Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1882-09-25

is Shakespeare. "a foolish son is the
heaviness of his mother" That is the
Bible. Oh, have we not treated our Father
badly? And such Father! Three times
day with wonderful regularity He has
fed you. Through how many winters He
has given you wood and coal. How careful
He has been to see that you had apparel
suited tothe climate and changes of the
seasons. Who fed you this morning when
YOU arose? Who has sheltered your house
hold? Who has given you the love OF your
children?
In whose Keeping
are the departed loved ones of your heart?
Who pours golden sunlight by day and by
night and lights up the street-lamps of
heaven? On whose earth do you walk? At
whose fountains do you drink? Whose eye
hath pitied you? Whose hand hath helped
you? Whose heart had compassion on
you? Whose voice hath called you? Our
Father, so lenient, so loving, so generous
hath He been. Oh, we have all been cruel
prodigals. We have chosen the wilderness
to the loving arms of our Father. Have
you no pardon to ask for? Have you no
resolution to make? Oh, if it had been
stranger it would not have been so wonder.
full that we turned away from him. II He
had maltreated US, if He had fagellated us
doors, il He had starved us it would not
have been strange il we turned our backs
on such father. But no, He has loved US,
He has fondled us, He has carressed US all
our life long. Are you sorry that you have
offended? Is there in this audience one
man frank enough to say:
"FaIher. Have sinued."
If you wrong friend you are willing to
apologize. You say: Il am sorry l said
that or did that" Have you ever apollo
gized to God? Can it be that 10000 times
10000 transgressions OF your life are all
uncancelled? Ii it be so, may God have
mercy upon your soul.
remark again that this resolution OF the
text was formed in feeling of homesick-
ness. l do not know how long the young
man had been gone-how many weeks, how
many years-from his fathers house, but |
am very certain from the heading OF the
passage that he was homesick. 1t is very
disagreeable feeling. You know what it is.
You have been away OIL, and although you
may have lad plenty Of friends around
you and all the circumstances were cheer.
ful, you said within your soul: Il would
give the world if could be home" Well,
this young man of the text was homesick.
He wanted to walk around the old place
again. He wanted to see if the house
looked Just as it uSed to look. Above all,
he wanted TO see his father and clasp him
by the hand again. think, perhaps, the
thought may have flashed through his
mind.
perhaps Fathers Dead.'
You know that many prodigal has come
home after long absence and has knocked
at the door and a stranger has come, and
father is gone and mother is gone and
brothers and sisters are gone. The old
homestead has passed into some other pos
session. And | think it was with all that
anxiety that the young man of the text
says: IL will arise and go to my father, to
find him if | can" Are there not those
here to-day who would like. to go back to
God? Would you not like to have Christ
put his Scared hand upon you and press
You TO his heart and utter these melting
words: al have loved you with an ever
lasting love-" Oh, are there not those here
who are homesiCk for God, homeSlCk for
heaven? heard of sailor boy who came
back to see his parents and he stayed few
days and his mother importuned him not
to go away again, and the night before he
went back to see he heard her
Praying I'm the Next Room.
1t made him harder than he was before.
He went to sea. One bitter cold night he
Clambered up the ratlines; he was out on
perilous duty. The winds were whistling
around him in the darkness, and he heard
something that first seemed like his moth
er's voice, and then seemed like that very
prayer, and he trembled in the darkness
and charged himself with cowardice and
tried to whistle off the feeling; but all the
more it pressed through his soul-the very
PRAYER he heard his mother utter in the
next room. And there amid the ships
shrouds he cried: God be merCiful to me
a sinner, Oh, if there be mercy for such a
wretch as l am, help me" And have
thought while standing here that some
prodigal in this editice might have coming
into his soul the memory of fathers prayer
or mothers petition, long ago uttered, and
that prayer might press so nightly on your
soul that you would at this moment sur
render to the Lord who bought you.
| remark again that this resolution OF the
text was
Immediately Put Into Execution.
The text says he arose and came to his
father. The trouble is that nine hundred
and ninety-nine out of the thousand of our
resolutions never amount 10 anything. We
do not carry them out. How many of us
have. scores OF times, resolved upon u
Christian life, and yet have not entered it?
Here is man who, twenty-five years ago,
in the time of typhoid fever, said: 80
Lord, let me get over this sickness and |
will serve Thee all the rest of my life. -
The fever departed: he is well in the house
of God to-day, and yet he has never es-
poused the cause of Jesus. Here is man
who said: "If can only live to see 1882,
by that time | will get over the rush of my
business, and will give my time to the
Lord, and all the rest of my days shall be
=. - ND in,
1850 and that man has not kept his VOW.
A resolution that will become Chris
tian next year or next month or next week
or tomorrow or 10 o'clock tonight,
Is Worth Nothing.
The Young man of the text is one moment
sitting down amid the swine and the huSks
Then he SAYS: IL will arise and GO TO my
father" and he starts, starts the very next
instant; rs quick rs that he is on his way.
o. my dear friends, are there not some OF
you to-day ready to start for heaven? Do
Won not want to start now? You feel your
need of pardon, why seek it now? You
need title to heaven, why not get it now?
How many have put it off, and there are
some who say: Il must get my life changed
first and must get better first and then |
will come" Oh, my brother you Will get
worse and worse until you come to Christ,
No man yet ever made himself better.
"Not the righteous,
Sinners Jesus came 10 call"
"But," SAYS one, put it off little longer
and | will come" Oh. that is what one of
olden time said: go thy way for this
time. l will attend to it after awhile Did
he? No. be went away and perished. To
be almost Christian is to be
No Christian at All.
want to tell you Of two prodigalS-the
one that came back TO his fathers house,
and the other that did not In Richmond,
Va, there was young man who had every
advantage in his fathers house of a Chris
tian education. and he wandered away. He
forgot his fathers counsel and his moth
er' er'sloye-farther 5 and farther he wandered
until he was prodigal. One night, in one
of the finest homes of Virginia, while the
family were sound asleep at midnight,
there was a loud rapping at the door and
the crying of children outside. The prodi-
cal had come home to his own dwelling,
and at some word of the wife that offended
him he said: ''Out of this house, Away
with the children! / will dash their brains
out" And they fed through the darkness
TO their grandfsther's house. The next
morning the young man went out to see
the prodigal who had
briyen His own kamilv Away.
Ee found him pacing up and down in front
of his house and he said To him: What
a 70 you dniny here1 What il the matter