St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1885-07-11

One man he takes up, and, through one
spree, pitches him into eternal darkness.
That is a rare case. Very seldom indeed
can YOU find man who will be such fool
as that, Satan will take another man to
a grade, to a descent at an angle about
like that of the Pennsylvania coal-chute
or the Mount Washington rail-track and
shove him off, but that is very rare. When
a man goes down to destruction Satan
brings him to plane. 1t is almost level.
The depression is so slight that you can
hardly see it. The man does not actually
know that he is on the down grade, and 1T
tips only a little toward darkness-Just
little: and the first mile it is claret, and
the second mile it is sherry, and the third
/ mile it is punch, and the fourth mile 1t IS
ale and the fifth mileit is porter, and the
sixth 1nike it is brandy, and then 1t gets
sleeper and sleeper and sleeper, and the
man gets frightened and says: ION, let
me get OFF, ''No," says the conductor,
'sthis is an express train, and 1t don't stop
until it gets to the Grand Central Depot at
SmashuptonW
BE PREPARED FOR TEMPTATION.
NV friends, whether you tarry at hons
which will be quite as safe and perhaps
quite as comfortable-or go into the coun-
try, arm yourself against temptation. The
grace of God is the only safe shelter
whether in town or country. There are
watering-places accessible to all of US.
You can not open book of the Bible with
| out finding out some such watering place.
Fountains open for sin and uncleani1ness.
| Wells of salvation. Streams from Leb-
anon. A flood struck out of the rock by
Moses. Fountains in the wilderness dis
| covered by Hagar. Water to drink and
| water to-, battle in. The river of God,
which is full of water. Water of which if
| altman drink he shall never thirst. Wells
of water in the valley of Baca. Living
! fountains Of water. A pure river of water,
| as clear as crystal, from under the throne
of God. These are the watering places ac-
cessible to all of us. We do not have
| laborious packing up before we start
| only the throwing away of our transgres-
sions. No extensive hotel bills to pay; it
is ''without money and without price" No
long and dusty travel before we get there.
| 1t is only one step away. In California
| in five minutes | walked around
and saw ten fountains all bubbling up, and
! they were all different. And in five min
utes I can go through this Bible parte1Te
and find you fifty bright, sparkling fount-
aims, bubbling up into eternal life-healing
and therapeutic. A chemist will go to one
of these summer watering places and take
the water and analyze it, and tell you that
| it cont aims so much of iron and so much of
soda and so much of lime and SO much of
magnesia. come to this Gospel well, this
| living fountain, and analyze the water,
and 1 find that its ingredients are peace,
pardon, forgiveness, hope, comfort, life,
Heaven. ''Ho, every one that thirsteth,
come We" to this watering place. Crowd
around this Bethesda this morning. o,
you sick, you lame, you troubled, you dy-
ing, crowd around this Bethesda. Step in
it! Oh, step in it! The angel of the COW
enant this morning stirs the water! Why
do you not step in it? Some of you are too
weak to take a step in that direction.
Then we take you up in the arms of our
closing prayer, and plunge you clean un-
der the wave, hoping that the cure may be
as sudden and as radical as with Captain
Naaman, who, blotched and carbuncled,
stepped into the Jordan, and after the
seventh dive came up, his skin roseate
| complexioned as the flesh of little child.