The Washington herald., 1907-04-01
TAKEN INTO CHURCH
Mount Pleasast COngrega.
ti0n Gets New Members.
REV. MR.. FISHBURN breaches
Uses for HIS Text eThe Flower. Be
side the sepuIeher''-Deelares That
from Time ImmemoriaI Man Has
Been Builder of Tonbs-Cites Pyra-
mids, Temples, sc, as Examples.
ter-day services at the Mount Pleas

| yesterday services at the Mount Pleas
ant Congregational Church were signal
1 lied by the reception OF forty persons
/ into the church and by one of tive
largest congregations in its history. Toe
PASTOR Rev Ross Flshburn. delivered a
sermon on the season. and took for his
subject The Flowers Beside the sepul-
cher"
After the sermon, the Lords Supper was
celebrated, and the forty new communi-
eants admitted into the church
In his sermon. Mr.. Fishburn said
From time immemorial man has been
builder of sepulehers The most costly
and the most beautiful structures erected
by human hands have been tributes to
the dead. The mausoleum aud the pyra-
mids. the cathedral Of Europe. the lofty
granite shaft beside the Potomac, and the
tomb of Riverside Drive New York, bear
mute witness to the existence in all ages
of the hope which finds Interpretation in
the joys Of Easter day.
Flowers Grow Beside SepuIcher.
But wish To speak this morning not
of the sepuleher, but of the flowers that
6ioW bcSluc Atlc SSPllCucI.
'In one of his life books Ralph Waldo
Trine defines the difference between the
optimist and the pessimist in this wise.
The optimist has the power OF seeing
things In their entirety and in their right
relations. The pessimist looks from a
limited and one-sided point Of view.
Using our text as amplihcation of
these definitions. We may say that
the pessimist as he moves through
life's varying experiences, sees only
the sepulcher and Overlooks the gar
den that inclOses it. The optimist sees
both sepulcher and flowers and observes
that the garden is large enough to com
pietely surround the grave. II you
are an Optimist you will rearrange the
language OF the text, and instead Of read
ing, In the garden was a sepulcher,' viii
read, around the seDulcher was a garden.
cot few Of the flowers that bloom iu
the Easter garden. let Us think to-day
The first / name is character. Many a
youth has become man the day he stood
beside his fathers new made grave, and
turned away TO assume the responsible
sites as wage-eaTner and head of the
household. The opening and closing Of
a grave is often the making of the life
on which the bereavement falls In the
garden of Gods acre grows the sturdy
flower Of character.
Grows In Every Garden.
Nor does this flower thrive alone at
the graveside. It may be found in every
garden where suffering is known. The
world gratefully remembers Epictetus.
whom Browning describes as slave.
manned in body, beggar through poverty,
and dear to the immortals' Yet we have
not always seen the relation of his
nobility to the hardships he bore.
"One of the greatest of our American
preachers, whose physical sufferings have
been intense. makes this pathetic con-
fessiOn: 1 have suffered an inch of my
leg. but if I had TO suffer il all again and
TO crawl across the country on my hands
and knees in order TO get the view Of
life which has come to me through this
discipline. / would gladly do it The
flower Of character grew tall and fragrant
in the sick chamber of that man Of God.
Another flower that grows luxuriant
beside the sepulcher is the blossom of
a helpful sympathy. Sorrow often de-
velOps a singular and beautiful kindness.
There are strong natures that were once
intOlerable. But death visited them and
they came forth from the school of be-
reavement changed, and now their
is touched with sympathy and
tenderness.
Love Needs Pity Also.
Love is never at its best tiT is
mingled with pity The power TO enter
into the inner circle Of another's
sorrow is acquired only at the cost Of
heartaehe. The hand clasp Of a mother
who has lost child means more TO one
who kneels beside baby's casket than
the finest phrases from lips that never
kissed a face that was cold in death.
Faith in the continuance of life be-
yond the grave is another flower that
grows tallest in the garden that surrounds
the sepuleher. A college president, asked
TO give a conclusive argument for immor-
tality, replied: "A mother on the other
side A dear one with Christ does more
to illuminate the other world than the
logic Of the wisest of seers. It was beside
the grave of his closest friend that Tenny-
son wrote his most triumphant stanzas. 1t
was on the day of the funeral of one
deareT 10 him than a brother that James
Whitcomb Riley inscribed his familiar
lines that have cheered countless
shadowed hearts. And il has many times
come to pass that at the touch of van
shed hand unbelieving men have set their
faces toward God for the hope of seeing
again some dear one whom they had
loved long since and lost awhile.