Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1880-10-28
.sadiug fnr the Sabbath.
CONDUCTED BY
REV. ROBERT LATHAM.
PERSONAL RELIGION.

PERSONAL RELIGION.
There is tendency to substitute the reli-
gion of the church for personal piety. Multi
tudes have no other religion than that Of
loyalty to the creed and punctilious atten-
dance upon the public services of some church.
It would be mistake to assume that they
attend and support their church merely be-
cause it is fashionable and respectable to do
so. To them it is serious business, often
cross, to attend public worship twice day and
give what they are required to give for it's
support. They consider it a duty incumbent
upon every man to 60 to church and support
the Gospel. And they are right in this. Their
error is in regarding the performance OF this
duty as payment in full of all religious obliga-
tions, and supposing that it will somehow be
placed to their credit as a substitute for the
religion of the heart and life They look upon
the church asa sort of reservoir of salvation in
which they have paid-up share that will ac-
crue to them in the day of final account.
Unquestionably, the work of the Gospel re-
quires the existence of the church. Nor do
the Scriptures recognize as a Christian any
one who refuses to identity himself publicly
with some branch of the Church of Christ.
The Church is needful and valuable, perhaps
indispensable, as the means of inspiring men
with sense of their need Ofpersonal religion
vatiOn. But it is not an insurance company
to guarantee salvation and supercede personal
responsibility, by relieving men from the ne
ceSSity of finding out God for themselves and
opening their hearts to the direct influences
of the Holy Spirit.
Religion, to be of any value, must be per-
sonal matter The gospel of Christ makes it's
appeal to the individual. All it's commands
are addressed to each soul as personally ac-
cSuntable for the manner in which he treats
them. $50 then,'' says Paul, ''every one of us
must give an account of himself to God" If
we do not repent, believe and be converted,
each one of us for himself, the church can do
nothing for us either here or hereafter. We
shall be judged at last according to our char
acter, and not by our church relations.
Each human soul is created for personal
union and communion with God. 1t is his
privilege to have direct access to God, to have
intercourse with him and receive law from his
mouth without the intervention of church or
priest. This intercourse is necessary to the
life and normal growth of the soul as food is
to the sustenance Of the body. No loyalty to
creeds, ,zealfor church punctilious observance
of it's services, can take the place of this life
of faith and piety. The very effort to find
substitute for it is an atfront to God, an i'm
pous attempt to evade sacred and solemn
responsibility. 1t is sort of imposture and
Self-deception, which seeks to get rid Of religion
by something thatseems to be religious which,
instead of seeking to awaken and nourish the
spirit of faith and penitence by the use of pray
ers, hymns, sermons and other services of the
church, invests these performances with a
superstitious virtue, satisfies the conscience
with something short of holiness, and fixes
the heart on some sanctimOniOuS machinery
instead of Christ.-Ihe Methodist.
l.
A MOTHERS SPOWER.-A moments work on
clay tells more than an hours labor on brick.
So work on hearts should be done before they
harden. During the first six or eight years of
child-life, mothers have full sway and this is
the time to make the deepest and most endur
ing impressions on the human mind.
The examples of maternal influences are
countless Solomon himself records the words
of wisdom that fell from mothers lips and
Timothy was taught the Scriptures from a
child by his mother and grand mother
John Randolph, of Roanoke, used to say
would have been a French atheist were it not
for the recollection of the time when my de-
parted mother used to take my little hands in
hers, and. make me say on my bended knee,
| ''Our Father who art in Heaven.''
II have found out what made you the man
you are" said gentleman one morning to
President Adams. "I have been reading your
mothers letters to her son."
Washington's mother trained her boy to
ftruthfulness and virtue, and when his meSsen-
ger called to tell her that her son was raised
| to the highest station in the nations gift, she
could say, "GeOrge always was good boy"
A mothers tears dropped on the head of
her little boy one evening as he sat in the door
way and listened while she spoke of Christ and
| His salvation. "ThOSe tears made me mis-
sionary," said he when he had given his man
hoods prime to the Lord.
Some one asked Napoleon what was the
great need of the French nation. ''Mothers,"
was the significant answer.
TIE SEVEN BIBLES OF THE WORLD.-The
seven Bibles of the world are the Koran of the
Mohammedans, the Eddas of the Scandina-
vians, the Try Pitikes of the Buddhists, the
Five Kings of the Chinese, the three Wedas of
the Hindoos, the Zendavesta, and the Scrip
lures of the Christians. The Koran is the
most recent of these seven Bibles, and not
older than the seventh century of our era. 1t
is a compound of quotations from the Old and
New Testaments, the Talmud, and the Gospel
of St. Barnabas. The Eddas of the Scandina
vians were first published in the fourteenth
century, The Pitikes of the Buddhists con-
tain sublime morals and pure aspirations, but
their author lived and died in the sixth century
in these sacred books not found in the Bible.
The sacred writings of the Chinese are called
the Five Kings, ''king' meaning web of cloth
Or the warp that keeps the threads in their
place. They contain the best sayings of the
best sages on the ethico-politcal duties Of life.
These sayings cannot be traced to aperiodhigh-
er than the eleventh century B. G. The three
Vedas are the most ancient books of the Hin
docs, and it is the opinion of Max Muller, Will
son, Johnson and Whitney that they are not
older than eleven centuries B. G. The Zenda
vesta of the Persians is the grandest of all the
sacred books next to our Bible. ZorOaster,
whose sayings it contains, was born in the 18th
century B. G. Moses lived and wrotehis Pen
tateuch fifteen centuries B. c., and, therefore,
has a clear margin of 300 years older than the
most ancient of the other sacred writings.
How TO DO IT AT HOME-"Doctor, said
gentleman to his pastor, Show can best
train up my boy in the way that he should 60 20
''By going that way YOURSELF" blandly re-
sponded the pastor.
No sounder advice could have been given.
Sound instruction is excellent. Education in
morals and correct theories of living are not
by any means to be neglected. But those fam
lilies where the quiet influence of pure and no
BILE example are found are most likely to be
the ones where childhood is most successfully
trained. In nothing is the influence of little
things more important than in the family
circle. Parents naturally and properly live
free and unrestrained life in the presence of
their own families If they are cross. petu-
liant, fault-fnding, it is idle to expect that the
children, who are hourly witnesses to this
petty i'll temper, will be of sunny disposition
or unselfish in life But if home life be filled
with littIa dneds of Kindness with gentle low