The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-16

drawn up in chronic rheumatism; if an eye quick
to catch passing objects is better than one with
vision dim and uncertain, then God will require
OF us efficiency just in proportion to what he mas
given US. Physical energy ought to be type OF
| moral power. We ought to have just as good
| digestion Of truth we have capacity to asslml
| late food. Our spiritual hearing ought to be as
good as our physical hearing; our spiritual taste
| ought to be as clear our tongue. Samsons In
| body, we ought to be giants In moral power.
| But where you find great many men
who realize that they ought to use their money
| Alright, and use their intelligence Alright how
| few men you find aware of the fact that they
ought to use their physical organism Alright.
| With every thump of the heart there is some
thing saying, Work! Work" and lest we should
complain that have no tools to work with,
God gives us our hands and feet with every
| knuckle, and with every joint and with every
muscle saying to US, Lay hold and do some
| thing' But how often it is that men with phys
ical strength do not serve Christ. They are like
| ship full manned and full rugged, capable of
vast tonnage, able to endure all stress OF wealth
err yet swinging idly at the docks when these
| men ought to be crossing and recrosslng the
great ocean of human suffering and SIN with
is st physical strength is used
in doing positive damage or in luxurious
ease, when, with sleeves rolled up and bronzed
bosom fearless of the shafts of opposition,
it ought to be laying hold with all its might
| to lift up this sunken wreck of world. 1t is
most shameful fact that much of the business Of
the church and Of the world must be done by
| those comparatively invaded. Richard Baxter
by reason of his diseases sitting in the door OF
the tomb, yet writing more than a hundred vol
umes and sending out an Influence for good that
will endure as long the Saints Everlasting
Rest" Edward Payson, never knowing well
day, yet how he preached, and how he wrote
helping thousands of dying souls like himself to
swim in a sea of glory! And Robert McCheyne
| walking skeleton, yet you know what he did in
Dundee. and how he shook Scotland with zeal for
God. Philip Doddridge advised nv his friends
because of his illness not to enter the ministry.
yet you know what he did for the Rise and
Progress of Religion" in the church and in the
world. Wherefore, told by his doctors that he
could not live fortnight, yet at that very time
entering upon philanthropic enterprises that de-
manded the greatest endurance and persistence.
Robert Hail. suffering excruciatlons. so that,
sometimes while preaching he would have to
stop and rest little, and then, getting up again,
would preach about heaven until the glores of
the celestial city dropped on the multitude, do
| ing more work, perhaps, than almost any we'll
| man in his day. Oh, how often it is that men
with great PHYSICAL endurance are not so great
| in moral and spiritual stature! While there
| achievements for those who bent all their
| days with sickness. achievements of patience,
| achievements of prayer, achievements of self
| denial, achievements of Christian endurance, /
| call upon men of health, men of muscle. men of
! nerve. men of physical power, to devote them
! selves to the Lord Giants in body, you ought
| to be giants in soul
Behold also in this story Of my text illustra-
! ton of the fact of the damage that strength
| do if it be misguided. 1t seems to me that this
man of my text spent great deal of his time In
| doing evil To pay a debt which he had lost by
the guessing of his riddle he robs and kills thirty
| people. He was not only gigantic in strength
| but gigantic in mischief, and type of those
! men in all ages of the world who powerful in
| body or mind or in any faculty of social posi-
ton and wealth, have used their strength in
| ubiquitous purposes. 1t is not the small, weak
| men of the day who do the damage Those
| small men who, swearing and loafng about your
| stores and shops, and banking houses,
befouling the air with their breath and insult
! Ing your floor with their Ubiquitous saliva,
| assailing Christ and the Bible, and the church,
| they do not do the damage. They have no in
| fuence. But it is the giants of the day, the
misguided giants, giants in physical power,
| giants in mental acumen, or giants in social
| position, or giants in wealth. who do the dam
age; the men with sharp pen that stab relig-
ion, or who throw their poison all through
our literature: the men who use the
power of wealth to sanction mighty, and bride
justice and make truth and honor bow to their
golden scepter. Misguided giants! Look GU.
for them. In the middle of the latter part of
the last century no doubt there were thousands
| of men in Paris, and Edinburgh, and London,
| who hated God and blasphemed che name of the
Almighty. But they did but little mischief
They were small men. But there were giants
in those days Who can calculate
| enthusiasm OF niquity, with fiery imagination
seizing upon all the impulsive natures of his
day; or David Hume, who employed his life as a
spider employs his summer, in spinning out
marshaling a great host of skeptics and leading
them out in the dark land of inf
deity; or Gibbon, who showed an uncomfortable
grudge against religion in his history of one of
| the most fascinating periods of the worlds ex-
istence, the Decline and Fall of the Roman EN-
pre-" a book in which with all the splendors of
his genius he magnifed the errors of Christian
disciples, while with a spareness of voice that
never can be forgiven, he treated of the
Christian heroes of whom the world
was not worthy. 0 of stout physical
health, men of giant mental stature. men of
high social positions, men Of great strength of
any sort. want you to understand your power.
and want you to know that that power devoted
to God will be a crown on earth to you typical of
a crown in heaven But misguided bedraggled
in sin, administrative of evil God will thunder
against you with his condemnation in the day
when millionaire and pauper, master and slave,
king and subject, shall stand side by side in the
judgment, and money bags, and judicial erlnine
and royal robes shall be riven with lightnings
Behold, also, how giant may be slain of
ceress. Delilah started the train of circum-
stances that pulled down the temple of Dagon
about Samsons ears. And tens of thousands of
giants have gone down to death and hell through
the same impure fascinations. 1t seems to me
that it is high time that pulpit and platform,
tiles of modern society. Fastidiousness and
prudery say Better not speak--you will rouse
UP adverse criticism; you will make worse what
you want to make BETTER better deal in glitter
ing generalities the subject is too delicate for
polite ears" But there comes voice from
Heaven overpowering the mincng sentimental
tiles of the day, saying Cry aloud, spare not,
lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my
people their transgressions, and the house of
Jacob their sins" The trouble is that when
people write or speak upon this theme they are
apt to cover it up with the graces of belles-let
tres. that the crime is made attractive instead
of repulsive. Lord Byron in Don Juan adorns
this crime until it smiles like a May queen
Michelet, the great French writer, covers it Up
with bewtchng rhetoric until it CLOVIS like the
rising sun, when it ought to be made loath-
some smallpox hospital There are to-day
influences abroad which, if unresisted by the pull
ard thar rir,tix 1rin fnrr Norlx