Part 20 (1/2)
THE GREATEST SERMONS
are not preached on celebrated platforms; they are preached with an audience of two or three, and in private home life. A consistent, consecrated Christian service is an unanswerable demonstration of G.o.d's truth.
A group of rough men were a.s.sembled at a tavern one night. It came on toward morning--one or two o'clock. One man boasted that it did not make any difference what time he went home, his wife cheerfully opened the door, and provided an entertainment if he was hungry when he got home. So they laid a wager. They said: ”Now, we'll go along with you.
So much shall be wagered. We'll bet so much that when you go home and make such a demand she will resist it.” So they went along at two or three o'clock in the morning and knocked at the door. The door opened, and the man said to his wife, ”Get us a supper.” She said, ”What shall I get?” He selected the articles of food. Very cheerfully were they provided, and about three or four o'clock in the morning they sat down at the table--the most cheerful one in all that presence the Christian wife--when the man, the ruffian, the villain who had demanded all this, broke into tears, and said: ”I can't stand this. Oh, what a wretch I am!” He disbanded that group. He knelt down with his Christian wife and asked her to pray for the salvation of his immortal soul, and before the morning dawned they were united in the faith and hope of the Gospel.
A patient, loving, Christian demeanor in the presence of transgression, in the presence of hardness, in the presence of obduracy and crime, is an argument from the throne of the Lord Almighty, and blessed is that woman who can wield such an argument. A sailor came slipping down the ratline one night, as though something had happened, and the sailors cried, ”What's the matter?” He said,
”MY MOTHER'S PRAYERS
haunt me like a ghost.” Home influences, consecrated Christian home influences, are the mightiest of all influences upon the soul. There are men here to-day who have maintained their integrity, not because they were any better naturally than some other people, but because there were home influences praying for them all the time. They got a good start. They were launched on the world with the benedictions of a Christian mother. They may track Siberian snows, they may plunge into African jungles, they may fly to the earth's end, they cannot go so far and so fast but the prayers will keep up with them.
I stand before women this morning who have the eternal salvation of their husbands in their right hand. On the marriage-day you took an oath before men and angels that you would be faithful and kind until death did you part, and I believe you are going to keep that oath; but after that parting at the door of the grave, will it be an eternal separation? Is there any such thing as
AN IMMORTAL MARRIAGE,
making the flowers that grow on the top of the sepulchre brighter than the garlands which at the marriage banquet flooded the air with aroma?
Yes; I stand here as a priest of the most high G.o.d to proclaim the banns of an immortal union for all those who join hands in the grace of Christ. O woman, is your husband, your father, your son away from G.o.d? The Lord demands their redemption at your hands. There are prayers for you to offer, there are exhortations for you to give, there are examples for you to make; and I say now, this morning, as Paul said to the Corinthian woman: ”What knowest thou, O woman, but thou canst save thy husband?”
A man was dying, and he said to his wife: ”Rebecca, you wouldn't let me have family prayers, and you laughed about all that, and you got me away into worldliness; and now I am going to die, and my fate is sealed, and you are
THE CAUSE OF MY RUIN.”
O woman, what knowest thou but thou canst destroy thy husband? Are there not some here who have kindly influences at home--are there not some here who have wandered far away from G.o.d, who can remember the Christian influences in their early home? Do not despise those influences, my brother. If you die without Christ, what will you do with your mother's prayers, with your wife's importunities, with your sister's entreaties? What will you do with the letters they used to write to you, with the memory of those days when they attended you so kindly in times of sickness? Oh, if there be but just one strand holding you from floating off on that dark sea, I would just like, this morning, to take hold of that strand and pull you to the beach.
For the sake of your wife's G.o.d, for the sake of your mother's G.o.d, for the sake of your daughter's G.o.d, for the sake of your sister's G.o.d, come this day and be saved.
V. Lastly, I wish to say that one of the specific rights of women is, through the grace of Christ, finally
TO REACH HEAVEN.
Oh, what a mult.i.tude of women in heaven! Mary, Christ's mother, in heaven; Elizabeth Fry in heaven; Charlotte Elizabeth in heaven; the mother of Augustine in heaven; the Countess of Huntingdon--who sold her splendid jewels to build chapels--in heaven; while a great many others, who have never been heard of on earth, or known but little, have gone into the rest and peace of heaven. What a rest! What a change it was from the small room, with no fire and one window, the gla.s.s broken out, and the aching side and worn-out eyes, to the ”house of many mansions!” No more st.i.tching until twelve o'clock at night, no more thrusting of the thumb by the employer through the work to show it was not done quite right. Plenty of bread at last. Heaven for aching heads. Heaven for broken hearts. Heaven for anguish-bitten frames. No more sitting up until midnight for the coming of staggering steps. No more rough blows across the temples. No more sharp, keen, bitter curse.
Some of you will have no rest in this world. It will be toil and struggle and suffering all the way up. You will have to stand at your door fighting back the wolf with your own hand red with carnage. But G.o.d has a crown for you.
I want you to realize, this morning, that He is now making it, and whenever you weep a tear He sets another gem in that crown, whenever you have a pang of body or soul He puts another gem in that crown, until, after a while, in all the tiara there will be no room for another splendor, and G.o.d will say to His angel, ”The crown is done; let her up that she may wear it.” And as the Lord of Righteousness puts the crown upon your brow, angel will cry to angel, ”Who is she?”
and Christ will say, ”I will tell you who she is. She is the one that came up out of great tribulation, and had her robe washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.”
A BANQUET.
And then G.o.d will spread a banquet, and He will invite all the princ.i.p.alities of heaven to sit at the feast; and the tables will blush with the best cl.u.s.ters from the vineyards of G.o.d, and crimson with the twelve manner of fruits from the Tree of Life; and water from the fountains of the rock will flash from the golden tankards; and the old harpers of heaven will sit there making music with their harps; and Christ will point you out amid the celebrities of heaven, saying, ”She suffered with me on earth, now we are going to be glorified together.” And the banqueters, no longer able to hold their peace, will break forth with congratulation, ”Hail! hail!” And there will be handwritings on the wall--not such as struck the Persian n.o.blemen with horror, but fire-tipped fingers writing in blazing capitals of light and love and victory: ”G.o.d hath wiped away all tears from all faces!”
THE OLD FOLKS' VISIT.