The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1885-12-23

Some SANDER after awhile, horned and
hoored and tusked, will come after you 10
gore YOU and trample yoI into the dust. II
You say. 81 haven't an enemy in the world"
Won are testifying to tho fact, you are lemon
strating the fact that you have not done all
your duty. Any man that goes on and does
his whole duty challenges wrath and he'll, and
persecution and scorn and misfortune will
come Just as certain as you sit there and L
stand here. No escape. Sometimn IS 1t mn
in eariv life, sometimes it comes in midlife,
sometimes it comes in old age. One would
think that if any man would ever
field, he who brought souls to God by
the thousands, and yet the learned DR.. john
son wrote of White:iela, ''he is only a mounte-
bank" Robert Hall, theysay, used to preach
about heaven until the glorieS Of the better
country shown in his face, and yet good John
Foster wrote of Robert Hall, che is only an
actor, and the smile you see on his face
when he speaks of heaven, is only the reflec-
ton of his own vanity" OH Wesley, who
did so much to reform the chur"h and save
the world, was p~ictcr.a!ly on the board
fences of London, and no was the target Tor
all the wits md punsters Of his day, ard
there were some who howled at him as he
went through the streets, yet he was the
founder of Metho lism, and his name With
mauy is the mightiest name save one, the
name which is above every name, the name
Of Jesus. One would have thought that those
men would have escaped misrepresentation
and persecution and trial, and if they could
not escape neither can you, neither can you,
neither can you. But what are you to do
when YOU are slandered or abused! Go out
and hunt down tile lies! While you are
making an explanation in regard to one talse'
hood. there will be fifty people that have just
heard of that particular fa!sehood. While
You ought to use al lawful means for the
purpose of setting yourself right, want to
tell YOU men and women who are slaEdered
and abused and prosecuted. I want to tell
YOU Of enc who had many insulting. things
said about Him, whose sobricty was disputed,
mission was scoffed at, whose compan-
ionship was denounced, and who was pursued
a bale and spit upon..as a man. and howled
at after He was dead. Just go to Him. Look
up in His face and say: ooh, Lord Jesus, 1
the wounds on thy brow, tho wounds on
thy hands, tho wounds Oh thy feet, the
wounds in thy side, and by all those wounds
1 beg Thee to pity me, ana help me, and res,
cue me-" Oh, abused soul, &c anu Tell
Jesns. :.
Again, I commend the behavior of the dis
ciples in the text to all the bereft. AS 1 look
off upon the audience to-day, how many
signs of mourning! God has his OWL way of
taking apart the families of the earth. The
fact is that the emigration of the human race
from this world to the next is such a vast
enterprise That God only can coniuct it. But
that emigration from time to eternity keeps
three-fourths of the families of the earth in
desolation. The child, the babe that lay so
near the mothers heart, is laid away in the
cold and the darkness. The laughter freezes
to the girls lip, and the rose scatters. The
boy co:ne in from the harvest fields of Shu-
nam and SAYS, ''my head, my head" and
dies in the lap of his mother. Widowhood has
struck into the pallid cheek the tragedy Of
woe and orphanage cries in vain for father
and mother. Oh, the grave is cruel! Is there
no help, no consolation, no alienation. no
rescue? There is; aye, there is. When we are
in misfortune our friends come III ana try 10
help us and they do help us to a certain e1-
tent, but they cannot disentangle our finances,
they cannot cure our sick, they cannot raise
ourdead. They DE- The best they ran and we are
clad to have them. But Christ can do all the
work. He counts all the tears, He counts all
the eroans. He saw the tears as they started
and He saw the hiding-p,ace of cur sorrow.
Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, anguish of
our anguish. AS long as He remembers Lag
arus' tomb He will stand with us in the cem-
etery. As long as He remembers His "
hnartbreak He will be with us III the lacera-
tfons of our affection. When He forgets
the footsore, and the weary mind, and the
exhausted body, and the awful cross, and
His solemn grave, then He will forget you,
but not until then. When we have trouble
we send letters to our friends telling them to
come right away, or we send kilograms say
ing, take the first train; come lm1Nedl-
ately;n hut it may be hours, it may be days
before our friends get to us. But Christ IS
always present. He is before ,yo1;
He is on the right hand
He is on the left hand, He is under YOU, Ho
is over you, He is within you. Nearer than
the staff on which youlean. Nearer thar the
cup which you press to your lips. Nearer
than the handkerchief with which you wipe
away the tears. 1 preach Him this morning,
an ever present Christ. Blessed be God the
Savior to whom these disciples went has all
power in heaven and on earth, and the last
sword will leap from the scabbard Of ON
and the last resource Of the infinite
God be exhausted before He will allow one of
His children to cry for help and not get
it. A child went with her father, a
sea captain out on the ocean, and when the
first storm came, in the midnight, the child
awakeneiin great fright. She said: "Where's
father! where's father!' "Oh," they said,
''your father is watching the storm: he is on
deck; he is guiding the ship" "Wcll,' said
the child. IF fathers on deck and he's guild.
ing the ship, its all right. So III go to sleep
again" ami she slept anil the bowling ofthe
tempest. Oh, men and women, tossed in the
storms Of this life, cyclone after cyclone, ell.
roclydon after euroclydon; let me tell you
that the Lord is guiding the ship, your Father
is on deck, and He will take you
safely through into the harbor.
All is well. All is we'll. Go and
tell Jesus. This moment, in one earnest
prayer tell Him all about it. You were
never so willing to receive your child when
he got wounded in the street as your GOD Is
ready this moment to receive zee as you w Tn
will be the history of this sciencei How many
of you will surrender yourselves to the Lord
who redeemed youa If you will not take
your own pardon and extirpate the conse-
quenccs, of your own sin. 1 tell you,. my
brother, plainly, your life will be a failure,
and your death disaster, and your eternity a
calamity. But if you just start for Christ this
moment. your feet will strike the upward
path and the shining messengers who report
above what is Ion here will make the arches
OF COD resound with the tidings that you
went and told Jesus. Soon oil this scene
will 10 rome. Where will we be a thousand
years from now? Where will we be a million
years from now! Where will we be n quad
rillion years from now? We viii be living
somewhere. Where will we be a quintrillio1
years from now? Xerxes had IN army Of
2,ouO,0)O mcn-it was probably, the
largest army ever m~arshaled-and
ons day he rode along tho
line and reviewed the troops. There
was a great huzzah as he went along the
lines. Then he took his position on a hill and
looked off upon the host and burst into tears,
and one Of his staff officers said: "Why do
you weep in this time of triumph and exulta.
ton when you ought to be full of JOY" 'Ah."
said Xerxes, II weep because I realize that
soon all this host will be gone" And | realize
it, and you realize it that soon all this assem-