Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1915 — Short Sermons FOR A Sundap balf-Bour [ARTICLE]

Short Sermons FOR A Sundap balf-Bour

END BETTER THAN BEGINNING. BY REV. W. I* BENNETT. U Is finished. —John “The Bad la Batter than the Baginning." The proof of this la found in the word* of Jeeu Christ. Christ was on the crass when He said, "It is finished.” Our lives are different from the life of Jesus Christ We are not ready to bear a cross. He died once for all. He bore His cross to show \4i how to bear ours. The end was better than the beginning. These words of oar Lord were spoken with joy and. gladness. Some say, while we are in the world W ns gat aU the joy we can out of It Let us eat, drink and be merry. Those who follow that philosophy will lay up regrets for the future. They will oonve back from the cross of our Lord the need of tomorrow to complete the work of today proves that the end is better than the beginning. Every honest soul longs to live batter, to redeem the time. He is dissatisfied with the experiences of to-day. There Is f action in all human relations. Seldom can It be said of a person that he Is faithful and Just Friend, says Socrates, there Is no such thing. We do not ourselves know, much less are we known. A certain man was compelled to go a long distance to testify in court. He needed help and sought it from three persons whom he considered his best friends. The first one, whom he thought his best friend absolutely refused either to loan him money or to go even & little way with him on his Journey. The second would let him have no money but would go a little way with him. The third gave all he had and redeemed the other's life at the price of his own. Other friends leave us; this One never. When we say it is finished, to go into the hands of God, we find that He Is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. You can bury sorrow. Dismay and terror come and make it impossible. But When the word, it Ib finished comes to us we will realize what true happiness is. The joy of life comes when H is finished. Saul turned away from the commandments of Jehovah. Soul stood a head taller than his fellows. When Saul went to the witch of Endor he asked that she bring up Samuel. Samuel told him he had sinned against God. Said fell down fiat. 13m next day he had to go to battle. Defeat stared him in the face. R waa so before he went to GHboa. Saul’s joy waa the joy of despair, which is not the highest Jay. The Joy of Jesus Is the Joy of accomplishment- This Is the summum bottom of sfi human wisdom. The messenger who brought to the waiting Napoleon, news of the capture of Roths bop. as told in rente by Browning had *3fis breast almost shot in two.”

“You’re wounded.” “Nay,” the soldier’s pride,

Touched to the <2ock, he said; Tm killed, Sire.” And his chief beside.

Smiling the boy Hell dead. This was the Joey of accomplishment. When Jesus waa on the cross He said: "It Is flashed.” This is the wisdom of the world. We don’t know when we can say It is finished We may take Our pieces and not be overcome by them. Tomorrow will ewer be oar best day. The old is sweeter thaa the new; the best is yet to be.

There was a periods in the history of Great Britain when hands of men, in religious zeal opposing the ceremony of cathedral worship went about with iconoclastic spirit hushing the beautiful windows of the oathedrais. Years ago an artist with the love of art went around gathering up these fragments as they lay fia al their made them up into-other windows through which the con shone with all the colon of the rainbow. So God collects the fragments of our lives makes master wed of the windows through which the light of His .life may shine upon all men.