Elijah Kellogg at Eighty.
1893.
There are people before me to-night whom I began to love forty years ago. Do I love them less? Is the affection worn out? No; it is worn in. Then it was in the bark, but now it has got into the heart of the tree.
Here, also, are the children and grandchildren of those who are not, for God has taken them, and the affection I bore their parents clings to the children. It is not worn out, because love is stronger than death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. Or if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. It is love that makes home, love that makes friends in the world, love that makes heaven, for God is love.
What has brought all these friends together to-night? They did not come to get, but to give, not with their hands shut up, but with both hearts and hands wide open. They have come to gratify their feelings of neighborly friendship and affection; for if they did not thus gratify those feelings, they would not enjoy what they had left. Ought I not to be grateful to be the recipient of so much good-will, kindness, and neighborly affection? I trust it will be an encouragement to render me more faithful to your souls’ best interests, to work for you and seek your good; to pray that God, who loves the cheerful giver, will reward and bless you.
There were never two persons in this world who loved each other but wanted and loved to eat together, and there were never two enemies who did. There were never two persons who loved each other, loved God, but who loved and wanted to pray together. We have eaten together; we have enjoyed each other’s society; recalled the feelings of other and happier days, before toil had stiffened our limbs, sorrow entered our hearts, or tears trembled on our eyelids; now let us pray together before we separate.
THE DELUDED HERMIT
[Delivered at “Donation Party,” October 1, 1895]
In the ancient days, after the early Christian fathers who succeeded the Apostles had departed, religion degenerated into superstition. There arose under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church a class of hermits, anchorites, and devotees who thought that heaven and holiness were to be obtained by torturing and denying the flesh; that by secluding themselves from society, by fastings and watchings, they might escape temptation and sin and live nearer to God and merit the divine favor.