"Give Attendance to Reading"
There are some so-called Christian homes today with books on the
shelves of the library that have no more business there than a
rattler crawling about on the floor, or poison within the child's
reach.--BILLY SUNDAY.
"I never heard Billy Sunday use an ungrammatical sentence," remarked
one observer. "He uses a great deal of slang, and many colloquialisms,
but not a single error in grammar could I detect. Some of his passages
are really beautiful English."
Sunday has made diligent effort to supplement his lack of education.
He received the equivalent of a high-school training in boyhood, which
is far more than Lincoln ever had. Nevertheless he has not had the
training of the average educated man, much less of a normal minister
of the gospel. He is conscious of his limitations: and has diligently
endeavored to make up for them. When coaching the Northwestern
University baseball team in the winter of '87 and '88 he attended
classes at the University. He has read a great deal and to this day
continues his studies. Of course his acquaintance with literature is
superficial: but his use of it shows how earnestly he has read up on
history and literature and the sciences. He makes better use of his
knowledge of the physical sciences, and of historical allusions, than
most men drilled in them for years. He displays a proneness for what he
himself would call "high-brow stuff," and his disproportionate display
of his "book learning" reveals his conscious effort to supply what does
not come to him naturally.
Sunday has an eclectic mind. He knows a good thing when he sees it. He
is quick to incorporate into his discourses happenings or illustrations
wherever found. Moody also was accustomed to do this: he circulated
among his friends interleaved Bibles to secure keen comments on
Scripture passages. All preachers draw on the storehouses of the past:
the Church Fathers speak every Sunday in the pulpits of Christendom.
Nobody originates all that he says. "We are the heirs of all the ages."
At the opening of every one of his campaigns Sunday repeatedly
announces that he has drawn his sermon material from wherever he could
find it, and that he makes no claim to originality. So the qualified
critic can detect, in addition to some sermon outlines which were
bequests from Dr. Chapman, epigrams from Sam Jones, flashes from
Talmage, passages from George Stuart, paragraphs from the religious
press, apothegms from the great commentators. It is no news to say
that Sunday's material is not all original; he avows this himself.
In his gleanings he has had help from various associates. Elijah P.
Brown's hand can be traced in his sermons: the creator of the "Ram's
Horn" proverbs surely is responsible for Sunday's penchant for throwing
stones at the devil.
Sunday is not an original thinker. He has founded no school of
Scriptural interpretation. He has not given any new exposition of Bible
passages, nor has he developed any fresh lines of thought. Nobody hears
anything new from him. In every one of his audience there are probably
many persons who have a more scholarly acquaintance with the Bible and
with Christian literature.
Temperamentally a conservative, Sunday has taken the truth taught him
by his earliest teachers and has adapted and paraphrased and modernized
it. In the crucible of his intense personality this truth has become
Sundayized. His discourses may have a variety of origin, but they all
sound like Billy Sunday when he delivers them.
A toilsome, painstaking worker, he has made elaborate notes of all his
sermons, and these he takes with him in leather-bound black books to
the platform and follows more or less closely as he speaks. No other
man than himself could use these rough notes. Often he interjects into
one sermon parts of another. He has about a hundred discourses at his
command at present, and his supply is constantly growing.
The early copies of Sunday's sermons were taken down more or less
correctly in shorthand, and these have been reproduced in every city
where he has gone: consequently they lack the tang and flavor of his
present deliverances.
He is alert to glean from all sources. In conversation one morning
in Scranton I told him how on the previous day a lawyer friend had
characterized a preacher with whom I had been talking by saying,
"How much like a preacher he looks, and how little like a man." That
afternoon Sunday used this in his sermon and twiddled it under his
fingers for a minute or two, paraphrasing it in characteristic Sunday
fashion. Doubtless it is now part of his permanent oratorical stock in
trade.
The absolute unconventionality of the man makes all this possible. He
is not afraid of the most shocking presentation of truth. Thus when
speaking at the University of Pennsylvania, he alluded to a professor
who had criticized the doctrine of hell, saying, "That man will not be
in hell five minutes before he knows better." Of course that thrust
caught the students. A more discreet and diplomatic person than Sunday
would not have dared to say this.
The gospel preached by Sunday is the same that the Church has been
teaching for hundreds of years. He knows no modifications. He is
fiercely antagonistic to "modern" scholarship. He sits in God's
judgment seat in almost every sermon and frequently sends men to hell
by name.
All this may be deplorable, but it is Sunday. The Bible which he uses
is an interpreted and annotated edition by one of the most conservative
of Bible teachers: this suits Sunday, for he is not of the temperament
to be hospitable to new truths that may break forth from the living
word.
This state of mind leads him to be extravagant and intolerant in his
statements. His hearers are patient with all of this because the body
of his teachings is that held by all evangelical Christians. If he
were less cock-sure he would not be Billy Sunday; the great mass of
mankind want a religion of authority.
After all, truth is intolerant.
Although lacking technical literary training Sunday is not only a
master of living English and of terse, strong, vivid and gripping
phrase, but he is also capable of extraordinary flights of eloquence,
when he uses the chastest and most appropriate language. He has held
multitudes spell-bound with such passages as these:
God's Token of Love
"Down in Jacksonville, Florida, a man, Judge Owen, quarreled with
his betrothed and to try to forget, he went off and worked in a
yellow-fever hospital. Finally he caught the disease and had succumbed
to it. He had passed the critical stage of the disease, but he was
dying. One day his sweetheart met the physician on the street and asked
about the judge. 'He's sick,' he told her.
"'How bad?' she asked.
"'Well, he's passed the critical stage, but he is dying,' the doctor
told her.
"'But I don't understand,' she said, 'if he's passed the critical stage
why isn't he getting well?'
"'He's dying, of undying love for you, not the fever,' the doctor told
her. She asked him to come with her to a florist and he went and there
she purchased some smilax and intertwined lilacs and wrote on a card,
'With my love,' and signed her given name.
"The doctor went back to the hospital and his patient was tossing in
fitful slumber. He laid the flowers on his breast and he awoke and
saw the flowers and buried his head in them. 'Thanks for the flowers,
doctor,' he said, but the doctor said, 'They are not from me.'
"'Then who are they from?'
"'Guess!'
"'I can't; tell me.'
"'I think you'll find the name on the card,' the doctor told him, and
he looked and read the card, 'With my love.'
"'Tell me,' he cried, 'did she write that of her free will or did you
beg her to do it?' The doctor told him she had begged to do it herself.
"Then you ought to have seen him. The next day he was sitting up. The
next day he ate some gruel. The next day he was in a chair. The next
day he could hobble on crutches. The next day he threw one of them
away. The next day he threw the cane away and the next day he could
walk pretty well. On the ninth day there was a quiet wedding in the
annex of the hospital. You laugh; but listen: This old world is like
a hospital. Here are the wards for the libertines. Here are the wards
for the drunkards. Here are the wards for the blasphemers. Everywhere I
look I see scarred humanity.
"Nineteen hundred years ago God looked over the battlements of heaven
and he picked a basket of flowers, and then one day he dropped a baby
into the manger at Bethlehem. 'For God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish
but have everlasting life.' What more can he do?
"But God didn't spare him. They crucified him, but he burst the bonds
of death and the Holy Spirit came down. They banished John to the isle
of Patmos and there he wrote the words: 'Behold, I stand at the door
and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door I shall come in
to him and sup with him and he with me.'"
The Sinking Ship
"Years ago there was a ship on the Atlantic and a storm arose. The ship
sprung a leak and in spite of all the men could do they could not pump
out the water fast enough. The captain called the men to him and told
them that he had taken observations and bearings and said unless the
leak was stopped in ten hours the boat would be at the bottom of the
sea. 'I want a man who will volunteer his life to stay the intake.
It's in the second hold and about the size of a man's arm and some one
can place his arm in the hole and it will hold back the water until we
can get it pumped out enough.'
"Not a man stirred. They said they would go back to the pumps and they
did. They worked hard and when a man dropped they would drag him away
and revive him and bring him back. The captain called them again and
told them it was no use unless it was changed. They would be at the
bottom before ten hours unless some one volunteered and in less time
than that if a storm arose. Then one stepped back. 'What! My boy!'
"'Yes, father, I'll go.'
"He sent some endearing words to his mother, took one last look at
the sky and kissed his father and bade the sailors good-bye, and went
below. He found the leak and placed his arm in it and packed rags
around it and the men went back to the pumps. When day broke they saw
the body floating and swaying in the water, but the arm was still in
the hole. And the vessel sailed into port safe. There on the coast
today stands a monument to perpetuate the deed.
"Nineteen hundred years ago this old world sprung a leak. God asked for
volunteers to stop it, and all of the angels and seraphim stood back,
Noah, Abraham, Elijah, Isaiah, David, Jeremiah, Solomon, none would
go, and then forth stepped his Son and said: 'Father, I'll go,' and
descended, and died on the cross; but
"'Up from the grave he arose,
With a mighty triumph o'er his foes.
He arose a victor from the dark domain
And he lives forever with his saints to reign.
Hallelujah, Christ arose!'
He burst the bonds of death, and the gates of heaven, while the angels
sang and would crown him yet. 'Let me stand between God and the
people,' and there he stands today, the Mediator, with the salvation,
full, free, perfect, and eternal in one hand and the sword of
inflexible justice in the other. The time will come when he'll come
with his angels; some day he will withdraw his offer of salvation.
"Come and accept my Christ! Who'll come and get under the blood with
me?"
"What If It Had Been My Boy?"
"'Say, papa, can I go with you?' asked a little boy of his father.
'Yes, son, come on,' said the father, as he threw the axe over his
shoulder and accompanied by a friend, went to the woods and felled a
tree.
"The little fellow said: 'Say, papa, can I go and play in the water
at the lagoon?' 'Yes, but be careful and don't get into deep water;
keep close to the bank.' The little fellow was playing, digging wells,
picking up stones and shells and talking to himself, when pretty soon
the father heard him cry, 'Hurry, papa, hurry.'
"The father leaped to his feet, grabbed the axe and ran to the lagoon
and saw the boy floundering in deep water, hands outstretched, a look
of horror on his face as he cried, 'Hurry, papa; hurry; the alligator
has got me.' The hideous amphibious monster had been hibernating and
had come out, lean, lank, hungry, voracious, and seized the boy.
"The father leaped into the lagoon and was just about to sink the axe
through the head of the monster when he turned and swished the water
with his huge tail like the screw of an ocean steamer, and the little
fellow cried out: 'Hurry, papa; hurry, hurry, hur---- ' The water
choked him. The blood-flecked foam told the story. The father went and
got men and they plunged in and felt around and all they ever carried
home to his mother was just two handfuls of crushed bones.
"When I read that, for days I could not eat, for nights I could not
sleep. I said, 'Oh, God, what if that had been my boy?'
"There are influences worse than an alligator and they are ripping and
tearing to shreds your virtue, your morality. Young men are held by
intemperance, others by vice, drunkards crying to the Church, 'Hurry,
faster,' and the church members sit on the bank playing cards, sit
there drinking beer and reading novels. 'Hurry.' They are splitting
hairs over fool things, criticizing me or somebody else, instead of
trying to keep sinners out of hell, and they are crying to the Church,
'Faster! Faster! Faster!' 'Lord, is it I?'
"How many will say, 'God, I want to be nearer to you than I have ever
been before. I want to renew my vows. I want to get under the cross.'
How many will say it?
"Who'll yield his heart to Christ? Who'll take his stand for the Lord?
Who'll come out clean-cut for God?"
A Dream of Heaven
"Some years ago, after I had been romping and playing with the
children, I grew tired and lay down, and half awake and half asleep, I
had a dream.
"I dreamed I was in a far-off land; it was not Persia, but all the
glitter and gaudy raiment were there; it was not India, although her
coral strands were there; it was not Ceylon, although all the beauties
of that island of paradise were there; it was not Italy, although the
soft dreamy haze of the blue Italian skies shone above me. I looked for
weeds and briars, thorns and thistles and brambles and found none. I
saw the sun in all its regal splendor and I said to the people, 'When
will the sun set and it grow dark?'
"They all laughed and said: 'It never grows dark in this land; there is
no night here.'
"I looked at the people, their faces wreathed in a simple halo of
glory, attired in holiday clothing. I said: 'When will the working men
go by clad in overalls? and where are the brawny men who work and toil
over the anvil?'
"They said, 'We toil not, neither do we spin; there remaineth a rest
for the people of God.'
"I strolled out in the suburbs. I said, 'Where are the graveyards, the
grave-diggers? Where do you bury your dead?'
"They said, 'We never die here.'
"I looked out and saw the towers and spires; I looked at them, but I
did not see any tombstones, mausoleums, green or flower-covered graves.
I said, 'Where, where are the hearses that carry your dead? Where are
the undertakers that embalm the dead?'
"They said, 'We never die in this land.'
"I said, 'Where are the hospitals where they take the sick? Where is
the minster, and where are the nurses to give the gentle touch, the
panacea?'
"They said, 'We never grow sick in this land.'
"I said, 'Where are the homes of want and squalor? Where live the poor?'
"They said, 'There is no penury; none die here; none ever cry for bread
in this land.' I was bewildered. I strolled along and heard the ripple
of the waters as the waves broke against the jeweled beach. I saw boats
with oars dipped with silver, bows of pure gold. I saw multitudes
that no man could number. We all jumped down through the violets and
varicolored flowers, the air pulsing with bird song, and I cried,
"'Are--all--here?' And they echoed,
"'All--are--here.'
"And we went leaping and shouting and vied with bower and spire, and
they all caroled and sung my welcome, and we all bounded and leaped and
shouted with glee, 'Home--Home--Home.'"
The Battle With Death
"Just one thing divides you people. You are either across the line of
safety, or you are outside the kingdom of God. Old or young, rich or
poor, high or low, ignorant or educated, white or colored, each of you
is upon one side or upon the other.
"The young man who talked to Jesus didn't let an infidel persuade him,
and neither should you.
"The time will come when his head will lie on his pillow and his
fevered head will toss from side to side.
"The time will come when there will be a rap on the door.
"'Who are you?'
"'Death.'
"'I didn't send for you. Why do you come here?'
"'Nobody sends for me. I choose my own time. If I waited for people to
send for me I would never come.'
"'But don't come in now, Death.'
"'I am coming in. I have waited for a long time. I have held a mortgage
on you for fifty years, and I've come to foreclose.'
"'But, ah, Death, I'm not ready.'
"'Hush! Hush! I've come to take you. You must come.'
"'Death! Death! Go get my pocketbook, there! Go get my bankbook! Go
get the key to my safety deposit box! Take my gold watch, my jewelry,
my lands, my home, everything I've got, I'll give all to you if you'll
only go.'
[Illustration: "BUT DEATH SAYS, 'I'VE COME FOR YOU'"]
"But Death says, 'I've come for you. I don't want your money or your
land or anything that you have. You must come with me.'
"'Death! Death! Don't blow that icy breath upon me. Don't crowd me
against the wall!'
"'You must come! You have a week--you have five days--you
have one day--you have twelve hours--you have one hour--you
have thirty minutes--you have ten minutes--you have one
minute--you have thirty seconds-- you have ten seconds!
I'll count them--one--two--three--four--five--six--ha!
ha!--seven--eight--nine--ten!'
"He's gone. Telephone for the undertaker. Carry him to the graveyard.
Lay him beside his mother. She died saying, 'I'm sweeping through the
gates, washed in the blood of the Lamb.' He died shrieking, 'Don't blow
that cold breath in my face! Don't crowd me against the wall!' Oh! God,
don't let that old infidel keep you out of the kingdom of God.
"Who'll come into the kingdom of God? Come quick--quick--quick!"
"Christ or Nothing"
"'And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, that will I do,
that the Father may be glorified in the Son.' No man can be saved
without Jesus Christ. There's no way to God unless you come through
Jesus Christ. It's Jesus Christ or nothing.
"At the close of the Battle of Gettysburg the country roundabout was
overrun by Federals or Confederates, wounded or ill, and the people
helped both alike. Relief corps were organized in all the little
towns. In one of them--I think it was York--a man who had headed the
committee, resigned as chairman and told his clerk not to send any
more soldiers to him. There came a Union soldier with a blood-stained
bandage and with crutches that he had made for himself, and asked to
see this man. 'I am no longer chairman of the committee,' said the man,
'and I cannot help you, for if I were to make any exception to the
rule, I would be overrun with applicants.'
"'But,' said the soldier, 'I don't want to ask you for anything. I only
want to give you a letter. It is from your son, who is dead. I was with
him, when he died. When he was wounded I got him a canteen of water
and propped him up against a tree and held his hand when he wrote. I
know where he lies.' The father took the letter, and he read it. It
said, 'Treat this soldier kindly for my sake.' Then it told how he had
helped the writer--the dying boy. The father said, 'You must come with
me to his mother.' She saw them coming and cried out, 'Have you any
news of my boy?' The father said, 'Here is a letter--read it.' She read
it and shrieked. They took the wounded soldier into their home, 'Won't
you stay with us and be our son? You were his friend, you were with him
at the last, you look like him, your voice reminds us of him. When you
speak and we turn our faces away, we can almost think he is here. Let
us adopt you. Won't you do it?' He heard their plea, and he was touched
and he stayed. So heaven will hear your prayer if it is in the name of
Christ.
"When I go in the name of Jesus Christ, God will stop making worlds to
hear me.
"Lord, teach us how to pray."
Calvary
"There comes Judas, leading the devil's crowd, the churchly gang.
Don't forget that Jesus was crucified by church members whose sins he
rebuked. Judas said, 'The fellow that I kiss, that's Jesus.' Look at
the snake on his sanctimonious countenance. He said, 'Hail, Master,'
and he kissed him.
"Jesus said, 'Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?'
"And they staggered back. 'Whom seek ye?'
"'We are all looking for Jesus of Nazareth.'
"'All right, I am he.' They staggered again, and Judas led them on.
"They rushed up and seized Jesus Christ. When starting for Calvary they
put a cross on his back. He was tired and he staggered and stumbled,
then fell, but he climbed up and a fellow smote him and said, 'Ha, ha,'
and the young fellow spat upon him. They cursed him and damned him.
What for? Because he came to open up a plan of redemption to keep you
and me out of hell; and yet you live a life of disgrace. On he went
and along came a colored man named Simon and they put the cross on
his back and he went dragging it for Jesus. The colored race has borne
many a burden in the advancement of civilization, but a grander burden
has never been on the back of black or white, than when Simon bore the
Master's cross.
[Illustration: BILLY JR., MR. AND MRS. SUNDAY AND PAUL.]
"On they went and seized him, and I can see his arms as they pounded
the nails through his hands and his feet. Another fellow digs a hole,
and I can hear the cross as it 'chugs' in the hole, and they lift him
between heaven and earth. Then the disciples forsook him and fled. Left
him all alone. How many will go with Jesus to the last ditch? Thousands
will die for him, but there is another set that will not.
"The disciples followed him to the garden, but forsook him at the cross.
"If we had been there we might have seen the hilltops and the tree-tops
filled and covered with angels, and houses crowded. As Jesus hung on
the cross and cried, 'I thirst,' a Jew ran and dipped a sponge in
wormwood and gall and vinegar and put it on a reed and put it up to
his lips. Then Jesus cried, 'My God, why hast thou forsaken me?' There
he hung, feeling the burden of your guilt, you booze-fighter, you
libertine, you dead-beat. 'My God, hast thou forsaken me?' he cried,
and I imagine that the archangel cried, "Oh, Jesus, if you want me to
come and sweep the howling, blood-thirsty mob into hell, lift your head
and look me in the face and I will come.'
"But Jesus gritted his teeth and struggled on, and the archangel again
cried, 'Oh, Jesus, if you want me to come, tear your right hand loose
from the cross and wave it, and I will come.' But Jesus just clenched
his fist over the nails. What for? To keep you out of hell. Then tell
me why you are indifferent. And soon he cried, 'It is finished.'
"The Holy Spirit plucked the olive branch of peace back through the
gates of heaven from the cross and winged his way and cried, 'Peace!
Peace has been made by his death on the cross.' That is what he had to
do. That was his duty."
The World for God
"A heathen woman named Panathea was famous for her great beauty, and
King Cyrus wanted her for his harem. He sent his representatives to her
and offered her money and jewels to come, but she repulsed them and
spurned their advances. Again he sent them, this time with offers still
more generous and tempting; but again she sent them away with scorn.
A third time they were sent, and a third time she said, 'Nay.' Then
King Cyrus went in person to see her, and he doubled and trebled and
quadrupled the offers his men had made, but still she would not go. She
told him that she was a wife, and that she was true to her husband.
"He said, 'Panathea, where dwellest thou?'
"'In the arms and on the breast of my husband,' she said.
"'Take her away,' said Cyrus. 'She is of no use to me.' Then he put her
husband in command of the charioteers and sent him into battle at the
head of the troops. Panathea knew what this meant--that her husband
had been sent in that he might be killed. She waited while the battle
raged, and when the field was cleared she shouted his name and searched
for him and finally found him wounded and dying. She knelt and clasped
him in her arms, and as they kissed, his lamp of life went out forever.
King Cyrus heard of the man's death, and came to the field. Panathea
saw him coming, careening on his camel like a ship in a storm. She
called, 'Oh, husband! He comes--he shall not have me. I was true to
you in life, and will be true to you in death!' And she drew her dead
husband's poniard from its sheath, drove it into her own breast and
fell dead across the body.
"King Cyrus came up and dismounted. He removed his turban and knelt by
the dead husband and wife, and thanked God that he had found in his
kingdom one true and virtuous woman that his money could not buy, nor
his power intimidate.
"Oh, preachers, the problem of this century is the problem of the
first century. We must win the world for God and we will win the world
for God just as soon as we have men and women who will be faithful to
God and will not lie and will not sell out to the devil."
A Word Picture
"Every day at noon, while Ingersoll was lecturing, Hastings would go
to old Farwell Hall and answer Ingersoll's statements of the night
before. One night Ingersoll painted one of those wonderful word
pictures for which he was justly famous. He was a master of the use of
words. Men and women would applaud and cheer and wave their hats and
handkerchiefs, and the waves of sound would rise and fall like great
waves of the sea. As two men were going home from his lecture, one of
them said to the other: 'Bob certainly cleaned 'em up tonight.' The
other man said: 'There's one thing he didn't clean up. He didn't clean
up the religion of my old mother.'
"This is the word picture Ingersoll painted:
"'I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I
would rather have lived in a hut, with a vine growing over the door
and the grapes growing and ripening in the autumn sun; I would rather
have been that peasant, with my wife by my side and my children upon
my knees twining their arms of affection about me; I would rather have
been that poor French peasant and gone down at least to the eternal
promiscuity of the dust, followed by those who loved me; I would a
thousand times rather have been that French peasant than that imperial
incarnation of force and murder (Napoleon); and so I would ten thousand
times.'
"What was that? Simply a word picture. It was only the trick of an
orator.
"Let me paint for you a picture, and see if it doesn't make you feel
like leaping and shouting hallelujahs.
"Infidelity has never won a drunkard from his cups. It has never
redeemed a fallen woman from her unchastity. It has never built a
hospital for the crushed and sick. It has never dried tears. It has
never built a mission for the rescue of the down-and-out. It wouldn't
take a ream, or a quire, or a sheet, or even a line of paper to write
down what infidelity has done to better and gladden the world.
"What has infidelity done to benefit the world? What has it ever done
to help humanity in any way? It never built a school, it never built
a church, it never built an asylum or a home for the poor. It never
did anything for the good of man. I challenge the combined forces of
unbelief. They have failed utterly.
"Well may Christianity stand today and point to its hospitals, its
churches and its schools with their towers and the spires pointing to
the source of their inspiration and say: 'These are the works that I
do.'
"I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I
would rather have lived in a hut, with a vine growing over the door
and grapes growing and ripening in the autumn sun; I would rather have
been that peasant, with my wife and children by my side and the open
Bible on my knees, at peace with the world and at peace with God; I
would rather have been that poor peasant and gone down at least in the
promiscuity of the dust, with the certainty that my name was written in
the Lamb's book of life than to have been that brilliant infidel whose
tricks of oratory charmed thousands and sent souls to hell."
The Faithful Pilot
"Some years ago a harbor pilot in Boston, who had held a commission for
sixty-five years (you know the harbor pilots and the ocean pilots are
different). For sixty-five years he had guided ships in and out of the
Boston harbor, but his time to die had come. Presently the watchers at
his bedside saw that he was trying to sit up, and they aided him. 'I
see a light,' he said.
"'Is it the Minot light?' they asked him.
"'No, that is first white and then red; this one is all white all
the time,' and he fell back. After a few moments he struggled to rise
again. 'I see a light,' he gasped.
"'Is it the Highland light?'
"'No, that one is red and then black; this one is white all the time.'
And he fell back again and they thought certainly he was gone, but he
came back again as if from the skies and they saw his lips moving. 'I
see a light.'
"'Is it the Boston light; the last as you pass out?' they asked.
"'No, that one is red all the time; this one is white all the time.'
And his hands trembled and he reached out his feeble arms. His face
lighted up with a halo of glory. 'I see a light,' he gasped, 'and it is
the light of glory. Let the anchor drop.'
"'And he anchored his soul in the haven of rest,
To sail the wild seas no more:
Tho' the tempest may beat o'er the wild stormy deep,
In Jesus I'm safe evermore.'
"That's where you ought to be. Will you come?"