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SHUT IN BY DISASTER DR. TALMAGE TALKS ON THE COM PENSATIONS OF SICKNESS. The Cgi* nt Xoah nod the Ark-Din* nnirrn Are God's Denlffna For Onr Betterment—Men Saved by Being: Shot In—A Sermon to Invalids. Copyright, by American Press Asso ciation.] WASHINGTON, Dec. 11.—This discourse jf Dr. Talmage, which is helpful to all | who find life a struggle, is especially ad- J ireused to a class of persons probably nev- I w before addressed in a sermon. The text • la Genesis vil, 16, “The Lord shut him in.” Cosmogony has no more interesting '•hapter than the one which speaks of that catastrophe of the ages, the submersion of nir world tn time of Noah, the first ship carpenter. Many of the nations who nev <*r saw a Bible have a flood story—Egyp tian flood story, Grecian flood story, of which Ducalion was the Noah; Hawaiian flood story, New Zealand flood story, Chi- | neae flood story, American Indian flood 1 story—all of which accounts agree in the immersion of the continents under uni- I versal rains, and that there was a ship . floating with a select few of the human family and with specimens of zoological snd ornithological and reptilian worlds, although I could have wished that these hist hnd been shut out of the ark and drowned. All of these flood stories represent the ship thus afloat us finally stranded on a mountain top. Hugh Miller in his “Tea- | tlmony nf tho Rocks” thinks that all these flood stories were infirm traditions of the Biblical account, and I believe him. The worst thing about that great freshet was that it struck Noah’s Great Eastern from ahov/i and beneath. The seas broke the chain of shells and crystal and rolled over the land, and tho heavens opened their clouds for falling columns of water which roared and thundered on the roof of the great ship for a month and ten days. There was one door to the ship, but there were three parts to that door, one part for < ach of tho three stories. The Bible ac- < mint says nothing about parts of the door belonging to two of the stories, and I do not know on which floor Noah and his i family voyaged, hut Try next tells us that ‘ the part of the door of that particular floor j on which Noah staid was closed after he j had entered. “The Lord shut him in.” ' So t here nrn many people now in the world j who are ns thoroughly shut in, some by | sickness, some by old age, some by special j duties that will not allow them to go ' forth, some surrounded by deluges of mls fertuno and trouble, and for them I often receive messages, and this sermon, which I hope may do good to others, is more es pecially Intended for them. ’Today I ad dress the shut in. “The Lord shut him in. ” The Closed Boor. Notice first of all who closed the door so that they could not get out. Noah did not do It, nor his son Shorn, nor did Ham, nor did Japheth, nor did eitht r of the four married women who wore on shipboard, nor did desperadoes who had scoffed at the idea of peril which Noah had been preach ing close that door. They had turned their backs on the ark and had in disgust gone away. I will tell you how it was done. A hand was stretched down from heaven to close that door. It was a divine hand as well as a kindliand. “Tho Lord •but him in ” Ami the same kind and sympathetic be ing has shut you in. my reader or my j hearer. You thought it was an accident, ascribablo to the carelessness or misdoings of others, or a more “happen so,” No, no! God had gracious design for your het torment, for tho cultivation of your eatienco, for the strengthening of your faith, for tho advantage you might gain by seclusion, for your eternal salvation. He put. you in a schoolroom, where you •could learn in six months or a year more ‘hau you could have learned anywhere else in a lifetime. He turned the lattice or pulled down the blinds of the sickroom, or put your swollen foot on an ottoman, or held you amid the pillows of a couch which you could not leave, for some rea- ' son that you may not now understand, but { which ho has promised ho will explain to [ you satisfactorily, if not in this world, ' then in the world to come, for ho has 1 said. “What I do thou k nowest not now, but. thou ehalt know hereafter!” Tho world has no statistics as to the 1 number of invalids. The physicians know •' something about it, and the apothecaries i and the pastors, but who can tell us the number of blind eyes, and deaf ears, and j diseased lungs, and congested livers, and jangled nerves, and neuralgic temples, ; and rheumatic feet, or haw many took no I food this morning because they had no ap petite to eat or digestive organs to assiiu- ' ilate, or havo lungs so delicate they can not go forth when the wind is in the cast, or there is a fog rising from the river, or i there is a dampness on the ground or I l avement because of the frost coming out? It would be easy to count the people who every day go through a street, or the num- j her of passengers carried by a railroad j company in a year, or the’ number of those who cross the ocean in ships. But who ■ can give us the statistics of the great mul- , titudes who are shut in? I call the atten- I tion of all such to their superior oppor tunities of doing good. fonanlntion of the Sick. Those of us who are well, and can see clearly, and hoar distinctly, and partake of food of all sorts, and questions of diges- i tion never occur to us. and we can wade rhe snowbanks, and take an equinox in our faces, and endure the thermometer at zero, and every breath of air is a tonic and a stimulus, and sound sleep meets us within five minutes after our head touches ! the pillow, do not fnakesomuch of an im pression when we talk about tho consola tions of religion. The world says right away: “I guess that man mistakes buoy- , ancy of natural spirits for religion. W.'iat does he know about it? He has never been ttied.” But when one goes out and reports J to the world that that morning on his way j to business ho called to see you and found you, after being kept in your room for two months, cheerful and hopeful, and j that you had not one word of complaint : and asked all about everybody and rejoiced ; in the success of your business friends, al though your own business had almost ’ eome to a standstill through your absence • from store or office or shop, and that you ’ sent your love to all your old friends and ' told them that if you did not meet them j •again in this world you hoped to meet , them in dominions seraphic, with a quiet word of advice from you to the man who I carried the message about the importance of his not neglecting his own soul, but 1 through Christ seeking something better than this world could give him—why, all the business men in tho counting room say, “Good! Now, that is religion.” And the clerks get hold of the story and talk it •ovur, so that the weigher and cooper and hackman, standing on the doorstep, say; “That is splendid! Now, that is what I call religion.” It is a good thing to preach on a Sun day morning, the people as* tn bled in most n-spectable attire and *• ated on soft cushions, the preacher “tending in neatly uphols>retl pulpit surrounded by personal friends, and after an inspiring hymn has been sung, nnd that sermon, if preached in faith, will do good, but the most effect ive sermon is preached by one seated in dressing gown in an armchair into which the invalid haa with much care been lift wl, the surrounding shelves filled with medicine bottles, some to produce sleep, some for the relief of sudden paroxysm, some for stimulant, some for tonic, some for anodyne and some for febrifuge, the pale preacher quoting promises of the gos pel. telling of tho glories of a sympathetic Christ, assuring the one or two or three persons who hear it of the mighty re en forcements of religion. You say that to such a sermon there are only one or two or three hearers. Aye. but the visitor calling at that room, tben closing the door softly and going away, tells the story, and the whole neighborhood hears it, and it will take all eternity to realize the grand and uplifting influence of that sermon about God and the soul, though preached to an audience of only one man or one wo man. The Lord has ordained all such in valids for a style of usefulness which ath letics and men of 200 healthy avoirdupois cannot affect. It was not an enemy that fastened you In that one room or sent you on crutches, the longest journey you have made for many weeks being from bed to sofa and from sofa to looking glass, where you are shocked at the pallor of your own cheek and the pindiedness of your fea tures; then back again from mirror to sofa and sofa to bed, with a long sigh say ing, “How good it feels to get back again to my old place on the pillow !” Remem ber who it is that appointed the day when for the first time in many years you could not go to business and who has kept a rec ord of all the weary days and all the sleep less nights of your exile from the world. O weary man! O feeble woman, it was the Lord who shut you in! Do yep re member that some of the noblest and best of men have been prisoners? Ezekiel a prisoner, Jeremiah a prisoner, Paul a pris oner, St. John a prisoner, John Bunyan a prisoner. Though human hate seemed to have all to do with them, really tho Lord shut thorn in. The Women In the Ark. No doubt, while on that voyage, Noah and his three sons and all tho four ladies of tho antedi’uvian world often thought of the bright hillsides and the green fields where they had walked and of the homes where they had lived. They had had many years of experiences. Noah was 600 years old at the time of this convulsion of nature. Ho had seen 600 springtimes, 600 summers, GOO autumns, 600 winters. Wo are not told how old his wife was at this wreck of earth and sky. The Bible - tells the age of a grtat many men, but only once gives a woman’s age. Atone time it gi ves Adam’s age as 130 years, and Jared’s age as 1(52 years, and Enoch's age as 365 years, and all up and down the Bible it gives the age of men, but does not give tho ago of women. Why? Be cause, I suppose, a woman’s age is none of our business. But all the mon and women that tossed in that oriental craft had lived long enough to remember a great many of the mercies and kindnesses of God, and they could not blot out, and. I think they had no disposition to blot out the memory of those brightnesses, though, now they were shut in. Neither should the shut in of our time forget the bless ings of tho past. Have you been blind for ten years? Thank God for the time when you saw as clearly as any of us can sec, and let the pageant of all the radiant land scapes and illumined skies which you ever looked upon kindle your rapturous grati tude. I do not see Raphael's “Madonna di San Sisto” in the picture gallery of Dresden, nor Rubens’ “Descent From tho Cross” at Antwerp, nor Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment” on the ceiling of the Vatican, nor Saint Sophia at Constan tinople, nor the Parthenon on tho Acro polis, nor the Taj Mahal of India. But shall I not thank God that I have seen them? Is it possible that such midnight darkness slall ever blast my vision that I cannot call them up again? Perhaps you are so deaf that you cannot hear the chirp of bird or sclo of cantatrice, or even organ in full diapason, though you feel the foun dations tremble under its majestic roll, or even the thunderstorm that makes Mount Washington echo. But are you not grate ful that once you could hear trill and chant and carol doxology? I cannot this hour hear Jenny Lind sing “Comin Through the Rye,” or Ole Bull's enchanted viol, or Parepa Rosa’s triumphant voice over many thousands of voices and many thou sands of inst ruments in the national peace jubilee of 33 years ago, all these sounds accompanied by the ringing of bells and the guns on Boston Common. But can 1 ever have my ears so silenced that I will not remember that I did hear them? Are you chained to your room now, your pow ers of locomotion all gone, or, if coming to the house of God, every step is a tor tn re? Do you forget when in childhood you danced and skipped because you were so full of life you had not patience to walk, and in after years you climbed the moun tains of Switzerland, putting your alpen stock high up on glaciers which few others ever dared and jumped long reaches in competition, and after a walk of ten miles you came in jocund as the morning? Oh, you shut ins’ Thank God for a vivid memory of the times when you were free as the chamois on the rocks, as the eagle going straight for the sun. When the rain pounded the roof of the ark, the eight voy agers on that craft did not forget the time when it gayly pattered in a summer show er, and when the door of the ark shut to keep out the tempest they did not forget the time when the door of their home in Armenia was closed to keep out the spring rains which came to fill the cups of lily and honeysuckle and make all the trees of the wood clap their hands. Shut Off From Temptation. Again, notice that during that 40 days of storm which rocked that ship on that universal ocean of Noah’s time the door which shut the captain of the ship inside the craft kept him from many outside per ils. How those wrathful seas would like to have got their wet hands on Noah and pulled him out and sunk him! And do all of you of the great army of the shut in realize, though you have special temp tations where you are now. how much of the cutside style of temptation you escape? Do you. the merchant incarcerated in the sickroom, realize that every hour of the day you spend looking out of the window or gazing at the particular figure on the wall paper or listening to the clock's ticks men are living wrecked by the allurements and uncertainties of business life? How many forgeries are committed, how many trust funds are swamped, how many pub lic moneys are being misappropriated, bow many bankruptcies suffered? It may be. it is, very uncomfortable for Noah in side the ark, for the apartment is crowded and the air is vitiated with the breathing of so much human and animal life, but it is not half as bad for him as though he j were outside the ark. There is not an ox, - - - -—,7- * MACON NEWS MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 12 189 S. or a camel, or an antelope, or a sheep In side the ark as badly off as the proudest | king o it#ide. While you are on the pillow or lounge you will make no bad bargains, . you will rush into no rash investments, yon will avoid the mistakes which thou sands of men as good as you are every day making. Notice also that there was a limit to the shut in experience of those ancient mari | ners. I suppose the 40 days of the de -1 scending and uprising floods and the 150 days Ijefore the passengers could go ashore must have seemed to those eight people in : the big boat like a small eternity. “Rain, rain, rain!” said tho wife of Noah. “Will it never stop?” For 40 mornings they looked out and saw not one patch of blue sky. Floating around amid the peaks of mountains, Khein and Ham and Japheth had to hush the fears of their wives lest they should dash against the projecting rocks. But after awhile it cleared off. Sunshine, glorious sunshine! The ascend ing mists were folded up into clouds, which instead of darkening the sky only ornamented it. As they looked out of the 1 windows these worn passengers clapped I their hands and rejoiced that the storm ! was over, and I think if God could stop such a storm as that be could atop any storm in your lifetime experience. If he can control a vulture in midsky, he can stop a summer bat that flies in at your window. At the right time he will put the rainbow on the cloud and the deluge of your misfortunes will dry up. I preach the doctrine of limitation, relief and dis enthrallment. At just the right time the pain will cease, the bondage will drop, the imprisoned will be liberated, the fires will go out, the body and mind and soul will be free. < Patience! An old English prov erb referring to long continued invalid- ■ ism, says, “A creaking gate hangs long on its hinges,” and this may be a pro tracted case of valetudinarianism, but you will have taken the last bitter drop, you will have suffered the last misinterpreta : tion, you X*ill feel the gnawing of the last j hunger, you will have fainted the last time from exhaustion, you will have felt the , cut of the last lancet, you will havo wept i under the last loneliness. The last week i of the Noachian deluge came, the last day, I the last hour, the last moment. The beat ing of the rain on tho roof ceased, and the I dashing of the billows on tho side of the ship quieted, and peacefully as a yacht moves out over quiet Lake Cayuga,'Como or Lucerne, the ark with its illustrious passengers and important freight glided to its mountain wharfage. Coming Out From the Ark. Notice also that on tho cessation of tho deluge the shut ins came out, and they built their houses and cultured their gar dens and started a new world on the ruins of the old world that had been drowned out. Though Noah lived 350 years after thia worldwide accident and no doubt his fellow passengers survived centuries, I warrant they never got over talking about that voyage. Now, I have seen Dore's pic tures and many other pictures of the en trance into the ark, two and two, of the human family and the animal creation ‘ into that ship which sailed between two worlds, antediluvian world and the post diluvian world, but I never saw a picture of their coming out, yet their embarkation was not more important than their disem barkation. Many a crew has entered a ship that never landed. Witness the steam ' er Portland, a short time ago, with 100 souls on board, going down with all its crew and passengers. Witness the line of I sunken ships reaching like a submarine i cable of anguish across the ocean depths ; from America to Europe. If any ship i might expect complete wreckage, the one i Noah commanded might have expect ed it. But no. Those who embarked dis i embarked. Over the plank reaching down the side of the ark to the Armenian cliffs I on which they had been stranded the pro ' cession descended. No other wharf felt so i solid or afforded such attractiveness as j that height of Alarat when tho eight pas sengers put their feet on it. And no soon- I er had the last one, the invalided wife of Japheth, been hfelpcd down the plank j upon the rock than the other apartments l of the ship were opened, and such a dash of bird music never filled the air as when the entire orchestra of robin redbreast, and morning lark, and chaffinch, and mocking ' bird, and house swallow took wing into ! the bright sky, while the cattle began to low' and the sheep to bleat and tho horses i to neigh for the pasture, which from the j awful submergence had now begun to i grow green and aromatic. I tell you plain ' ly nothing interests me more in that trag edy from the first to the last act than the “exit” and the “exeunt,” than the fact that the “shut ins” became the “go outs.” And I now cheer with this story all the i inmates of sickrooms and hospitals, and those prisons where men and women are unjustly endungeoned, and all the thou | sands who are bounded on the north and south and east and west by floods, by del uges of misfortune and disaster. The ark of your trouble, if it does not land on some earthly height of vindication and rescue, will land on the heights celestial. If you have put your trust in God, you will come out in the garden of the King, among orchards bending with 12 manner of fruits and harvests that wave in the light of a sun that never sets. As the i eight passengers of that craft of Captain .Noah never got over talking about their j seafaring experiences, so you who have ; been the shut ins of earth will add un bounded interest to the conversation of heaven by recalling and reciting your earthly experiences, and the rougher those experiences the more thrilling will they be to yourself and others who listen. As ! when we sit amid a group of soldiers and , bear their story of battle or a group of sailors and hear their story of cyclones we ' J feel stupid because we have nothing in our j life worth telling, how uninteresting will be those souls in heaven who had smooth sailing all their lives and no accidents, while Noah tells his story of the deluge, . and Ixit his story of escape from destroyed cities, and Paul his story of the Alexan drian corn ship, and you tell your story of the days and nights and years of the times when you were shut in. You will be in teresting and sought after in heaven in proportion as you are martyrized of perse ! cution and pain on earth. And surely you do not want to get the advantage of heav enly association and consideration without ■_y ourself adding some interest to the inter view. I hail all the shut ins because they will be the come outs. Heaven will be all the brighter for your earthly privations and environments. For a man who has always lived in a mansion, and walked in fine gardens, and regaled his appetite on 1 best fruits, and had warmest furs for win ter. coolest linens for August heat, and brilliant earthly surroundings, heaven will not be so much a change of seems, He will be disposed to say: “Whv, I am ised to this. Don i show me the gardens. Why, I was brought up at Chatsworth. Don't invite me into a chariot. I always had a splendid turnout-. Don’t invite mo to the feast. I have been accustomed to Belshazzarian banquets. It would be a relief to me if I could leave heaven a little while and rough it in some other world.” • But what a heaven it will be for those I whose limbs were so rheumatic they could 1 not take a step when they get wings! , What a heave!) it will be for those who were always sick when they are always well, and after 20 years of pain to have millions of years of health ! What a light will be the light of heaven for those who on earth could not see their hand before their faces! And what will the music of ’ heaven be tothosethe tympanum of whose , ears for many years had ceased to vibrate! Denied on earth the pleasure of listening j to Handel and Haydn and Mendelssohn’s symphonies, at last reaching a world ; where there never has been a discord, and hearing singing where all are perfect songsters, and oratorios in which all the nations of heaven chant! Great heaven it will be for all who get there, but a hun dred times more of a heaven for those who were shut in. The Test of Character. Meanwhile you have all divine and an gelic sympathy in your infirmities. That satan thoroughly understood poor human nature was evidenced when, in plotting to make Job do wrong, the great master of j evil, after having failed in every other way to overthrow the good man, proposed physical distress, and then the boils came which made him swear right out. The : mightiest test of character is physical suf fering. Critics are impatient at the way Thomas Carlyle scolded at everything. His 70 years of dyspepsia were enough to make any man scold. When you see peo ple out of patience and irascible and lachrymose, inquire into the case, and be fore you get through with the exploration your hypercriticism will turn to pity, and I to the divine and angelic sympathy will be added your own. The clouds of your indignation, which were full of thunder bolts, will begin to rain tears of pity. By a strange Providence, for which I shall be forever grateful, circumstances i with which I think you are all familiar, I [ have admission through the newspaper press week by week to tens of thousands of God’s dear children who cannot enter 1 church on tho Sabbath and hear their ex- ■ cellent pastors because of the age of the I sufferers, or their illness, or the lameness I of foot, or their incapacity to stay in one position an hour and a half, or their pov erties, or their troubles of some sort will not let them go out of doors, and to them i as much as to those who hear me I preach | this sermon, as I preach many of my ser mons, the invisible audience always vaster than the visible, some of them tossed on wilder seas than those that tossed the eight members of Noah’s family, and instead of 40 days of storm and 5 months of being shut in, as they were, it has been with these invalids 5 years of “shut In,” or 10 years of “shut in,” or 20 years of “shut in.” O comforting God! Help roe to comfort them! Give me two hands full of salve for their wounds! When we were 300 miles out at sea, a hurricane struck us, and the lifeboats were dashed from the davits and all the lights in the cabin were put out the rolling of the ship and the water which through the broken skylights had poured in. Captain Andrews entered and said to the men on duty: “Why don’t you light up and make things brighter, for we are going to outride this storm? Passengers, cheer up! Cheer up!” And • he struck a match and began to light the ■ burners. Ho could not silence cither the ! wind or the waves, but by the striking of ' that match, accompanied by encouraging ! words, we were all helped. Angelic Companionship. And as I now find many in hurricanes of trouble, though I cannot quiet the storm I can strike a match to light up the darkness, and I strike a match, “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” I strike another match, “Weeping may endure for 1 a night, but joy eometh in the morning.” j I strike another match, “We have a great ; High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and he was in all points tempered like as we are,” Are you old? One breath of heaven will make i you everlastingly young again. Have you j aches and pains? They insure Christ’s 1 presence and sympathy through the dark est December nights, which are the lon* gest nights of the year. Are you bereft? Here is a resurrected Christ whose yoice is full of rcsurrectionary power. Are you lonely? All the angels of heaven are ready to swoop into your companionship. Here is the Christ of Mary and Martha when they had lost Lazarus, and of David when he had lost his son, and of Abraham when he had lost Sarah, and of your father and mother when in time of old age they part ed at the gates of the tomb. When last I was in Savannah, at the close of the Sab bath morning service I was asked to go and see a Christian woman, for many years an invalid. I went. I had not in all that beautiful city of splendid men and gracious women seen a face brighter than hers. Reaching her bedside, I put out my hand, but she could not shake hands, for her hand was palsied. I said to her, “ How long have you been down on this bed?” She smiled and made ,no answer, for her tongue had been palsied, but those standing around said, “Fifteen years.” I said to her, ‘ 1 Have you been able to keep i your courage up all that time?” She gave < a very little motion of her head in affirma tion, for her whole body was paralytic. The sermon I had preached that morning had no power on others compared with 1 the power that silent sermon had on me. I What was the secret of her conquest over pain and privation and incapacity to move? Shall I tell you the secret? 1 will tell you. The Lord shut her in. There is a good deal of fanaticism abroad about the recovery of the sick, but if we had as much faith as Martin Luther we would have Luther’s success. His friend Myconius was very ill, and Luther fell upon his knees and said: “O Lord, no! Thou must not yet take our brother My conius to thyself. Thy cause will not prosper without him. Amen.” Then he wrote: “My Dear Myconius—There is no cause for fear. The Lord will not let roe hear that you are dead. Y’ou shall not and must not die. Amen.” Luther’s let ter so excited Myconius that an ulcer on his lungs broke, and he got well. Would , to God that like that we might be able to pray, that we might have similar results! i O men and women, visible and invisi . ble! The probability is you will never write your autobiography. It is the most difficult book to write, because you are i tempted to omit passages in your life that ' were not complimentary to yourself, and to quote from a diary which is always in ' complete because there are some things : which you do not think best to write down. As you will not undertake ah autobiography, the story of yourself, I will take the responsibility of presenting ; your biography, which is the story of one’s life by some one else. If you will give your love and trust to him of Bethlehem and Calvary, this will be your biography: “Born t.t the right time, but the most im portant event in his life was when he was born a~ain. Died at the right time, but long before that he had died unto sin. He s had many crises, but in all of them was ' i divinely directed; weaknesses, but they ' 1 were divinely sympathized with. In his ' • life there were many sorrows, wave after 1 wave, storm after storm, but he outrode everything and landed in eternal safety. ' \Vhy? Why? Because the Lord shut biin ' in ” ■ - CASTORIA | I The Kind You Have Always Bought, and which has been in use for over 30 years, has borne the signature of and has been made under his per sonal supervision since its infancy. Allow no one to deceive you in this. All Counterfeits, Imitations and Substitutes are but Ex periments that trifle with and endanger the health of Infants and Children—Experience against Experiment. What is CASTORIA Casto ria is a substitute for Castor Oil. Paregoric, Drops and Soothing Syrups. It is Harmless and Pleasant. It contains neither Opium, Morphine nor other Narcotic substance. Its age is its guarantee. It destroys Worms and allays Feverishness. It cures Diarrhoea and Wind. Colic. It relieves Teething Troubles, cures Constipation and Flatulency. It assimilates the Food, regulates the Stomach and Bowels, giving healthy and natural sleep. The Children’s Panacea—The Mother’s Friend. GENUINE CASTORIA ALWAYS Bears the Signature of J * The Kind You Have Always Bought In Use For Over 30 Years. THE CENTAUR COMPANY. TT MURRAY STREET. NEW YORK CITY. Heaven’s Twelve Gates. But do not think that heaven is made up of an indiscriminate population. Some of my friends are so generous in their theology that they would let everybody in without reference to condition or charac ter. Do not think that libertines and blasphemers and rejecters of God and his gospel have “letters of credit’’ that will draw anything from the bank of heaven, j Pirate crafts will not be permitted to go ! up that harbor. If there are those who as to heaven are to bo “shut ins,” there are those who will belong to the “shut outs.” Heaven has 12 gates, and while those 12 gates imply wide open entrance for those who are properly prepared to enter them they imply that there are at least 12 possi bilities that many will be shut out, because a gate is of no use unless it can sometimes be closed. Heaven is not an unwashed mob. Show your tickets or you will not get in—tickets that you may get without money and without price, tickets with a cross and a crown upon them. Let the unrepentant and the vile and the offscour ings of earth enter heaven as they now are, and they would depreciate and de moralize it so that no one of us would want to enter, and those who are there would want to move out. The Bible speaks of the “withouts” as well as tho “withins” —Revelation xxii, 15, “Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremon gers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” Through the converting, pardoning, sanc i tifying grace of God may we at last be j found among the shut ins and not amopg > the shut cut® ’ I ! • , I JHacon and Birmingham ißailroad '(Pine Mountain Route.) Schedule effective October 16, 1898. 4.15 pm]Lv Macon Ar]ll 15 am 5:04 pmjLv Lizella LvjlO 25 am 5 45 pmjLv.. ..Culloden.. . .Lv] 9 45 am 556 pmjLv.. . .Yatesville... .Lv] 933 am 6 26 pmjLv. ..Thomaston.. .Lvj 9 03 am 7 07 pmjAr. ..Woodbury .. .Lv| 8 23 am SOUTHERN RAILWAY. 9 05 pm lAr Columbus So Ry Lv 6 30 am 8 07 pm lAr Griffin Lv 6 50 am j 9 45 pmjAr Atlanta Lv 5 20 am 4 20 pm|Lv.. ..Atlanta.. . .Ar|llloam 6 03 pmjLv Griffin Ar] 9 18 am j 5 25 pmjLv.. ..Columbus.. .. 7 07 pm[Lv.. ..Woodbury. . .Ar| 8 23 am i 7 27 pmjAr... Harris City.. .Lvj 8 03 am CENTRAL OF GEORGIA. 7 45 pm]Ar.. .Greenville.. ~Lv| 7 45 am 5 20 pmjLv.. ..Columbus. ..ArjlO 15 am 7 27 pmjLv.. Harris City ..Ar] 8 03 am 8 20 pm|Ar.. ..LaGrange.. ..Lv] 7 10 am j Connections at Macon with Central of Georgia to Savannah, and Southwestern j Georgia, and with Georgia Southern and Florida. 'At Yatesville with Southern for points south of Yatesville, and at LaGrange with A. & W. P. for points north of LaGrange. JULIAN R. LANE, General Manager. f - “Queen of Sea Routes.’ Merchants and Miners T ransportation Co Steamship Lines Between Savannah and Baltimore, Norfolk, Boston and Prov dence. Low rates and excellent service. Accommodations and cuisine unsurpassed Best way to travel and ship your goods. For advertising matter and particulars J. J. CAROLAN, Agent, Savannah. Ga. R. H. WRIGHT, Agent, Norfolk, Va. J. W. SMITH, Agent, 10 Kimball House, Atlanta, Ga. ' J. C. WHITNEY, Traffic Manager. W. P. TURNER, General Pass. Agent General offices, Baltimore, Md. niacon and Naw York Short Line. Via Georgia Railroad and Atlantic Coaat Line. Through Pullman cars between iMacon and New York. effective Decem ber 9th. 1898. Lv (Macon.... 9 00 ami 4 20 pm 7 40 pm Lv Mill’gev’le 10 10 am 5 24 pm 9 24 pm Lv Camak.... 11 40 am 6 47 pm 3 33 am Lv Camak.... 11 40 ami 6 47 pm 10 31 pm Ar Aug’taC.T.j 1 20 pmj 8 25 pra 5 15 pm Lv Aug’taE.T. 2 30 pm I I 'Lv Florence ..j 7 40 pm ] ti Lv iFayettev’le 9 43 pm | Y I Ar Petersburg'; 3 35 am | i ' Ar Richmond, i 3 23 am 1 | I At Wash*ton.; 7 00 am. . Ar 'Baltimore. I S 35 am I Ar Pnila’phia. 110 35 am j Ar (New, York. 1 03 pm lAr N.Y. W 23d «stj 135 pm j Trains arrive from Augusta and points 1 on main line 6:45 a. m. and 11:15 a. m. 1 From Camak and way stations 5:30 p. m. A. G. JACKSON. General Passenger Agent. JOE W. WHITE. T. P. A. W. W. HARDWICK, S. A.. 409 Cherry St. Macon. Ga. "THE HIAWASSEE ROUTE.” Only Through Sleeping Car Line Atlanta and Knoxville. Beginning June 19th the Atlanta, Knox ville and Northern Railway, in connection with the Western and Atlantic railway, { wiff ostabUsh a 'through line of sleepers between Atlanta and Knoxville. Trains will leavS Atlanta from Union* depot at 8:30 p. m. and arrive In Knoxville at 7 a. m. Good connections made at Knoxville for all points north, including Tate Springs and other summer resorts. Tickets on sale and diagram at W. & A. city ticket office, No. 1 North Pryor street, Atlanta. Also at Union depot. J. E. W. FIELDS, G. P. A.. Marietta, Ga. j. h. McWilliams, t. p. a.. Knoxville, Tenn. PULLMAN CAR LINE I •“ » I BETWEEN Cincinnati, Indianapolis, or Louisville and Chicago ant THE NORTHWEST. Pulman Buffet Sleepers on night trains. Parlor chairs and dining can on day trains. The Monon trains make the fast est time between the Southern winter re sorts and the summer resort of tho Northwest. W. H. McDOEL, V. P. «G. M. I FRANK J. REED, G. P. A., Chicago, lIL For further particulars address R. W. GLAMNG, Gen. Agt Thomasville. Ga. . The Direct Line from Cincinnati.! ||||b DAYTON* gWHS LI ™ A ’ TOLEDO. DETROIT AND MICHIGAN POINTS. Five train? every week day. Three trains on Sunday. Pullman and Wagner sleepers on night trains. Vestibuled parlor cars on i day trains. Cincinnati to Indianapolis and Chicago, four trains every week day. Three trains on Sunday. Vestibuled trains. Pullman Standard and Compartment Sleeping Cars, parlor cars and case dining cars. J. G. MASON, General Southern Agent. S. L. PARROTT, T. P. A. D. G. EDWARDS, Pass. Traffic Mgr. J 7