Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-08-28
God Alone Sees the Traps Set for the
Unwary.
NO MONOPOLY IN RELIGION.

At the Hamptons, August Is: The
Rev. DIR. Il. Dewitt Talmage's text to-
day was John ", 16: ''Other sheep |
have, which are not Of this fold"
There is no monopoly in religion.
The grace of God is not a little prop
erty that we may fence off and have all
to ourselves. 1t is not II kings park
AT which We look through a barred
gateway, wishing that we might 90 in
and see the deer and the %statuary, and
pluck the flowers and the fruits in the
royal conservatory. No, it is the
Fathers orchard, and everywhere there
are bars that we may let down and
gates that we may swing open.
In my boyhood, next to the country
school house, there was an orchard of
apples, owned by a very lame man,
who, although there were apples in
the place perpetually dccaying and by
scores and scores of bushels, never
would allow any Of us to touch the
fruit. One day, in the Sinfulness of a
nature inherited from our first parents,
who were ruined by the same tempta-
ton, some of us invaded that orchard,
but soon retreated. for the man came
after Us at "A speed reckless Of making
his lameness worse, and cried out:
''Boys, drop those apples, or III set
the dog on you!"
ROOM FOR ALL.
Well, my friends, there are Chris
tan men who have the church under
severe guard. There is fruit in this or
chard for the whole world, but they
have a rough and unsympathetic way
of accosting outsiders, as though they
had no business here, though the Lord
wants them all to come and take the
argest and the ripest fruit on the prem
Have you an idea that because
you were baptized at thirteen months
of age, and you have all your
life been under hallowed influences,
that therefore you have II right to one
whole side of the Lords table, spread
ing yourself out and taking up the en-
tire roomP | tell you no. You will
have to haul in your elbows. for l shall
to-day place Oh either side of you those
whom you never expected would sit
long ago, so he says to you and to me:
'Other sheep l have, which are not of
this fold"
Macdonald, the Scotchman, has four
or five thousand head of sheep. Some
of them are browsing on the heather,
some of them are lying down under
the trees, some of them are in his yard;
they are scattered around in eight or
ter different places. Cameron, his
neighbor, comes over and says: II see
you have thirty sheep; l have just
counted them NO. says MacDon-
aid, 81 have a great many more sheep
than that. Some are here and some are
elsewhere. They are scattered all
around about. l have four or five
thousand in my fiocks. Other sheep /
have, which are not in this fold"
THE SEVERAL GROUPS OF THE FLoCKs.
So Christ says to Us: Here is a knot
of Christians and there is a knot of
Christians, but they make up a small
part of the flock. Here is the Fpisco-
pal fold, the Methodist fold, the Lu-
theran fold, the Congregational fold,
the Presbyterian fold, the Baptist and
the Pedo-Baptist fold-the only
difference between these last two
icing the mode of shcep-washing;
and so they are scattered all over. and
we come with our statistics, and say
there are so many thousand Of the
Lords sheep; but Christ responds:
mo, no; you have not seen more than
II out of n thousand of my flock.
They are scattered all over the earth.
and 'other sheep ! have, which are not
Of this fold"
Christ in my text was prophesylng
the conversion of the Gentiles with as
much confidence as though they were
already converted, and He is TO-DAY, in
the words OF my text, prophesying the
coming of n great multitude of out
siders that you never supposed would