Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1889 — OTHER DAYS LIVED OVER [ARTICLE]

OTHER DAYS LIVED OVER

REMINISCENCES OP THE JOY AND 80 BROW OF THE PAST. The Home—The Fireside and the Church—A Vivid Picture ol the Different Phases or the Fleeting Human Life. Rev. Dr. Tahnage preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday. Subject "Other Days Lived Over.” Text, Deni, viii.. 2. fie said: I want to bind in one sheaf all your past advantages, and I want to bind in another sheaf all your past adversities. It is a precious harvest, and I must bp cautioned how I swing the scythe. Among the greatest advantages of your past life was an‘early home and its surroundings. The bad men of the day, for the mostpart, dip their heated passions out of the boiling spring of, an unhappy home. We are not surprised to find that Byron’s heart was a concentration of Sin, when we hear his mother was abandoned, and that she made sport of his infirmity, and often called him “the lame brat.” He who has vicious parents has to fight every inch of Ids way if lie would maintain his integrity, and at last reach the home of the good in heaven.

Perhaps your early home was in the city: It may have been in the days when Canal street, New Yofk, was far up town, and the site of this present church was an excursion into the country. That old honse in the city may have been demolished or changed into stores, and it seemed like sacrilege to you, for there was more meaning in that plain house, in that small house, than there is in a granite mansion or a turreted cathedral. Looking back this morning you see it as though it were yesterday—the sitting-room, where the loved ones sat by the plain lamplight, the mother at the evening stand, the brothers and sisters, perhaps long ago gathered into the skies, then plotting mischief on the floor or under the table, your father with a firm voice commanding a silence that lasted half a minute. Oh, those were good days! If you had your foot hurt, your mother always had a soothing salve to heal it. If you were wronged in the street, your father was always ready to protect you. The year was one round of frolic and mirth. Your greatest trouble was like an April shower, more sunshine than shower. The heart had not been ransacked by troubles, nor had sickness broken it, -and no lamb had a - warmer sheepfold than the home in which your childhood nestled. Perhaps you were brought up in the country. You stand now to-day in memory under the old tree. You clubbed it for fruit that was not quite ripe because you couldn’t wait any longer. You hear the brook rumbling along over the pebbles. You step again into the furrow where your father in his shirt sleeves shouted to the lazy oxen. You frighten the swallows from the rafteis of the barn, and take just one egg, and silence your conscience by saying they won’t miss it You take a drink again out of the very bucket that the old well fetched up. You go for the cows at night, and find them wagging their heads through the bars. Oftimes in the dusty and busy streets you wish you were home again on that cool grass, or in the rag carpeted hall of the farmhouse, through which there was the breath of new mown hay or the blossom of buckwheat.

You may have in your windows now beautiful plants and flowers brought across the seas, but not one of them stirs in your soul so much charm and memory as the old ivy and yellow sunflower that stood sentinel along the garden wall, and the forget-me-nots play hide-and-seek mid the long grass. Thejfather, who used to come in, sunburnt from the fields, and sit down on the door-sill and wipe the sweat from his brow may have gone to hie everlasting rest. The mother, who used to sit at the door a little bent over, cap and spectacles on, her face mellowing with the vicissitudes of many years, may have put down her gray head in the pillow in the valley, but forget that home you never will. Have you thanked God for it? Have you rehearsed all these blessed reminlscenes? Ob, thank God for a Christian father^thank God for a Christian mother; thank God for an early Christian alter at which you were taught to kneel; thank God for an early Christian home* I bring to mind another passage in the history of your life. They day came when you set up your own household. The days passed along in quiet blesßedness. You twain sat at the table morning and night and talked over your plans for the future. The most insignificant affair in your life became the subject of mutual consultation and advisement. You were so happy you felt you could never be any happier. One day a dark clond hovered over your dwelling and it got darker and darker, bnt out of that cloud the shinning messengers of God descended to incarnate an imirortal spirit. Two little feet started on an eternal Journey, and you were there to lead them—a gem to flash in heaven’s coronet, and yon to polish it: eternal ages of light and darkness watching the starting out of a newly created creature. Yon rejoiced and yon trembled at the responsibility that in your possession an Immortal treasure was placed. You prayed and rejoiced, and wept and wondered; you were earnest in supplication that you might lead it through life into the kingdom of God. There was a tremor in your earnestness. There was a donble interest about that home. There was an additional interest, why you should stay there and be faithful, and when in a few months your house was filled with the music of the child’s laughter, you were struck through with the fact that you had a stupendous mission. Have ybu kept that vow? Have you neglected any of these duties? Is your home as much to you as it used to be? Have those anticipations been gratified? God help you to-day in your solemn reminiscence, and let His mercy fall upon your soul if your kindness has been ill-requited. God have mercy on tue parent on the wrinkles of whose face is written the story of a child’s sin. God have mercy on the mother who, in addition to her other pangs,"*haa the pangs of a child’s iniquity. Oh, there are many, many sad sounds in this sad world, but the saddest sound that is ever heard is the breaking of a mother’s heart Are there any here who remember that in that home they werennfaith-' fnl? Are there those who wandered offfrom that earl? home, and left the'

mother to die with a broken neat t? On I stir that reminiscence to-day. ‘ I find another point in your life history. Yoa found pne day you were in the wrong road; you couldn’t sleep at ' night; there was just one word that seemed to sob through your banking house, or through your office, or through your shop, or vour bedroom, and that word was ’‘Eternity.” Yon said, "I am not ready for it. O God, have mercy 1” The Lord heard. Peace came to vour heart. In the breath of the hill and the waterfall’s dash von heard the voice of God’s love; the clouds and the trees hailed you with gladness; you came into the Honse of God. You remember how your hand trembled as yoa took ap the cap of the Communion, You remember the old minister who consecrated it, and you remember the church officials who carried it through the aisle; you remember the old people who at the close of the service took your hand in.theirs in congratulating sympathy, as much as to say: “Welcome home, you lost prodigal:” and though those hands are all withered away, that Communion Sabbath is resurrected this mornintr; it is resurrected with all its prayers, and songs, and tears, and sermons, and transfiguration. Have you kept those vows? Have you been a backslider? God help you. This day kneel at the foot of mercy and start again for heaven.

Start to-day as you started then. I rouse your soul by that reminiscence. Bat I must not spend any more of my time in going over the advantages of your life. I must put them all in one great sheaf, and I wrap them up in your memory with one loud harvest song, such as the reapers sing. Praise the Lord, ye blood bought immortals of earth! Praise the Lord, ye crowned spirits of heaven! But some of you have not always had a smooth life. Some df you are now in the shadow. Others had their troubles years ago; you are a mere wreck of what you once were. I must gather up the sorrows of your past life. But how shall I do it? You say that is impossible, as you have had so many troubles and adversities. Then I will just take two, the first trouble and the last trouble. ,As when you are walking along the street, and there has been music in the distance, you unconsciously find yourselves keeping step to the music, so when you started life your very life was a musical time-beat.. The air was full of joy and hilarity; with the bright, clear oar you made the boat skip; vou went on, and life grew brighter until after, a while a v ? ice {lvm heaven said, Ha t. and quick as the sunshine you halted; you grew pale, you confronted vour first sorrow. You had no idea that the flush on your child’s cheek was an unhealthy flush. You said it can : t be any thing serious. Death in slippered feet walked round about the cradle. You did not hear the tread; but after a while the truth flashed on yoa. You walked the floor. Oh, it you could, with your strong, stout hand, have wrenched that child from the destroyer. You went to your room and you said, “God save my child! God, save my child.” The world seemed going out in darkness. You said, “I can’t bear it,” You felt as if you could not put the loDg lashes over the bright eyes, never to see them again sparkle. Oh, if you could have taken that little one in your arms and with it leaped the grave, how gladly you would have done it! Oh, if you could let your property go, your houses go, your land and your storehouse go, how gladly you would have allowed them to depart if you could onlv have kept that one treasurer

But one day there arose, trom the heavens a chill blast that swept over the bedroon, and instantly all the light went out, and there was darkness—thick, murky, impenetrable, shuddering darkness. But God didn’t leave you there, Mercy spoke. As you took up the eup, and was about to put it to your lips, God said, “Let it pass/’ and forthwith, as by the hand of angels, another cup was put into your hands; it- was the cup of God’s consolation. And as you have sometimes lifted the head of a wounded soldeir,and poured wine mtohia lips, so God put his left arm under your head,and with his right hand He poured into your lips the wine of His comfort and His consolation,and you looked at the empty cradle and looked and looked at your broken heart, and you looked at the Lord’s chastisement, and you said “Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight.” • Ah, It was your first trouble. How did you get over it? God comforted you. Y ou have been a better man ever since. You have been a better woman ever since. In the jar of the closing gate of the sepulcher you heard the clanging of the opening gate of heaven, and you felt an irresistible drawing heavenward. You have been purer of mind ever Bince that night when the little one for the last time put its arms around your neck and said; “Good night, papa; good night mamma. Meet me in heaven.” But I must come on down to your latest sorrow. What was it? Perhaps it was your own sickness. The child’s tread on the stair, or the tick of the watch on the stand disturbed you. Through the long weary days you counted the figures in the carpet or the flowers on the wall paper. Oh, the weariness, the exhaustion! i Oh, the burning panm! Would God it were morning, would God it were night, were your frequent cry. Bnt you are better, perhaps even well. Have you thanked that God to-day that you can come out m the fresh air; that you are in this place to hear God’s name, and to sing God’s praise, and implore God’s help, and to ask God’s forgivenm? Bless the Lord who healeth all oar diseases and redeemeth our lives from destruction. Perhaps your last sorrow was a financial embarrassment. I congratulate some of yon on your lucrative profession or occffpatidn, or ornate appeal, on a commodious residence—everytbing~you put your hands lo seems to turn to gold. But there are others of you like the ship on wjilch Pall sailed, where two seas met, and yon are broken by the violence of the waves. By an nnflOVlsed indorsement or by a conj action of unforeseen events, or by fire, or storm, or a senseless panic, yon have been flung headlong, and where you on«*e disEensed great charities now you have ard work to make the two ends meet. Have you forgotten to thank God for your days of prosperity, and that through your trials some of you have made investments which will continue after the last bask of this world has exploded, and the silver and the gold are molten in the fires of the molten world? Have yon, amid your losses and discouragements, forgot that there wu bread on your table this morning, and

that there shall be a shelter tor your head from the storm, and there is air for your lungs, and blood for your heart, and light for your eyes, and a glad and glorious religion tor your soul? ", Perhaps your last trouble was a bereavement That heart which in childhood was ,your refuge, the parental heart, and which has Been a source of‘ the quickest sympathy ever since, has suddenly become silent forever, and now, sometimes, whenever in-sadden annoyance and without deliberation, yon say, “I will go and tell mother,* 5 the thought flashes on you, “I have no mother,” or the father, with voice less tender, bat as stanch and earnest and loving as ever, watchful of all your ways, exultant oyer your success without saying much, although the old people do talk it over by themselves, his trembling hand on that staff which you now keep as a family yelic. his memory embalmed in grateful hearty is taken away forever.

Or, there was your companion in life, sharer of your joys and sorrows, taken, leavingthe heart an old ruin, where the chill winds blow over a wide wilderness of desolation, the sands of the desert driving across the place which once bloomed like the garden of God. And Abraham mourns for Sarah at «he cave of Machpelah. Going along your path in life, suddenly, right before you was an open grave. People looked down and they saw it was only a few feet deep and a lew feet wide, but to you it was a cavern down which went all your hopes and all vour expectations. Bat cheer np in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the comforter, fie is not going to forsake you. Did the Lord take that child sut ol your arms? Why, he is going to shelter it better than vou could. He is going to array it in a white robe, and with palm branches it will be all leady to greet you at your coming home. Blessed the broken heart that Jesus heals. Blessed the importunate cry that Jesus compassionates. Blessed the weeping eye from whieh the soft hand of Jesus wipes away the tear. But These reminiscences reach only' to this morning. There will yet be one more point of tremendous reminiscence, and that is the last hour of life, when we have to look over all our past existence. What a moment that will bel I place Napoleon’s dying reminiscence on St. Helena beside Mrs. Judson’s dying reminiscence in the harbor of St. Helena, the same island, twenty years after. Napoleon’s dying reminiscence was one of delirium: “Head of the army.” Mrs. Judson’s dying reminiscence, ss she came home from her missionary toil and her life-oL self-sacrifice for God, dying in the cabin of the shin in the harbor of

St. Helena, was: “I always did love the Lord Jesus Christ.” And then, the historian says, she fell into a sound sleep for an hour, and woke amid the songs of angels. I place the dying reminiscence of Augustus Caesar against the dying reminiscence of the Apostle Paul. The dying reminiscence of Augustus Caesar was, addressing his attendants: “Have I played my part well on the stage of life?” and they answered in the affirmative, and he said: “Why, then, don’t you applaud me?” The dying reminiscence of Paul the Apostle was: “I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteona Judge, will give me in that day, and not to me only, but to all them that love His appearing.” Augustus Caesar died amid pomp and great surroundings. Paul uttered his dying reminiscence looking up through the wall of a dungeon. God grant that our last hour may be the closing of a useful life and the opening of a glorious eternity.