warmest wish of men and angels. Clad in invincible armor, grasping the sword of Spirit, you have started in this sublime ascent, and should reach the mount of revelation; for if ye would run, who shall hinder you? So dear, so due, to God is obedience, that it reaches high heaven in the common walks of life, and it affords even me a perquisite of joy.
You worship no distant deity, nor talk of unknown love. The silent prayers of our churches, resounding through the dim corridors of time, go forth in waves of sound, a diapason of heart-beats, vibrating from one pulpit to another and from one heart to another, till truth and love, commingling in one righteous prayer, shall encircle and cement the human race.
The government of divine Love derives its omnipotence from the love it creates in the heart of man; for love is allegiant, and there is no loyalty apart from love. When the human senses wake from their long slumber to see how soon earth's fables flee and faith grows wearisome, then that which defies decay and satisfies the immortal cravings is sought and found. In the twilight of the world's pageantry, in the last-drawn sigh of a glory gone, we are drawn towards God.
Beloved brethren, I cannot forget that yours is the first church edifice of our denomination erected in the sunny South — once my home. There my husband died, and the song and the dirge, surging my being, gave expression to a poem written in 1844, from which I copy this verse: —
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Friends, why throng in pity round me? |
