The Golden age. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1906-1915, October 25, 1906, Page 5, Image 5

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home, the place we can go when every other place has shut its dors in our face, the place to which we can go to communicate ourselves as we can to no other place, the place where dwell those who believe in us, the place where perfect freeoom reigns—' l Home, Sweet Home. ’’ THE ELIM OF FRIENDSHIP. Have you ever thought how much there is in the friendships of life from -which we never get any benefit? Jesus Christ had the good sense to appre ciate this. Would you have a real picture of him as he appreciated the friendship of his friends? Look and see him coming down that dusty road that leads to the home of Mary and Martha and Laza rus. He is tired and worn. Perhaps he has been mocked, and jeered, and laughed at. He needed some one to whom he could go, and be free enough to talk out the secrets of his heart. He felt the need of it. And I speak very reverently when 1 say Jesus never felt the need of it any more than some of us. Oh, pity the man who disregards his friends! Pity the man who is so conceited as to feel he is independent of his friends. Os all men, he is most dependent. THE ELIM OF THE SANCTUARY. Then, we have the Elim of the sanctuary. My beloved, I am sure we have never appreciated what the sanctuary is to us in the time of need. I often think of those old Jews’ fondness to get to the sanc tuary marching miles and miles through hardships and toils and struggles and dangers to get to the sanctuary. I wish we were more like them. There is nothing to me more beautiful in the lives of the English people than their fondness for church going. It is a perfectly beautiful sight to «pe the great crowds that throng the streets of Lon don, To hear the tramp of their feet is not like the tramp of any other day. I talked to an old Englishman the other day who had not missed a service in forty-seven years at his church. I said: “Well, you have attended serv ice sufficiently to take a vacation.” “I take a va cation every Sunday,” said he. “My vacation is in church going. If it had not been for the church and the pleasure it has given me, I would have been in my grave long ago.” The only joy that some people have is in going to church on Sunday; one oasis in the whole desert of the week. Thank God for the church. PRIVATE PRAYER. Then, my friends, let me mention the Elim of pri vate prayer. Jesus knew what this meant. You re member how he sought his place of private prayer. He had his busy days in the sanctuary, his busy days in the work, and yet in the midst of all this business, he found time to get off occasionally, and drink from the clear, sparkling springs of prayer. I don’t know whether I shall e able to tell you this or not, but in it lies wrapped the secret of this message. Recently, I was crossing the Atlan tic. I was taken ill. I had not been well for sev eral days. I went to my cabin and sent for a doctor. I had such a pain in my right side that I could not breathe well. I said: “I have pneumonia, and I am two thousand miles from New York. I cannot stand this dampness.” The doctor made a careful examination. “I don’t think you have pneumonia,” he said, “but I think you are very close to pleurisy. I will prepare some medicine for you, and come back. Meanwhile, if you have any friends on board, have them come and sit with you, so you won’t wor ry, and fret over your condition.” He went out, and I got to thinking. I said: “I do not believe it is the will of God I should suffer this way, and I have preached so much on prayer, why can’t I get from him a real, sure enough evidence of an swered prayer?” I got up, and fastened my door, got back in my berth, lay flat on my back, and tried to pray. As near as I can reproduce it, this is the prayer I prayed: “Oh, Lord, my life is in your hands to serve you the best I can, living or dead. I am suffering. I don’t want to die on this ship, and I don't want to suffer this way unless it is for the best. If you will heal me of this pain now so when I get home I can stand before my people, and say God can ease pain, and cool fever in answer to prayer, I should love to give that testimony.” Some hing said: “Yes, you won’t do it, if I do.” I said: “I will do it.” .After awhile, I got such a comfort as I never had before. In thirty minutes, The Golden Age fer October 25, 1906. there wasn’t a single pain in my body. Oh, I thank God for prayer! What would we do witliou pray er- Let Marah with the biter waers come along. It will only make the victory when we pass through the sweeter. If you are in trouble, the one thing I commend to you is the Elim of private prayer. Go to your closet. Shu the door, and push your way through by prayer. HEAVEN AT LAST. Then, just this one other thing I must mention: The Elim of Heaven. I don’t know much about it, but it is the great, big never-failing oasis that lies at the end of the journey. When we get there we -will stay forever. I have read somewhere of an old miner who had lived all his'life in the mines. He had never seen the sun. One day some friends carried him away from the smoky district in which he lived, and seated him upon one of the highest peaks of the mountain range and kept him there all night until next day. The next morning the cloud passed away just in time for the sun to get up, and when the old fellow looked out and saw the sun for the first time without any smoke intervening, he put his arms around one of his fellows and said: “Oh, my God, I never thought it would be like this.” So some of these days God is going to come, and take us from these old mines of mortality, where we have been forced to drink from the bitter wa ters of Marah, and carry us up the peaks. Just how long He will be taking us I do not know; but after awhile in His own good time, we shall see the Sun of Righteousness rise from His bed of ob scurity and fling His rays of glory out over the wreck and ruin of the earth. Then, I think, we shall be like the old miner. We will say: “Oh, God, we have seen enough. We have seen Him, and we never thought He would be like this, so gracious and so good.” Come, tired soul, and take comfort. A young soldier was passing away, ad the nurse, raising his. head from the pillow, one day discov ered a few lines of poetry written in his own hand writing. She started to take them and read them. “Please put them down,” he said; “they are not to be read until I am gone.” After he was dead, she read them, and gave them to the world:— “I lay me down to sleep, With neither thought nor care, Whether the morning’s breaking light Shall find me here or there. “A bowing, burdened head, That only asks to rest, Unquestioned and unquestioning, Upon a loving breast. “My half day’s work is done, And this is all my part. I can but give a patient God An uncomplaining heart. “I grasp His banner still, Tho’ all the blue be dim. And wait the bugle revielle, That bids me follow Him.” Oh, that the Spirit could possess us every one. It would be the greatest blessing we could claim— a life resigned to the plan of God. Remarks of Reuben R. Arnold at the Sam Jones Memorial. Lives of great men are the strongest lessons hu manity can have. It is for this reason biographies are written. It is for this reason we scan with close scrutiny the birth, the environment, the growth, the characteristics, tne successes and the failures which mark the careers of the illustrious dead. Well it has been said that the proper study of mankind is man. The history of the world, so far as it entertains or instructs us, is only the his tory of the human race. While it is said that no man’s life can be truly chronicled until the impartial hand of the future historian lifts the veil, still it is a glorious senti ment which calls us together over the bier of a de parted brother to discuss his virtues and glean from his life its teachings. In his life Sam Jones has been so recently a part of our country’s histo- ry, that under the inspiration of these surround ings, under the spell of this music, I feel that he has burst the cerements of the tomb to be with us again. Sam Jones was a pioneer in his particular field of evangelistic work. No narrowness of creed held him in its grip. His soul was as broad as the uni verse. No denomination could claim that he be longed peculiarly to it. In death, as in life, he was the common property of us all, and before he was surrendered back to the earth, it was meet that his body should lie in state in the marble halls of Georgia’s capitol, where the people he lov ed so well could take a last look at his mortal remains. Mr. Jones’ career shows the remarkable possibil ities of American life. The opportunities afford ed in our republic bring out all of merit that there is in every citizen. With no training for the min istry Mr. Jones rose to heights that few men, bred to the cloth, can ever hope to attain. As I listen to the story of his life, it reads like some dream. And his was not a career which shot up suddenly, and as suddenly, like a rocket, shot down again. He became a fixed star in the firmament, and his lustre grew brighter with the years. His career shows that strong traits of character will assert themselves and break through that all environment. He began life as a lawyer, but that calling did not suit him. His life as a lawyer ended with a short period of dissipation. But though dissipated for a short season, Sam Jones never could have been anything but a good men. This straying away before taking his final step for good made him all the stronger when he turned his face towards the light. It was impossible for him to have wandered except for a brief season. The Arabian philosophers applied to those who were possessed of mental vagaries, this test: “If thou be such by the will of God, then remain as thou art: but if thou be such as the result of mere passing conjuration, then resume again thy former shape.” Sam Jones fairly rushed to his great work for which he was, above all men, fitted by nature. His methods were not artificial. He talked in simple language, as do all great men. He imitat ed nobody. He realized the great truth that if a man is to have force it is by being himself. He spoke great truths in a line which other men would take pages to cover. He reached men whom the more scholarly could not impress. There is no calculating the good he has done. He was absolutely fearless. Like Brutus he was so armed in his honesty that the threats of the vi cious passed him by as the idle wind which he heeded not. And yet with all the force, with all his denuncia tion of crime and vice, there was not the slightest touch of bitterness in anything he said. Those who differed with him, respected him. He exemplified the great truth that vice and sin are to be de nounced, but the poor erring mortals who succumb to them, are to be pitied and reformed—not hat ed and driven further from the path of right. He had wonderful balance, common sense and judgment. In reading his newspaper articles, I was struck with his knowledge of politics, economics and other material questions. But the crowning glory of Sam Jones’ method of discourse was his never failing sense of humor. It was this power which attracted other men and first got their attention. He was then enabled to drive home his great truths. In conclusion, let us hope that long may the mem ory of this wonderful man live in our country; and I am thankful for the privilege of being able to say a word in praise of his virtues. It is a fact worthy of some notice and of much commendation that in the recent marriage of the daughter of Herr Krupp, the famous German gun maker, the cost of the bride’s trousseau was just about S2OO. This, too, when the girl is rated as “the richest young woman in the world”! Many American brides might do well to pattern their bridal expenditure by this sensible Fraulein. The German shopkeepers are not of this opinion and indignation is felt in Berlin that the hoped for latishness was not displayed in the bridal arrangements of the young heiress. 5