Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1888 — THERE IS NO DEATH. [ARTICLE]

THERE IS NO DEATH.

Th* announcement that the public debt was actually increased 111,199,817 during November, was received with surprise by the average reader. The increase was due to heavy pension payments, and is not liable to be the rule. Tua report of lowa’s railroad Commission shows a deortßrfß in freight earnings tor the fiscal year of $856,283.75. This is due, think the commissioners, (1) to rate wap and (2) to the strike on the C. B. A Qwhich diverted much freight to lines outside of the State. As to the first cause a great many people are selfish enough to think that rate wars are profitable. ... Lord Salisbury, the English Premier, has declared himself in favor of woman suffrage. We hardly believed Salisbury could get out of the old Tory rut long enough to take advanced ground on any subject Probably he will now go a step farther and accord to Ireland the right of self government, a right enjoyed by ever State, county and township in this country, and which is clearly due the Irish nation. The Surgeon General's report shows an unpleasant state of things in the army. The whole force is 23,871, but of these 1010 are, on the average, constantly sick, and therefore ineffective for military duty. The discharges in one year for sickness are 648, for disability 714, for injuries 66. Add to this deaths from all causes. 214. The sanitary condition of the army posts has not been what it might and should have been. But if the reports concerning the morals of our army posts even approximate correctness the wonder is that the health of the soldiers is as good as it is. The orgies vouched for as occurring in Alaska would disgrace Attila’s Huns. Way do tobocco and whisky keep such close company? Because, says one of the English essayists.thetwo counteract each other. Liquors stimulate the nerves; and tobacco is used as a depressant He shows that when you undertake the dire of a drunkard you must see to it that he throws away his tobacco also. The doctrine is quite plausible, besides, birds of a feather go together. It is our nerves that, as a nation, we are bound to take care of; and it is as nerve agents that whisky and tobacco had better be let alone. One .hundred millions of dollars a year taken from the saloon till and distributed among the laborers would revolutionize poverty in a few years. After all, our miseries are mostly of our own making. Following the discovery of new uses for cotton fiber and cotton seed, and of the common nettle,comes the newsof the discovery of some remarkable uses to which the fiber of the banana may be put. Tne fiber extends the length of the body of the tree, or about 15 feet, and is of silken fineness. The utilization of all vegetable and animal substances for the service of man is the great desideratum of humanity. A few years ago Malthusianism was believed—that is, that the race increased faster in proportion than theincreaseof food and other necessities of life. It is now underatood by political economists that under a state of industrial civilization food products and other requisites increase faster than population. St. Petersburg is not commonly looked to as a source of liberal ideas. But the Servian Minister there has drawn up a new constitution-for his country which marks a distinct advance in governmental principles. It concedes, in fact, almost everything the Servian Liberals have demanded. Every male Servian twenty-one years old and paying $3 a year taxes is, by/the new constituti :n, entitled to vote and to enter Parliament. EntirS religious liberty is established, the present harsh distinctions against Jews being done away with. The press is made free, and individual liberty is guaranteed, so that eitixens will no longer, as at present, be in danger of arbitrary arrests and domiciliary searches without process of law. Such concessions as these, if the new constitution be adopted, will go far toward reconciling the Servians to the reign of their scoundrelly King, Milan, against whom of late been strongly tempted to revolt Perhaps the Inter-State Commerce Commi»r.ion will investigate a serious charge which has been brought against the locomotives of America. A correspondent of the North wersterh Railroader holds that they are largely responsible for floods and storms. Why so? Oh, because, says the respondent, they send into the air every week “more than 53,000,000,000 cubic yards of vapor, while 7,000,00 »,000 of that sort of cubic yards is quite enough to produce a good rainfall every twenty-four hours.” This has the force of a demonstration of at least 23.000,000,000 horse power. The curious question remains, and oneupon which Noah never threw any light, how many locomotives did it take to furnish the vapor that brought about the delnw c : No more the »un our face* fries, No m >re we mop the brow. And best of all. there are no flies

Departed OAes Wail and Watch for Friends to Come. Heaven >« a H Ch»»g* for l-’am neHlrtrkxn Hinn re of Earth—Th" Oraeo • Soft lUatins P-ace. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn tabernacle last Sunday. Sub-, ject: “Our Departed Still Living.” T?xt Genesis xlv.‘, 27-28. He said: ' ; My friends, we are in a world Jby sin famine-struck; but the King is in ionptant communication with us, his wagons coming and going perpetually, and in my discourse - P will show you what the wagons bring and what they take back. In (he first place, like those came from the Egyptian palace, the King’s wagons now bring us corn, and' meat, and many changes of raiment. Weave apt to think of the fields and the orchards as feeding us; but who makes the flax grow for the linen, arid the wheat for the bread, and the Wool on the sheep’s back? Gh, I wish we could see through every grain field, by every sheep fold, under the trees of every orchard, the Kings wagons. They drive up three times a day morning, noon and night. They bring furs from the arctic, they bring fruits from the tropic, they bring bread from the temE erate zone. The King looks out, and e says: “There are twelve hundred millions of people to be fed and clothed. 86 many pounds of meat, so many barrels of flour, so many yards of cloth and linen and flannel, so many hats, so many socks, so many shoes;” enough Jor all, save that we who are greedy get more shoes than belong to us, and others go barefooted. None but a God could feed and elbthe the world. None but a King’s corn-crib could appease the world’s famine. None but a King could tell how many wagons to send, and how heavily to load them, and when they ; are to start. They are coming over the frozen ground to day. Do you not hear their rumbling? They will stop at noon at your table. Ob, if for a little while they should cease hunger would come into the nations, as to Utica when Hamilcar besieged itand as in Jerusalem when Vespasian surrounded it; and the nations would be hollow-eyed and fall upon each other in universal cannibalism,and skeleton would drop upon skeleton, and there would be no one to bury the dead, and the earth would be a field of bleached skeletons, and the birds of prey would fall dead, flock after flock, without any carcasses to devour, and the earth in silence would wheel around, one great black hearse! All life stopped because the king of wagons is stopped! Oh, thank God for bread! for bread! I remember again that like those that came from the Egyptian King’s palace, the King’s wagons bring us good news. Jacob had not heard froin his boy for a great many years. He never thought of him but with a heart-ache. There was in Jacob’s heart a room where lay the corpse of his unburied Joseph, and when the wagons came—the King’s wagons—and told him that Joseph was yet alive he fainted dead away. Good news for Jacob! Good news for us! The King’s wagons come down and tell us that our Joseph-Jesus is yet alive; that He has forgiven us because we threw Him into the pit of suflering and the dungeon of shame. He has risen from thence to stand in a palace. The Bethlemen shepherds were awakened at midnight by the rattling of the wagons that brought the tidings. Our Joseph-Jesus sends us a messegeof pardon, of life, of heaven: corn for our hunger, raiment for our nakedness. Joseph-Jesus is yet alive! Igo to hunt up Jesus. I go to the village of Bethany and ssy: "Where floes Mary live?” They say: “Yonder Mary lives.” I go in. I tee where she sat in the sitting-room. Igo out where Martha worked in the kitchen but find no Jesus. I go into Pilate’s Court-room, and I find the Judge and the police and the prisoner’s box, but no Jesus.' I go “into the Arimathean Cemetery; but the door is gone; and the shroud is gone and Jesus is gone. By faith I look up to the King’s p lace and behold, I have found Him! JosephJesus is still alive! Glorious religion; a religion made’, not out of death’s heads, and cross bv.nes, and undertaker’s screwdriver, but one bounding with life, and sympathy, and gladnesss Joseph is yet alive. The king’s wagons will after awhile unload, and they will go back to the paiace, and I really think t ’ at you and 1 will go with them. The King will not leave us in this famine-struck world. The King has ordered that we be lifted into the wagon and that we go over into Goshen, where there shall be pasturage for Mil largest flock of joy, and then we will drive up to the palace, where there are glories awaiting us which will melt all the snow of Egyptian marbie into forgetfulness. I think that the King's wagons will tsike us up to see our lost friends. Jacob’s chief anticipation was not seeing the Nile, nor of seeing the long colonnades of architectural beauty, nor of seeing the th rone-room, there was a focus to all hfe journeyings, to all his anticipations; and that was Joseph. Web; my friends, I do not think heaven would be worth much if our brother Jesus was not there. If there were two heavens. The one with all the pomp and paraphernaliaof an eternal monarchy,but no Christ, and the other were a plain heaven, humbly thatched, with a few daisies in the yard, and Christ were there, I would say; “Let the King’s wagon’s take me up to the old farm-house.” If Jesus were not in heaven, there would be no music there; there would be but few people there; they would be off looking for the lost Christ, crying through the universe; “Were is Jesus?” And after they l had found Him, with loving violence they would take Him and bear Him through the gates; and it would be the greatest day known in heaven within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Jesus never went off from heaven but once, and He was so badly treated on that excursion they will never let Him go »g in. On, the joy of meeting our brother Joseph-Jesus! After wg have talked about Him for ten, Or fifty, or seventy years, to talk with Him and to clasp bands with the hero of the ages; nor crouching as underlines in His uresence, but as Jacob and Jost-ph, hug each other. We will want some new term by which to address Him. On earth we call him Savior, or Redeemer or friend; but when we throw our arms around Him in everlasting embrace, we will

want some ne w name of .endearmen. I c n think of what we shall do through the long ages of eternity, but what we shall do the first minute I cannot guess. In the first flash of His countenance, in the first rush of our,emotions, what we shall do I cannot imagine.- Wh, tfag overwhelming-glory of the first sixo£ seconds in heaven! Methinks we will just stand and look and look and look. The King’s wagons took Jacob up to see bis lost boy, and so I really think that the King’s wagons will take us up to see our losjt kindred. How long is it since Joseph went out of your household? How many years is it now last Christmas or the 14 th of next month? It was a dark night when he died, and a stormy day it was at the ourial, and the clouds wept with you, and the winds moaned for the dead The bell at Greenwood's gate rang only « few moment’s, but your heart has been tolling, tolling ever since. You have been under a delusion, like Jacob of old. You have thought that Joseph was dead. You put his name first in the birth record of the family Bible, and then you put in the death record of the family Bible, and you have been deceived. Joseph is yet alive. He is more alive than you are. Of all the sixteen thousand millions of children that statisticians say have gone into the future world there is not one of them dead, and the King’s wagons will take vou up to see them. You often think bow glad you will be to see them. Haye you ever thought, my brother,my sister, bow glad they will be to see you? Jacob was no more glad to see Joseph than Joseph was to see Jacob. Every time the door in heaven opens, they look to see if it is you coming in. Joseph, once standing in the palace, burst out crying when he thought of Jacob—afar off. And the heaven of your little ones will not be fairly begun until you get there. All the kindness shown them by immortalswill not make them forget you There they are, the radiant throngs that went out from your home! I throw a kiss to the sweet darlings. They are all well now in the palace. The crippled child has a sound foot now. A little lame child says: “Ma, will Ibe lame in heaven?” “No, my darling, you won’t be lam* in heaven.” A little sick child say: “Ma, will I be sick in heaven?” “No, my dear, you woa’t be sick in heaven.” A little blind child says: “Ma, will Ibe blind in heaven?” “No, my dear, you won’t be blind in heaven.” They are all well there. In my boyhood, for some time we lived three miles from church, and on stormy days the children staid at home, but father and mother always went to church; that was a habit they had. On those stormy Sabbaths when we staid at home the absence of our parents seemed very much protracted, for the roads were very bad, and they could not get on very fast. So we would go to the window at twelve o’clock to see if they were doming,’ and then’ we would goat half past twelve to see if they were coming, and at a quarter to one,' and tnen at one o’clock. After a while Mary or David or DeWitt would shout: “The wagon’s coming!” and then we would see it winding out of the woods, and over the brook, and through the lane, and up in front of the old farm house; and then we would rush out, leaving the doors wide open, with many things to tell them, asking them many questions. Well, my dear brethren, I think we are many of us in the King’s wagons, and we are on the way home. The road is very bad and we get on slowly, but after a while we will come winding out of the woods, and through the brook of death, and up, in front of the old heavenly homestead, and our departed kindred, who have been waiting ano watchine for us, will rush out through the doors and over the lawn, crying: “The wagons are coming! the King’s wagons are coming!” Hark! the bellof the City Hall strikes twelve. Twelve o’clock on earth, and likewise it is high noon in heaven. Does not the subject of to day take the gloom out of the thoughts that would otherwise be struck through with midnight? We used to think that when we died we would have to go afoot, sagged down in the mire, and the hounds of terror might get after us, and if we got through into heaven at all we would come in torn, and wounded, and bleeding. I remember when my tee h chattered and my knees knocked together when I heard anybody talk about death; but I have come to think that the grave will be the softest bed I ever slept in, and the bottom of my feet will not be wet with the passage of the Jordan. “Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” 1 was reading of Robert Southey, who said that he wished he could die far away from his friends —like.a dog crawling into a corner and dying unobserved. • hose were his words. Be it ours to die on a couch surrounded by loved ones, so that they with us may hear the glad, sweet, jubilant announcement. “The King’s wagons are coming.” Hark! I hear.fhem now. Are they coming for >ouorme?i. *~A Clock Peddler’s Trick. Jewelers’ Reiiew. A good story was told your correspondent the other day about a well-known old gentleman who peddled clocks. and jewelry in the days before railroad contracts made him worth over a quarter of a million. “I distinctly recollect on one occasion,’’said he. “I was selling clocks near Mechani sburg, in the beautiful Cumberland Valley, and ran across a house where the man purchased three. After dinner, to wbich I was invited, my curiosity being exicited by the fact of the gentleman’s taking three clocks, I asked the reason. He told me that he was on- of three brothers who had agreed among themselves that the first one who struck a clock peddler should buy a clock for each I inquired about the brothers, where they r sided, and the best way to reach, them and after dinner I started, and before eveing I had seen the two brothers and sold them each three clocks, making nine in all.” When he finished the story the old gentleman g&ve achcukle as if he had accomplished a thing for which he deserved commendation. It is said that Napoleon did not read his letters until they were six weeks old, Iby which time events had answered most of them. We shall try this scheme on our January bills.—The Idea.