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y 8 THE PRESBYTERIA Contributed RESURRECTION DAWN. O fading stars of resurrection day! O purpling East, with tender flush of morn! Had ye no quick, no prescient thrill of power To guess the drama ye should look upon? O little olive leaf and warbling thrush, And tiny pebble by the tomb's sealed door, 8id ye not listen in the dawn's sad hush For the issuing of the conqueror? On, tell us how He gazed on temple dome, And swept Ills glance along the sacred way, And o'er the treetops of Gethsemane, Fixing a long look on pale Calvary! Saw ye the cruel gashes in His hands, And tender tlcsh torn by the scourge and thorn? Saw ye the impetuous glance of victory, The gaze of conqueror that met the morn? O gieaming East! You blushed to see the shame That sin had wrought in body of the Lord. O western winds' You sighed and kissed the wounls Riven by hatred of the Son of God! O bird and breeze! O stone and purpling cloud! Did ye not hear, as those with hated breath The hollow echoes of the empty tomb, The moaning of the vanquished spectre, Death? While from the mystic deeps of ages past, Fai flash once more eternal splendors bright, And, marshaied by the scepter of the Christ, Immortal Life and Beauty spring to Light! Mary Jasper Willis. Fayetieville, Ark. GIRARDEAU'S "LAST JUDGMENT." 1858?1908. Hampden C. DuBose, D. D., Soochow. On the retreat from Richmond, April, 1865, beside the decimated battalions of a noble army, Chaplains James McDowell and J. L. Girardeau were riding along together, when they alighted and sat beside the road conversing on the stern realities of the gloomy situation. "The Federals are coming," sounded along the lines. The former rode forward and joined his brigade, but in fifteen minutes the latter, failing to escape, was captured and on his way to Johnson's Island. He re turnea irom prison aoout the hrst of July to his family, who had found a secure refuge in "the backwoods" of Darlington county, South Carolina. One of his fellow-captives, Captain W. E. James, who was a member of his theological class in the island fortress, soon arranged for him to hold ten days' services in the Darlinp-tnn ehnrrh Veterans from all over the district, with their wives and daughters, gathered to hear the Gospel chieftain. On Sunday morning to an immense audience he preached on the Judgment Day. The vast galleries were packed, and just in front of me stood a young man of noble birth, but deaf and dumb. He remained motionless during the hour, as in astonishment, and with fixed gaze he beheld the face of the eloquent N OF THE SOUTH. April 21, 1909. 1 crator, now pale with fear, then flushed with emotion, at one time beaming with tenderness, and at another transfigured before the congregation. He listened as I only the deaf can, through the portals of the eye, to the sweet notes of welcome, "Come ye blessed," uttered by Zion's Judge, to the thundering hallelujahs of the host ascending to the sky, or to the deep moans of the lost descending to the pit, as these scenes were depicted by the shifting lights and shadows on the face of this prince of preachers. It was the grandest tribute paid to sacred eloquence that it has ever been my lot to behold. Soon Mr. Girardeau returned to Charleston, invited by the scattered > remnants of the white Presbyterian congregations, lie was met at the depot by his colored members, who desired to bear him on their shoulders through the streets and could scarcely be restrained in their superabounding enthusiasm. In a foot-note the Editor of the volume of his sermons, published by .The State Company, says, "There is nothing in the manuscript of Dr. Girardeau to show when this sermon was prepared." Either at the time above mentioned or during my seminary course I heard some minister remark that Dr. G. said he "wrote it in 1858 and had never altered the manuscript." Here, a half century having passed, a lad, who was in the gallery of his old home church, and heard that sermon the July after the sword was returned to its scabbard, sits July of 1908, now no longer young, in his Llunese study translating this same sermon into the ianguagc of Sinim, to form, with Biblical material already prepared, the 48th chapter in his "Christian Theology." If now and then he paused in his pleasant, though difficult, task and retired from where he was dictating to his writer to allow the unhidden tear to fall, and the thought arose, "Why should a man die who could preach like this?" the re<;r\nnsp frr?m u:~ f ? ? w*?l HIV VIV J7HI^ U1 I 1 1> soul would be: He is not dead, but speaketh in the tongue of earth's ancient nation, for whose evangelization he so earnestly and frequently pleaded in the pulpits of the Southland. These lines were written last summer, but not forwarded. Recently Dr. T. H. Law in his appreciative review of the sermons, puts the date of this one a little earlier. FROM MY CORNER. 1 was at a burial service a few days ago. It was conducted by a Primitive Baptist preacher and on Primitive Baptist lines. He was dressed in a mixed suit of brown and gray, had long hair smoothly brushed. He used old hymns, with old tunes I haven't heard since boyhood, lining out two lines at a time. nis talk was rather a surprise for its appropriateness and force. He put special stress on the resurrection as a ground of comfort. There was nothing new in it all, but I thought to myself, Well here I've been feeling as if these brethren were all ignorant and wrong, and behold they are comforting themselves with the same old blessed truths. He has not studied many books, but he knows the Bible and gets at its rich provision for flio cr*n 1 After the service I was talking with one of these breth