le battle raged all day between the
armies of Grant and Lee. When the night shadows shut out the light,
dead and dying were strewn for miles. Surgeons were busy and the
chaplains going their rounds. A chaplain heard a voice say, in clarion
tone: "Here." Going to the spot from whence came the voice and bending
over the prostrate form of a dying soldier, the chaplain asked: "What
can I do for you?"

"Nothing, sir; they were just calling the roll in Heaven, and I was
answering to my name."

Blessed book, in which there is enough a wounded soldier, dying far
away from home and loved ones, can so understand as to fit him to
answer the roll call in Heaven.

We may not comprehend the full meaning of faith, but we can grasp
sufficient to be to our souls what the force of nature is to the
trees, by which they stand with their branches reaching skyward and
their roots drawing earth-centerward. Take from me this faith and you
take away the best friend I ever had, the friend that stood by me in
the darkest hour of my life, when a daughter in the bloom of womanhood
said, "good-bye," and went away to live with the angels; that stands
by me now pointing to where my child is waiting for me in the bowers
that kiss the very porch of Heaven. Without this faith how awful would
be the dirge, "earth to earth, dust to dust." Blessed book that tells
us we shall meet "beyond the river, where the surges cease to roll;"
that death is but the doorway to a better land, "the grave a subway to
a sweeter clime."

My dear young friends, accept this faith and you will find in it a
sweet companion up the hillward way of life, and down the sunset slope
to the valley of death, where it will not leave nor forsake you, but
will wait till you throw off your "burden of clay," then "bear you
away on its balmy wings to your eternal home." Young men, may you so
follow the safe side of life, that when its great trials come, you can
with the wings of faith cleave the clouds and soar safely above the
thunders that roll at your feet.

My closing advice is, "Walk not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
stand in the way of sinners; but delight in the law of the Lord; and
in his law meditate day and night. In due season your life will fruit
and whatsoever you do will prosper."

VI

PLATFORM EXPERIENCES.

Though announced to lecture on Platform Experiences, it is my purpose
to give you a kind of platform analysis, to tell you what I know about
lecturin