Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1892 — OUR POSSESSIONS. [ARTICLE]

OUR POSSESSIONS.

Advantages of the Christian Portrayed. Our Pleasures Not Lessened by Religion— God Will Withhold No Good Thing From Those Who Love Him. Dr. Talmage preached on the street in Manchester, England, to 15,000 people last Sunday. Text, I Cor--111.. 22: “All are yours.’’ He said:: The impression is abroad that religion puts a man on short allowance, that when the- ship sailing heavenward comes to the shining wharf it will be found out that all the passengers had the hardest kind of sea fare; that the soldiers in Christ's army march most of the time with an empty haversack. In a word, that only those people have a good time in this world who take upon them? selves no religious obligation. / I want to-day to find out whether this is so, and I am going to take account of stock; I am going to show what are the Christian’s liabilities, and what his income, and what are his warrantee deeds, and what are his bonds and mortgages, and I shall find out beforelfinish just how much he is worth, and 1 shall spread before you the balance sheet in time to warn you all against the religion ms Jesus Christ if indeed it be a failure, and in time for you all to accept it if indeed it be a success. I turn first; to the assets, and I find what seems to ne a roll of government sec urities —the empire of heaven promising all things to the possessor. The three small words of my text are a warrantee deed to the whole universe when it says: “All are yours.” In making an inventory of the Christian’s possessions I remark, in the first place, that he owns this world. My text implies it, and the preceding verse asserts it —“whether Paul or A polios or Cephas of the world.” Now it would be an absurd thing to suppose that God would give to strangers privileges and advantages which he would deny his children. If you have a large park, a grand mansion, beautiful fountain*;, -Btalking-d-eeF’afid'statuary, to whom-

will you give the first right to all these possessions? To outsiders? No, to your own children. You will ers to come in and walk these paths and enjoy this landscape, but the first right to my house, and the first right to my statuary, the first right to my gardens shall be in the possession of my own children.” Now, this world is God’s park,and while he allows those who are not his children and who refuse his authority the privilege of walking through the gardens, the possession of all this grandeur of park and mansion is in the right of the Christian—the flowers, the diamonds;the silver, the gold,' the morning brightness and the evening shadow. The Christian may not have the title deed to one acre of land as recorded in the elerk’s.office, he may never have paid one dollar of taxes, but he can go up on a mountain and look off upon fifty miles of grain field and say, “All this ts mine; my -father gave it to me; u - “All So again’ the refinements of life are the Christian’s right. He has a right to as good appar&l, to as -beautiful adornments, to as commodious a residence as the worldling. • Show me any passage in the Bible that tells the people of the world they have privileges, they have glittering spheres, they have befitting apparel that are denied the Christian. There is no one who has so much a right to laugh, none so much a right to everything that is beautiful and grand and sublime in life as the Christian. •‘All are yours.” Can it be possible that one who is reckless and sinful, and has no treasurers laid up in* heaven, is to be allowed pleasures which the sons and daughters of God the owners of the whole universe, are denied? « So I remark that all the sweet sounds of the world are in the Christians right. There are people who have an idea that instruments of music are inappropriate for the Christian’s parlor. When did the house of sin OFthe bacchahal getotEe right to music? They have no Tight to it. God, in my text, makes over to Christian people all the pjanos, all the harps, all the drums, all the cornets, all the flutes, all the organs. People of the world-may borrow ■them, but they only borrow them; they have no right or title to them. Goa gave them to Christian people in rfiy text when he yours." v If you stand among the Alleghany mottfftains, especially near what is called the “Horseshoe.” you would find a train of cars almost doubling itself, and sitting in the back car you see a locomotive coming as you Look out the window, and you think it is another train when it is only the front of the train in which you are riding, and sometimes you can hardly tell whether the train is ?)ing toward Pittsburg or toward hiladelphia, but it is on the track and it will reach the depot for which it started and all the passengers will be discharged at the right pl ace. Now there are a great many curves in life. ’ Sometimes we seem to be going this way and sometimes we seem to be going that way, but if we are Christians we are on the right track and we are going to com£ out at the right place. ,■ Here is a vessel that goes along the coast; it hugs the coast. The captaia of the vessel seems chiefly anxious to keep thep|inton his ship 'from being marred or the sails from ; being tern. When that vessel oomes to port nobody looks oo it with any interest. But here is a vessell that

W L. • • « < ~ went across the sea with vast product and comes in with vast importation —sails patched, masts spliced, pumps all working to keep out the water; it has come through the hurricane which has sunk twenty steamers. The bronzed men are cheering afoongthe rigging. Now the men-of-war anchored in the harbor boom forth their welcome through their portholes. So there are some Christians who are having an easy tim£ It seems to them smooth sailing all the way. When they get into heaven there will be no excitement. There wilt be very fe\v people who will ever find out they are there. But those Christians who have gone through a hundred midnight hurricanes—storrrt to the right of them, storm to the left of come up the harbor of heaven all the redeemed will turn out to greet them and bid them hail and welcome, 9 I go further and tell you that" the Christian owns not only this world but-he owns the next world. No chasm to be leaped, no desert to be crossed. There is the wall, there isthe gate into heaven/ He owns all on this side. NbiY”! am going; to show you that he owns all on the other side- Death ii* not a ruffian that comes down, to burn us out of house and home,* destroying the house of the tabernacle so that we should be homeless forever. Oh,ho! He is only a black messenger who comes to tell us it is time to move; to tell us to get out of this hut,, and go up into the palace. The Christian owns all heaven. “All are yours.” Its beauty, its towers of strength, its castles of love. He will not walk in the eternal city as a foreigner in a strange o&y, but as a farmer walks over his own premises. “All are yours.” All the mansions yours. Angels your companions. Trees of life vour» shade. Hills of

glorv your lockout. Thrones of heaven the place where you will shout the triumph. Jesus is yours. God-is yours. You look up into the face of God and say, “My father." ■ You look up into th© face of Jesus ; and say “My brother.” Walk out ton the battlements of heaven and look- off upon the city of the sun. No tears. No sorrow. No death. No smoke of. toiling warehouse curling on the-air. No voice of blasphemy ; thrill through that bright, crlear Sabbath morning. No din of strife jar- ; ring the air. Then take out your deed, and remember that from throne i to throne, and from wall to wall, and ; from horizon to horizon, ..-“All are ! yours.” O ye who have pains of body that exhaust your patience, I hold before you this morning the land of eternal 1 health and an imperishable beauty and.“all is O ye who hard work to get your daily bread, hard work to shelter .your childrenfrom the storm,. I lift before you the vision of that land where they never hungerj and they never thirst,, and God feeds them, and robes cover them, and the warmth of eternal love fills them, and all that is yours! O ye whose hearts are buried in ; the grave of your dead—O ye whose i happiness went by long ago—O ye : who mourn for countenances that never will up and for eyes closed forever —sit no longer among i the tombs, but look here! A home j that shall never be broken up. Green I fields never cleft of the grave. Ran- I somed ones from you parted long ago now radiant with joy that shg,ll never cease, and a love that shall never grow cold, and wearing garments that shall never wither, and know all that is yours. Yours the love. Yours the acclaim. Yours the transport. Yours the cry of the four and twenty elders. Yours the choiring of cherubim. Yours th© lamb that was slain. Vfi

In the vision of that glorious consummation! almost lose my foothold, and have to hold fast lest I be overborne by the glory. The vision rose before St. John on Patmos, and he saw Christ in a blood red garment, ridipg on a white horse, and all heaven following him on white horses. What a procession! Let Jesus ride. He walked the way footsore, weary and faint. Now let him ride. White horse of victory, bear on our chief! Hosanna to the son of David! Ride on, Jesus! Let all heaven follow him. These cavalry of God fought well and they fought triumphantly. Now let them be mounted. The pavements of gold ring under the flying hoofs. Swords sheathed and victories won, like they sit on their chargers. Ye mounted troops of God, ride on I ride oo! ton thousand abreast, cavalcade after cavalcade. No blood dashed to the lips. *No blood dripping from the fetlocks. No smoke of battle breathed from the nostril. The battle is ended—the victory won! Oh, if there be any present who hre “yet enemies of the cross of Christ, I beseech them at once to be reconciled to God! Remember if you are not found among that whiterobed army who follow the Savior in his victorious march your part must be with those concerning whom it is said; “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord aad from the glory of hie jx>wer. when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe. □The senior Senator from Rhode Island is now Dr. Nelson W. Aldrich, for Brown University conferred the degree of LL. D. upon him at the recent commencement exercises held in Providence. orCoieetla. Whalebone is becoming scare. .7