rch was, as He Himself afterwards
declared in his letter to Sardis, like the coming of a thief. This
Coming Paul had described in the fourth chapter of his first letter
to the Thessalonians.

It was not for the Church to know in Paul's day when the Lord should
come as the bridegroom for His bride.

No revelation has been given in any epistle to the Church since.
What was true in Paul's day as to the attitude of the Church is true
in this day. Listen to the commended attitude of the Thessalonian
Church:

"Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and
to wait for his Son from heaven."

There you have it.

The Church is to wait; that means to watch, to expect, to be ready.

This is what the Apostle said.

This is what the Son of God Himself said and still says to-day.

He affirms we do not know the hour.

He exhorts us to watch.

The affirmation and the exhortation hold for this hour.

If therefore the Son of God be not incarnate falsehood; if He seek
not to play with my heart and make me a spectacle to the lost souls
of the pit as well as to the mockers among men--He means what He
said.

If He meant what He said, then He means that any day, and any hour
of the day so far as I know I may meet Him at any turn of the road.

And what would that mean if He should come to-night or to-morrow?

I have told you what it would mean to me.

What would it mean to you, to some of you who have so much invested
in Laurel Hill, in that white and beautiful city of the dead, by the
banks of your winding river?

When I was a boy my father took me there and I watched as the winds
rippled through the long grasses, and I could hear the wash of the
river below, I was startled and sometimes shivered as I walked under
the shadow of tall monuments, carved figures, and by stately tombs
of marble. And once I started back and broke into tears at the sight
of the sculptured form of "Old Mortality" bending above a slab with
chisel and mallet in hand--and I suppose is there still, grown older
in his stony face because more stained with the passing years.

What would it mean to you whose loved ones are lying in that
cemetery or any other of the sleeping places of the dead?

Ah! it would mean the home-coming, the greeting, the rapturous kiss
and hand-clasp of recognition, the joy of that heaven life that
shall know no end and that immortality that shall compensate for all
the weariness and the heartache of the m