Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-12-15

Unabated in that holy land.
Jesus came from out the Courthouse
door,
Stretched his hands above the pass
ing poor,
Booth saw not. but led his queer ones
there
Round and round the mighty Court
house square.
Yet in an instant all that blear re-
view
Marched on spotless clad in raiment
new.
The lame were Strengthened, withered
limbs uncurled
And blind eyes opened on a new
sweet world.
Drabs and vixens in flash made
Gone was the weasel-head. the snout
the jowl:
Sages and sibyls now, and athletes
clean.
Rulers of empires, and of forests
green!
The hosts were sandaled and their
wings were fire
Are You Washed in the blood of the
Lamb?"
But their noise played havoc with
the angel-choir.
Are you washed in the blood OF the
Lamb?"
oh, shout salvationi it was good to
Kings and princes by the Lamb set
The banjos ratified. and the tambour-
ines
Jing-Jing- -jingled in the hands of
queens!
And when Booth halted by the curb
for prayer
He saw his Master through the flag
filled air.
Christ came gently with a robe and
crown
For Booth the soldier while fhe
throng knelt down.
He saw King Jesus - they were face
to face,
And he knelt a-weeping in that holy
place.
"Are you washed in the blood of the
Lamb?''
Nowadays we prate q great deal
about optimism.-and exhibit a pes-
simism that is fairly heathen. Most
of the advanced" literature of our
day breaths this deadly pessimism
which is born of selfishness and sin.
The most intellectual of American
magazines last month had an article
upon marriage that was so cynical,
so sinister, so shallow, that one Won
ders where these writer's live that they
are so out of touch with normal,
wholesome Christian experience OF
human relationship. Much of our
current literature might have been
produced in the days of Nero or
Domitian, satiated Rome. Philosoph-
ers and poets and dramatists then
wrote in mood of hopelessness and
materialism. and lived worse than
they wrote
Out of that muck and mire bios
somed the fair white lily of Christian
optimism. This book of Revelation,
literature's surprising picture of the
triumph of goodness and truth, was
produced during the sway of the Ro-
man Empire at its worst. Never was
night darker: and never did the star
of hope shine brighter Out of the
background of this study of the
Apocalypse we get the tremendous
truth that Christianity has never lost
its clear vision of victory, and its es-
sential optimism.
This is the only adequate founda-
ton for an optimism that will work:
GOO lives and His kingdom is coming
and all evil is passing. Weeping
may endure for a night, but Joy COM
eth in the morning." The essential
transformers of wrongs might is
or Domitian may be on the worlds
throne, and Christians may be butch
cred to make Roman holiday and
hunted to caves in the earth like rab-
bits; yet the ultimate victory, COM
plete and dazzling and all-vindicatory,
is with Christianity. All the slow pro-
cesses of history are gradually con-
Verglng upon final and overwhelming
victory for the kingdom of heaven.
Because the Christian thinks in terms
OF TWO worlds, he alone has adequate
reason for a philosophy of optimism.
The faith that set the hearts of the
saints to singing at the end of the first
CHRISTIAN century, is still the faith
that makes serene and sunshiny and
stedfast disciples. Blessed is the
man who, amid the smoke and fog
ana clamor of our turbulent time, has
the eyes to see the new heaven and
the new earth.
Here needs the hereafter. Heaven
IS the mainstay of earth. Hope for
tomorrow is strength for to-day.
There is nothing like a great expec-
tation to fortify the heart and nerve
the muscles and lengthen the patience
A divine understanding of human ma
ture lies back of Revelations purpose
to encourage Christians in a dark day
py picturing to them the brightness of
a better day to come.
modern quarters to pooh-pooh the
idea of heaven as a factor in to-day's
work. 1 observe that this self-suffi- |
cient idea is held mostly by headv
young people, in the pride OF their
own strength, who have yet to learn
that their book-taught sociology does
life. INNS
1 go to my friend who has walked
solitary way for more than a gem |
Grafton, and he tells me that he is |
Just waiting and working for the day
when he will keep his tryst with the
one who has gone before into the
realm OF perfect love-.
asked yonder young mother
whose arms are empty, how she 6ouId |
write hymn of faith by the bier of |
her beautiful baby boy, and she tells
me, with glistening eyes, that he is |
as much hers as ever, and that she
Will one day go to him.
L f1nd on every hand a host OF ner-
sons, known to me by name, to whom
heaven is more real than earth. for
all their desire and expectation is
there and they wait in glad faith for
death, the great uniter. Because il |
expresses universal sentiment. the