pass. We
will see Paul and hear from him how
Felix trembled before him. and the
audience of skeDtics on Mars hill
were COMPOUNDED by his sermon on the
brotherhood of man, what he saw at
Ephesus and Syracuse and Phiiippi and
Rome and how dark was the Manner
tine dungeon and how sharp the ak
that beheaded him On the road to Os-
tia. What thrill! of excitement for
us when we gaze upon the heroes and
heroines who gave their lives for tina
truth. We will see the gospel p:o-
Chalmers Chrysostom and Bourdaloue
and Whitefeld and the Wesleys and
John Knox. We will see the great
Christian poets Milton and Dante and
Watts and Mrs. Hemans and Frances
Havergal Yea, all the departed Chris
tlan men and women of whatever age
or nation.
But there will be one focus toward
which all eyes will be directed. His,
infancy having slept on pillow of
straw; all the hates of the Herodic
government planning for his assassina-
tlon; In after time whipped as though
he were criminal; asleep on the cold
mountains because no one offered him
a lodging; though the greatest being
who ever touched our earth, derisively
| >sAiiSd tliio lCllCW, Ills ldSL hours
writhing on spikes of infinite torture:
his lacerated form put in sepulcher,
then terminated and assembled to be
the center of all heavenly admiration
upon that greatest martyr and
mlghtlest hero of all the centuries we
will be permitted to look Put that
among your heavenly anticipations
| Now take down your harm of ten
strings and sweep all the chords, maxi
ing all of them tremble with great
gladness. l have mentioned just ten
delightsome food, eyesight, hearing
healthful sleep, power of physical To-
comotion, illumined nights, mental
faculties in equipoise, friendships OF
life, gospel advantages and. heavenly
anticipations. Let US make less com
plant and offer more thanks, render
less dirge and more cantata. Take ma