The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-10-13

cry all tho voices Of righteousness "Come
with us" cry all the voices Of sin.
Now the trouble is that many make
disgraceful surrender. As we all know,
there is honorable and digniied sur
render, as when small host yields
to superior numbers. 1t is no hu-
initiation for thousand men to yield to
ten thousand. 1t is better than to keep on
when there can be no result except
that Of massacre. But those who surrender
to sin make surrender when on their side
they have enough reserve forces to rout oil
the armies of perdition whether led on by
what demonographer calls Belial or Beei-
zebub or Apollyou or Abaddon or Ariel The
disgraceful thing about the surrender at
Sedan was that the French handed over AID
field guns and mitrailleuses, six thousand
horses and eighty three thousand armed men.
And it is base for that man to surrender to
sin when all the armaments of Almghti-
ness would have wheeled to the front to fight
his battle If he had waved one earnest signal
But no! he surrendered body, mind. soul,
reputation, home, pedigree, time and eter-
nifty, while yet all the prayers Of his Christian
ancestors were on his side and all the prof.
cred aid, supernal, cherubic, seraphic, arch
angelic deifc.
We have talked so much the last few weeks
about the abdication Of Alexander, OF Bull
garia but what O paltry throne was that
which the unhappy King descended ompared
with the abdication Of that young man or
middle-aged man or old man who quits the
throne of his opportunity and turns his back
upon heavenly throne and trampS on INTO
ignominy and everlasting exile. That Is an
abdication enough to shock universe. In
Persia they viii not have blind man on the
throne, and when q reigning monarch Is Jeal-
ous of some ambitious relative he has his
eyes e1tinguished so that he cannot possibly
ever come to crowning. And that suggests
the difference between the way sin and df-
vine grace takes hold OF man. The former
blinds him so he may never reach throne,
while the latter illumines the blind that he
NAV take coronation.
WHY this sermon? I have made up my
mind that our city life is destroying too many
young men. There comes in, every Septem-
ber and October, a large influx OF those be-
tween sixteen and twenty four years Of age.
a thousand Of them every. year. They are
shoveled off aud down with no more COM
junction than that with which coal heaver
SCOOPS the anthracite into q dark cellar.
What with the wine-cup and the gamblers
dice and the scarlet enchantress, no young
man without the grace Of God IS safe ten
minutes.
There is much discussion about which is
the worst city Of the continent. Some
saw New York, some say New Orleans,
some say Chicago, some say st. Louis What
have to say is you cannot make much COM
parison between the inanities and in all our
,, cities the temptation seems infinite. We keep
great many mills running day and night:
Not rice mills nor cotton mills. Not mills OF
corn or wheat, but mills for grinding up
men. Such are all the grog-shops, licensed
or unlicensed. Such are all the gambling
saloons. Such are all the houses Of infamy,
and we do the work according to law and we
turn out new grist every hour, and grind
up warm hearts and clear heads, and the
earth about cider mill is not more satu.
rated with the beverage than the groun'
about all these souI. destroying institutions is
saturated with the blood Of victims We say to
Long Island neighborhoo1s and villages:
Send us more supply and to Westchester
and Ulster and all the other counties OF New
York: ''Send us more men and women to put
under the wheels. Give us full chance and
we could grind up in the municipal mill five
hundred day. We have enough machinery;
we have enough men who can run them.
Give us more homes to crush! Give us more
parental hearts to pulverize! Put into the
hopper the wardrobes and the family Bibles
and the livelihood OF wives and children.
Give us more material for these mighty mills
which are wet with tears and sulphurous
with woe and trembling with the earthquakes
of an incensed God who will, unless our cities
I6peuU, COfoT up oS NuiSh oheA 10 o~op
in August of the year 70 Vesuvius avalanched
Hercu!aneum.
Oh, man or woman, ponder the path OF thy
feet! See which way you are going VIII
YOU have the distiny Of Edward or Nicho-
Ias2 On this sacramental day when the
FURNISHED chalices stand in the presence OF
the people, start from the foot Of the cross
for usefulness and heaven. Plutarch tells us
that after Cesar was slain and his twenty
three wounds had been displayed to the pe',-
pie, arousing an uncomfortable excitement,
and the body of the dead conqueror, accord
ing to ancient custom, had been put upon tho
funeral pile and the flamesa arose peoplerushed
up, took from the blazing mass torches with
which they ran through the city, crying
the glory Of the assassinated and the
shame Of his assassinators. On this
sacramental day when the five bleeding
wounds of Christ, your King, are shown to
YOU and the fires of his earthly suffering
blaze before your Imagination, each one OF
YOU take torch and start heavenward.
torch with light for yourself and light for
others, for the race that starts at the cross
en- DIS at the throne. While the twenty three
wounds of Cesar wrought nothing but the
CONSERVATION Of the people, from the five
wounds of our Conqueror there flows
transforming power to make all the un-
counted millions who will accept it forever
harry and forever free.