The Jericho Road eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 167 pages of information about The Jericho Road.

The Jericho Road eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 167 pages of information about The Jericho Road.
and Baxter, Stephen and Father Abraham, Martha and Mary and the widow who gave her two mites.  Pausing, I beheld, with banners above, an innumerable number “marching on,” with Lincoln and Lovejoy, Lyman, Beecher and John Brown in the advance, and on the banners was inscribed, “These are they which came out of great tribulation.”  Rev., viii, 14.  The angel said:  “That is the multitude of poor slaves from the cotton fields of earth, doing homage to their deliverers.”  “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.”  Rev., vii, 16.  Here I also found Watts and Wesley singing, while Bliss (who had but lately been translated from earth to heaven by way of Ashtabula bridge), catching the inspiration, was setting the songs of Heaven to the music of earth.  Gazing on the many thrones and crowns, there were some of peculiar brightness.  I looked on one, and what was the inscription?  Was it, I was a Methodist?  No.  I was immersed?  No.  I was a Jew?  No.  But rather this:  “Because I delivered the poor that cried and fatherless, and him that had none to help him, the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing with joy.”  Job, xxix, 12, 14.  And this was the crown of Job.  And there was another just beyond, and I read the inscription.  Was it, I was a Presbyterian?  No.  I prayed by quantity?  No.  I was a Universalist?  No.  But “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”  James, i, 27.  And while the memory and name of Peabody, the philanthropist, is and shall be honored and loved for ages to come in two hemispheres, his crown of glory in heaven is second to none.  But there was still another.  It was worn by one of queenly beauty, and she sat upon her throne; the splendor of her robe and the brilliancy of her apparel dimmed my vision.  I read her inscription, set, as it was, in Heaven’s choicest diamonds.  Was it, I was an Episcopalian?  No.  I was baptized?  No.  I was a Catholic?  No.  But thus:  “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”  Matt., xxv, 35, 36.  And before her throne stood thousands who had come up from the battle fields of the Crimea, and the widows and orphans, the lame and the halt, the blind and the deaf from the streets and alleys of London, and as they shouted their hallelujahs before her, they carried banners on which were emblazoned these words:  “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”  Matt., xxv, 40.  And the crown of Florence Nightingale glistens brightly in Heaven.  Passing on, and observing a large number of vacant thrones and crowns, I naturally asked, for whom are these?  The angel replied:  “For the Christians of earth; the managers of the ‘homes’ for the friendless, the widows and the orphans, and those who, regardless of their respective church creeds and doctrines, like their Master when he was on earth, go about doing good.”  The angel vanished, and I awoke.

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The Jericho Road from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.