Going Home: A Christmas Sermon

“Go borne to thy friends, and tell tlicm how great tliiugs (he Lord hsit’i ione for tboc, and hath had conipassion ou thet.” — Mark, v. 19.

The case of the man here refei-rctl to is a very extraordinary one: it occupies a place among the niomorabilia of (Christ’s life, perhaps as high as any thing which is recorded by either of the evangelists. This poor wretch beins: Dossesstd with a legion of evil spirits had been driven to scmethii g worse than niadness. He lixed his home among the tomV)s, where he dwelt by night and day, and was the terror of all those who passed by. The authorities had attempted to curb him; he had been bound with fetters and chains, but in the paroxysms of his madness he had torn the chains in sunder, and broken the fetters in pieces. Attempts had been made to reclaim him; but no man could tame him. He was worse than the wild beasts, for they might be tamed; but his tierce nature would not yield. He was a misery to himself, for he would run upon the mountains by night and day, crying and I’.owling fearfully, cutting himself with the sharp flints, and torturing his poor body in the most fiightful manner. Jesus Christ passed by; he said to the devils, Come out of him.” The man was healed in a moment; he fell down at Jesus’ feet; he became a rational being — an intelligent man, yea, what ia more, a convert to the Saviour. Out of gratitude to his deliverer, he said, “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goesl; I will be thy constant companion and thy servant; permit mo so to be.” “No,” said Christ, ‘* I esteem your motive; it is one of gratitude to me; but if yoa would show your gratitude, ’ go home to thy i’riends, and tell them how great tilings the Lord hath done ibr Lliee, and hath had compassion ou thee.’”

Now, this teaches lis a very important fai;t, namci/, this, tnio religion does not break in sunder the bonds of family relationship. True religion seldom encroaclies upon that sacred, I had almost said divine institution called home; it does not separate men from their families, and make them aliens to their flesh and blood. Superstition has done that; an awful superstition, which calls itself Christianity, has sundered men from their kind; but true religion has never done so. Why, if 1 might be allowed to do such a thing, I would seek out the hermit in his lonely cavern, and I would go to him and say, “Fiiend, if thou art what thou dost profess to be, a true servant of the living God, and not a hypocrite, as I guess thou art — if thou art a true believer in Christ, and would show foi’th what he has done for thee, upset that jiitcher, eat the last piece of thy bread, leave this dreary cave, wash thy face, untie thy hempen girdle; and if thou wouldst show thy gratitude, go home to thy friends, and tell them what great things the Lord hath done for thee. Canst thou edify the sere leaves of the forest? Can the beasts learn to adore that God whom thy gratitude should strive to honor? Dost thou hope to convei-t these rocks, and wake the echoes into songs? Nay, go back: dwell with thy friends, reclaim thy kinship with men, and unite again with thy fellows, for this is Christ’s approved way of showing gratitude.” And I would go to every monastery and every nunnery, and say to the monks, “Come out, brethren, come out! If you are what you say you are, servant’? of God, go home to your friends. No more of this absurd ‘liscipline; it is not Ch list’s rule; you are acting differentl’.’ from what he would have you;* go home to your friendf-!” And to the Sisters of Mercy we would say, “Be sister’! of mercy to your own sisters; go home to your fi lends; take care of your aged parents; turn your own houses into con ents; do not sit here nursing your pride by a disobedience to Christ’s rule, which says, ’ go home to thy friends.’” “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Iiord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” The lov-j of a solitary and ascetic life, which is by some considered to be a divine virtue, is neither more nor less than a disease of tie mind. In the ages when there was but little benevo-GOINtl IJOMK — A CIIKISTMAS SERMON. 391

ence, and consequently few hands to build lunatic asylume, superstition supplied the lack of charity, and silly men and Women were allowed the iudulgeuce of their fancies in secluded baunt« or in easy laziness. Young has most truly said,

“The first sure symptoms of a mind in health
Are rest of heai’t and pleasure found at home.”

Avoid, my friends, above all things, those romantic and absurd conceptions of virtue which are the offspring of superstition and the enemies of righteousness. Be not without natural affection, but love those who are Icnit to you by ties of nature.. True religion can not be inconsistent with nature. It neve» can demand that I should abstain from weeping when mj friend is dead. “Jesus wept.” It can not deny me the privilege of a smile, when Providence looks favorably upon me; for once “Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, Father, I thank thee.” It does not make a man say to his f:lther and mother, “I am no longer your son.” That is not Christianity, but something worse than what beasts would do, which would lead us to be entirely sundered from our fellows, to walk among them as if we had no kinship with them. To all who think a solitary life must be a life of piety, I would say, “It is the greatest delusion.” To all who think that those must be good people who snap the ties of relationship, let us say, “Those are the best who maintain them.” Christianity makes a husband a better husband, it makes a wife a better wife than she was before. It does not free me from my duties as a son; it makes me a better son, and my parents better parents. Instead of weakening my love, it gives me fresh reason for my affection; and he whom 1 loved before as my father, I now lov as my brother and co-worker in Christ Jesus; and she whom I reverenced as my mother, I now love as my sister in the covenant of grace, to be mine for ever in the state that is to come. O! suppose not, any of you, that Christianity aa aa ever meant to interfere with households; it is intended to cement ■’jhem, and to make them households which death itself ehall n’-ver sever, for it binds them up in the bundle of life with the Lord their God. and reunites the seveial individual* on thft other side of the flood.

Now, I will just tell you the reason why I selected my text; I Lliought within myself, there are a large number of young men who always come to hear me preach; they always crowd the aisles of my chapel, and many of them have been converted to God. Now, here is Christmas day come round again, and they are going home to see their fiiends. When they get home they will want a Christmas carol in the even* “II; I think I will suggest one to them — more especially to such of them as have been lately converted. I will give ihetn a theme for their discourse on Christmas evening; it may not be [juite so amusing as “The Wreck of the Golden 31ary,’^ but it will be quite as interesting to Christian people. It shall be this: “Go home and tell your friends what the Lord hath done for your souls, and how he hath had compassion on you.” For my part I wish there were twenty Christmas days in the year. It is seldom that young men can meet with their friends; it is rarely they can all be united as happy families and though I have no respect to the religious observance of the day, yet I love it as a family institution, as one of England’s brightest days, the great Sabbath of the year, when the plow rests in its furrow, when the din of business is hushed, when the mechanic and the working-man go out to refresh themselves upon the green sward of the glad earth. If any of you are masters you will pardon me for the digression, when I most respectfully beg you to 2)ay your servants the same wages on Christmas day as if they were at work. I am sure it will make their houses glad if you will do so. It is unfair for you to make them feast, or fast, unless you give them wherewithal to least and make themselves glad on that day of .joy.

But now to come to the subject. We are going home to see our friends, and here is the story some of us have to telL “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. First, here is what they are to tell; then, secondly, why they are to tell it / and then, thirdly, hoio they ought to tell it.

I. First, then, here is what they are to tell. It is to be B story oi personal experience.” Go home to thy friends, and tell them how grei things the Lord hath done for thee, and

Hath had cojiipassion on thee,” You are not to repair to your houses, and forthwith begin to pi-each. That you are not commanded to do. You arc not to begin to take up doctnnal subjects, and expatiate on them, and endeavor to bring persons to your pecuUar views and sentiments. You are not to go home with sundry doctrines you have lately learned, and try to teach these. At least you are not commanded so to do; you may, if you please, and none shall hinder you; but yo:i are to go home and tell not what you have believed, but what you have fdt — what you really know to be your own; not what great things you have read, but what great things the Lord hath done for you j not alone what you have seen done in the great congregation, and how great sinners have turned to God, but what the Lord has done for you. And mark this: there is never a more interesting story than that which a man tells about himself The Khyme of the Ancient Mariner derives much of its interest because the man who told it was himself the mariner. He sat down, that man whose finger was skinny, like the finger of death, and began to tell that dismal story of the ship at sea in a great calm, when slimy things did crawl with legs over the shiny sea. The wedding guest sat still to listen, for the old man was himself a stoiy. There is always a great deal of interest excited by a personal narrative. Vii’gil, the poet, knew this, and, therefore, he W’isely makes JEueas tell his own story, and makes him begin it by saying, “In which I also had a great part myself.” So if you would intei-est your friends, tell them Avliat you felt yourself Tell them how you were once a lost abandoned sinner, how the Lord met with y-ou, how. you bowed your knees, and poured out your soul before God, and how at last you leaped with joy, for you thought you heard him say within you, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions foi ray name’s sake.” Tell your friends a story of your own personal experience.

Note, next, it must be a story o free grace. It is not, “Tell thy friends how great things thou hast done thyself,” b it “how great things the Lord hath done for thee.” The man who always dwells upon free will and the power of the creature, and denies the doctrines of grace, invariably mixes tip a great deal of what lie has done himself in telling his eiperience; but the believer in free grace, who holds the great cardinal truths of the gospel, ignores this, and declares, “I will tell what the Lord hath done for me. It is true I must telj how I was first made to pvay; but I will tell it tl us —

“‘Grace ta ight my soul to pray,
Grace made my eyes o’erflow.’

It is true, I must tell in how many troubles and trials God baa been with me; but I will tell it thus —

“’ ‘Twas grace which ]rept me to this day,
And will not let mo go.’”

He says nothing about his own doings, or willings, or prayings, or seekings, but he ascribes it all to the love and grace of tho great God who looks on sinners in love, and makes them hia children, heirs of everlasting life. Go home, young man, and tell the poor sinner’s story; go home, young woman, and open your diary, and give your friends stories of grace. Tell them of the mighty works of God’s hand which he hath wrought in you from his own free, sovereign, undeserved love. Make it a free-grace story around your family fire.

In the next place, this poor man’s tale was a grateful story. I know it was grateful, because the man said, “1 will tell thee how great things the Lord hath done for me;” and (not meaning a pun in the least degree) I may observe, that a man who is grateful is always full of the greatness of the mercy which God has shown him; he always tlnnks that what God has done for him is immensely good and suyremely great. Perhaps when you are telling the story one of your friends will say, “And what of that?” And your answer will be, “It may not be a great thing to you, but it is to me. You say it ia little to repent, but I have not found it so; it is a great and precious thing to be brought to know myself to be a sinner, and to confess it; do you say it is a little thing to have found a Saviour?” Look them in the face, and say, “If you had found him too you would not think it little. You think it little I have lost the burden from my back; but if you had suflered with it, and felt its weight as I have for many a long year, you would think it no little thing to be emancipated and free, through a s’ght of the cross.” Tell them it is a great story, and if they can not see its greatness, shed great tears and tell it to them with great earnestness, and I hope they may be brought to believe that you at least are grateful, if they are Qot. May God grant that you may tell a grateful story. Nc story is more worth hearing than a tale of gratitude.

And lastly, upon this point: it must be a tale told by a poor sii-itior who feels himself not to have deserved what he has received. “How he hath had comjyassion on thee.” It was not a mere act of kindness, but an act of free compassion toward one who was in misery. O! I have heard men tell the story of their conversion and of their spiritual life in such a way that my heart hath loathed the?7i and their story too, for they have told of their sins as if they did boast in the greatness of their crime, and they have mentioned the love of God not with a tear of gratitude, not with the simple thanksgiving of the really humble heart, but as if they as much exalted themselves as they exalted God. O! when we tell the story of our own conversion, I would have it done with deep sorrow, remembering what we used to be, and with great joy and gratitude, remembering how little we deserve these things. 1 was once preaching upon conversion and salvation, and I felt within myself, as preachers often do, that it was but dry work to tell this story, and a dull, dull tale it was to me; but on a sudden the thought crossed my mind, “Why, you are a poor tost ruined sinner yourself; tell it, tell it, as you received it: begin to tell of the grace of God as you trust you feel it yourself.” When, then, my eyes began to be fountains of tears, those hearers who had nodded their heads began to brighten up, and they listened, because they were hearing something which the man felt himself, and which they recognized as being true to him, if it was not true to them. Tell your stoi y, my hearers, as lost smners. Do not go to your home, and walk into the house with a supercilious air, as much as to say, “Here’s a saint come home to the poor sitmers, to tell them a story;” but go home like a poor sinner yourself; and when you go in, your mother rempmbers what you used to be, you need not tell her there is a chang3 — she will notice it, if it is cmly one

396 (iOINft HOME — A CIIKISTMAS SEllMON.

day yO:i are with her; and perhaps slio will say, “John, what is this change that is in you?” and if she is a mons mo.hcr you will begin lo tell ber the story, and I know, man though you are, you will not blush when I say it, she will put ber arms round your neck and kiss you as she never did before, for you are ber twice-born son, hers from Avboni she shaLi never part, even though death itself shall divide you for a brief moment. Go home, then, and tell your friends what great things tl e Lo-d hath done for you, and how he hath had compassion on you.

II. But now, in the second place, aviiy should we tell THIS STORY? For I hear many of my congregation say, “Sir, I could ix’late that story to any one soonei- than I could to my friends; I could come to your vestry, and tell you something of what I have tasted and handled of the word of God; but I could not tell my father, nor niy mother, nor my brethren, nor my sisters.” Come, then; I will try and argue with you, to induce you to do so, that I may send you home this Christ. uias day, to be missionaries in the localities to which you belong, and to be real preachers, though you are not so by name. Dear friends, do tell this stoiy when you go home.

First, for your Master’s sake. O! I know you love him; I am sure you do, if you have proof that he loved you. You can never think of Gethsemane and of its bloody sweat: of Gabbatha and of the mangled back of Christ, flayed by the whip; you can never think of Calvary and his pierced hand? and i’eot, without loving him; and it is a strong ai-gument «hen I say to you, for his dear sake who loved you so much, go home and tell it. What! do you think we can have so much done for us, and yet not tell it? Our children, if anv thing should be done for them, do not stay many minutes before they are telling all the company, “such a one hath given me such a present, and bestowed on me such-and-such a fvvor.” And should the children of God be backward in declaring how they were saved when their feet made haste to hell, and how redeeming mercy snatched them as brands from the burning? You love Jesus, young man! I put it t(( you, then, will you refuse to tell the tale of his love to you? Shall your lius be dumb, when his honor is concerned? Will you

GOING HOME — A CHRISTMAS SEKMON. Hd)

not, wherever you go, tell of the God who loved you and died for you? This poor man, we are told, “departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him, and all men did marvel.” So with you. If Christ has done much for you, you can not help it — you must tell it. My esteemed friend, Mr. Oncken, a minister in Germany, told u? last IMouday evening that so soon as he was converted him self, the first impulse of his new-born soul was to do good to others. And where should he do that good? Well, he thought he would go to Germany. It was his own native land, and he thought the command was, “Go home to thy friends, and tell them.” Well, there was not a single Baptist in all Germany, nor any with whom he could sympathize, for the Lutherans had swerved from the faith of Luther, and gone aside from the truth of God. But he went there and preached, and he has now seventy or eighty churches established on the Continent. What made him do it? Nothing but love for his Master, who had done so much for him, could have forced him to <zo and tell his kinsmen the marvelous tale of divine goodness.

But, in the next place, are your friends pious? Then go home and tell them, in order to make their hearts glad. I received last night a short epistle written with a trembling hand by one who is past the natural age of man, living in the county of Essex. His son, under God, had been converted by hearing the word preached, and the good man could not help writing to the minister, thanking him and blessing most of all his God, that his son had been regenerated. “Sir,” he begins, “an old i-ebel writes to thank you, and above all to thank his God, that his dear son has been converted,” I shall treasure up that epistle. It goes on to say, “Go on! and the Lord bless you.” And there M-as another case I heard some time ago, where a young woman went home to her parents, and when her mother saw her she said, “There! if the minister had made rac a present of all London, I should not have thought so much of it as I do of this — to think that you have really become a changed character, and are livhig in the fear of God.” O! if you want to make your mother’s heart leap within her, and to mak? your lather glad — if you would mak.”

898 GOING HOME A CimiSTMAS SEEMOW.

that sister happy who sent you so many letters, which sonioi times you read against a lamppost, with your pipe in your mouth — go home and tell your mother that her wishes are all accomplished, that her prayers are heard, that you will no longer chaff her about her Sunday-school class, and no longer laugh at her because she loves the Lord, but that you will go with her to the house of God, for you love God, and you have Baid, “Your peop shall be ray people, and your God shall bo Thy God, for I have a hope that your heaven shall be my heaven for ever.” O! what a happy thing it would be if some here who had gone astray should thus go home! It was my privilege a little while ago to preach for a noble institution for the reception of women who had led abandoned lives — and before I preached the sermon I prayed to God to bless it, and in the printed sermon you will notice that at the end of it there is an account of two persons who were blessed by that sermon, and restored. Now, let me tell you a story of what once happened to Mr. Vanderkist, a city missionary, who toils all night long to do good in that great work. There had been a drunken broil in the street; he stepped between the men to part them, and said something to a woman who stood there concerning how dreadful a thing it was that men should thus be intemperate. She walked with him a little way, and he with her, and she began to tell him such a tale of woe and sin too, how she had been lured away from her parents’ home in Somersetshire, and had been brought up here to her soul’s eternal hurt. He took her home with him, and taught her the fear and love of Christ; and what was the first thing she did, when she returned to the paths of godliness, and found Christ to be the sinner’^ Saviour? She said, “Now 1 must go home to ray friends.” Her friends were written to; they came to meet her at the station at Bristol, and you can hardly conceive Avliat a happy meeting it was. The father and mother had lost their daughter; they had never heard from her; and there she was, brought back by the agency of thig Institution, and restored to the bosom of her family. Ah! if each a one be here! I know not; among such a raultituue there may be such a one. Woman! hast thou strayed from thy family? Ilast thou left them long?” Go home to thj

GOING UOME — A CIIUISTMAS SKPvirOIf. 399

friends,” I bcseecli thee, ere thy father totters tn his grave, and ere thy mother’s gray hairs sleep on the snow-white lnllow of her coffin. Go back, I beseech thee! Tell her thou art penitent; tell her that God hath met with thee — that the young minister said, “Go back to thy friends.” And if so, I ghall not blush to have said these things, though you may think I ought not to have mentioned them; for if I may but win one such soul, I will bless God to all eternity. “Go homo to thy friends.” Go home and tell them how great things t’le Lord hath done for thee. Can not you imagine the scene, when the poor demoniac mentioned in ray text went home? He had been a raving madman; and when he came and knocked at the door, don’t you think you see his friends calling to one another in affright, “O I there he is again,” and the mother running up stairs and locking all the doors, because her son had come back that was raving mad; and the little ones crying, because they knew what he had been before — how he cut himself with stones, because he was possessed with devils. And can you picture their joy, when the man said, “Mother! Jer.us Christ has healed me; let me in; I am no lunatic now?” And when the father opened the door, he said, “Father I I am not what I was; all the evil spirits are gone; I shall live in the tombs no longer. I want to tell you how the glorious man who wrought my deliverance accomplished the miracle — how he said to the devils, ‘Get ye hence,’ and they ran down a steep place into the sea, and I am come home healed and saved.” O! if such a one, possessed with sin, were here this morning, and would go home to his friends, to tell them of his release, methinks the Hcene would be somewhat similar.

Once more, dear friends. I hear one of you say, “Ah! sir, would to God I could go home to pious fiiendo! But when I go home I go into the worst of places; for my home is among those who never knew God themselves, and consequently never prayed for me, and never taught me any thing concerning heaven.” Well, young man, go home to your friends. If they are ever so bad, they are your friends. I sometimes meet with young men wishing to join the church, who say, when I ask them about their father,” O, sir, I am parted froia

400 GOING HOME A CHRISTMAS SERMOJf.

my father.” Then I say, “Young man, you may just go and see your father before I have any thing to do with you; if you are at ill-will with your father and mother I will not receive you into the church; if they are ever so bad they are your parents.’’^ Go home to them, and tell them, not to make them glad, for they will very likely be angry with you; but tell thera for their souVs salvation. I hope, when 5^011 are telling the story of what God did for you, that they will be led by the Spirit to desire the same mercy themselves. But I will give you a piece of advice. Do not tell this story to youi imgodly friends when they are all together, for they will laugh at you. Take them one by one, when you. can get them alone, and begin to tell it to them, and they will hear you seriously. There was once a very pious lady who kept a lodging-house for young men. All the young men were very gay and giddy, and she wanted to say something to them concerning religion. She introduced the subject, and it was passed off immediately with a laugh. She thought within herself, “I have made a mistake.” The next morning, after breakfast, when they were all going, she said to one of them, “Sir, I should like to speak with you a moment or two,” and taking him aside into another room she talked with hini. The next morninc; she took another, and the next morniniT another, and it pleased God to bless her simple statement, when it was given individually: but, without doubt, if she had spoken to them all together they would have backed each other up in laughing her to scorn. Reprove a man alone. A verse may hit him whom a sermon flies. You may be the means of bringing a man to Christ who has often heard the Word and only laughed at it, but who can not resist a gentle admonition. In one of the States of America there was an infidel who was a great despiser of God, a hater of the Sabbath and all religious institutions. What to do with him the ministers did not know. They met together and prayed for him.

But among the rest, one Elder B resolved to spend a long

time in prayer for the man; after that he got on horseback, and rode down to the man’s forgo, for he was a blacksmith. He left his horse outside, and said,” Neighbor, I am under very great concern about your soul’s salvation; 1 tell you I

GOING HOME — A OIIKISTMAS STJirMON. 401

pray day and night for your soul’s salvation,’* He left him, and rode Lome on Jiis horse. The man went inside to his house, after a minute or two, and said to one of his infidel

friends,” Here-s a new argument; here’s Elder B been

down here, he did not dispute, and never said a word to me eicept this, ‘I say, I am under great concern abo’^’. your soul j I can not bear you should be lost.’ O! that fellow,” he said, “I can not answer him;” and the tears began to roll down his cheeks. He went to his wife, and said, “I can’t make thia out; I never cared about my soul, but here’s an elder, that has no connection with me, but I have always laughed at hmi, and he has come five miles this morning on horseback just to tell me he is under concern about my salvation.” After a little while he thought it was time he should be under concern about his salvation too. He went in, shut the door, began to pray, and the next day he was at the deacon’s house, telling him that he too was under concern about his salvation, and askinsj him to tell him what he must do to be saved. O! that the everlastino- God mifjht make use of some of those now present in the same way, that they might be induced to

“Tell to others round
What a dear Saviour they have found;
To point to his redeeming blood,
And say, Behold the way to God!”

HI. I shall not detain you much longer; but there is a third point, upon which we must be very brief. How is the story

rO BE TOLD?

First, tell it truthfully. Do not tell more than you know; do not tell John Banyan’s experience, when you ought to tell your own. Do not tell your mother you have felt what only Rutherford felt. Tell her no more than the truth. Tell your experience truthfully; for mayhap one single fly in the pot of ointment will spoil it, and one statement you may make which IS not true may ruin it all. Tell the story truthfully.

In the next place, tell it very Jmmhly, I have said tnat be* fore. Do not intrude yourselves upon those who are older and know more; but tell your story humbly; not as a preacher not exncathedra, but as a fiiend and as a son.

Next, tell it very e-^^iestly. Let them see you mean it.

Do not talk about religion flippantly; you will do no good if you do. Do not make puns on texts; do not quote Scripture l)y way of joke: if you do, you may talk till you are dumb, you will do no good, if you in the least degree give -them oe casion to laugh by laughing at holy things yourself. Tell :t very earnestly.

And then, tell it very devoutly. Do not try to tell your tale to man till you have told it first to God. When you are at home on Christmas day, let no one see your face till God has seen it. Be up in the morning,’ wrestle with God; and if your friends are not converted, wrestle loith God for tJiem; and then you will find it easy work to wrestle loith them for God. Seek, if you can, to get them one by one, and tell them the story. Do not be afraid; only think of the good you may possibly do. Remember, he that saves a soul from death hath covered a multitude of sins, and he shall have stars in his crown for ever and ever. Seek to be, under God, saviours in your family, to be the means of leading your own belove-d brethren and sisters to seek and to find the Lord Jesus Christ, and then one day, when you shall meet in Paradise, it will be a joy and blessedness to think that you are there, and that your firiends are there too, whom God will have made you the insti’ument of saving. Let your reliance on the Holy Spirit be entir’i and honest. Trust not yourself, but fear not to trust him. He can give you words. He can apply those woi’ds to their hearts, and so enable you to “minister grace to the hearers.”

To close up, by a short, and I think a pleasant turning of

the text, to suggest another meaning to it. Soon, dear friends,

very soon with some of ns, the Master will say,” Go home to

thy friends.” You know where the home is. It is up above

Uie stars,

“Where our best friends, our kindred, dwell,
Where God our Saviour reigns.”

Yon gray-headed man has buried all his friends; he ha3 «aid, “I shall go to them, but they will not return to me.’- Soon his Master will say, “Thou hast had enough tarrying here in tl:is vale of tears: go home to thy friends!’’ O! happy hour. O I blessed moment, when that shall be the word — •Go home to thy friends ‘And when we go home to onj

GOING HOME — A CHRISTMAS fsEKMON. 403

friends in Paradise, what shall we do? Why, first, we will repair to that blest seat where Jesus sits, take oflf our crown and cast it at his feet, and crown him Lord of all. And when we have done that, what shall be our next employ? Why, we will tell the blessed ones in heaven what the Lord halh done for us, and how he hath had compassion on us. And shall such a tale be told in heaven? Shall that be the Christ, mas carol of the angels? Yes, it shall be; it has been pul)- lished there before — bhish not to tell it yet again — for Jesus has told it before, “When he cometh home, he ealleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them. Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.” And t*liou, poor sheep, when thou shalt be gathered in, wilt thou not tell how thy Shepherd sought thee, and how he found thee? Wilt thou not sit in the grassy meads of heaven, and tell the story of thine own redemption? Wilt thou not talk with thy brethren and thy sisters, and tell them how God loved thee and hath brought thee there? Porhanc* thou sayest, “It Vvill be a very short story.” Ah I it would be if you could write now. A little book might be the whole of your biography; but up there,’ when your memory shall be enlarged, when your passions shall be purified and your understanding clear, you will find that what was but a tract on earth will be a huge tome in heaven. You will tell a long story there of God’s sustaining, •■•estraining, constraining grace, and I think tiia*, when you pause to let another tell his tale, and then aiother. and then another, you will at last, when you have been in heaven a thousand years, break out and exclaim, “O sain+s, I have something else to say,” Again they will tell their tales, and again you will interrupt them with “O beloved, I have thought of another case of God’s delivering mercy.” And so you will go on, giving them themes for songs, finding them the material for the warp and woof of heavenly sonnets. “Go home,” he will soon say, “go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” Wait a while; tarry his leisure, and ye shall soon be gathered to the land of the hereafter, to the home of the blessed, where endless felicity shall be thy pettion, God grant a blessing, for his ninme’s sake!