Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-11-12


and the swords, then they took the black
smiths. then they took the grindstones,
and they took everything but a file. oh,
that is the way sin works. 1t grabs every
thing. 1t begins with robbery and ends
with robbery. 1t despoils this faculty and
that faculty, and keeps on until the whole
nature is gone. Was the man eloquent be-
fore, it generally thickens his tongue. Was
he fine III personal appearance. it mars his
visage. Was he affiuent, it sends the
sheriff to sell him out. Was he influential,
it destroys his popularity. Was he placid,
and genial, and loving, it makes him splen-
etc and cross: and so utterly is he changed
that you can see he is sarcastic and rasp-
ing, and that the Philistines have left him
nothing but file.
A Christian life is the only cheerful life,
while a life of wicked surrender is remorse,
ruin, and death. Its painted glee is
sepulchral ghastiness. In the brightest
days Of the Mexican empire, Montezuma
said he felt gnawing at his heart something
like canker. Sin, like a monster wild
beast of the forest, sometimes ticks all
over its victim in order that the victim may
be more easily swallowed; but generally sin
-asps, and gals, and tears, and upbraids,
and files. Is it not SO, Herod? Is it not
SO, Hildebrand? Is it not so, Robespierre?
Aye, aye! 1t is so, it is SO. "The way of
the wicked He turneth upside down. !"
History tells us that when Rome was
founded, on that day there were twelve
transgressor dies the sky is black with
whole tiocks of them. Vultures! vultures!
vultures! When see sin robbing SO many
of my hearers, and l see them going down
day by day, and week by week, 1 must give
plain warning. dare not keep it back
lest risk the salvation of my own soul.
Rover and pirate pulled down the warning
bell on 1nchcape rock, thinking that they
would have a chance to despoil vessels that
were crushed on the rocks; but one night
his own ship crashed down on this very
rock, and he went down with all his cargo.
God declares: "When l say TO the wicked
thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him
not warning, that same man shall die in his
iniquity, but his blood will require at thy
hands,"
5. | learn from this subject what sad
thing it is when the Church of God loses
its metal. These Philistines saw that if
they could only get all the metallic weapons
out of the hands of the Israeltes all would
be WE'LL and therefore they took the swords
and the spears. They did not want them
to have a single metallic weapon. When
the metal of the Israelites was gone, their
strength was gone. This is the trouble
with the Church of God to-day. 1t is sur
rendering its courage. 1t has not got
enough metal. How seldom it is that you
see a man taking his position in pew or in
pulpit or in religious society, and holding
that position against the oppression, and
all trial, and all persecution, and all criti-
cism.
The Church of God to-day wants more
backbone, more defiance, more conse-
Grated bravery, more metal. How often you
see man start outin some good enterprise,
and at the first blast of opposition he has
collapsed, and all his courage gone, for
getting the fact that if a man be right, all
the opposition of the earth pounding away
at him, cannot do him any permanent
damage. 1t is only when man is wrong
that he can be damaged. Why, God is 60
ing to vindicate His truth. anti he is going
to stand by you, my friends, in every ef-
fort YOU make for Christs cause and the
salvation Of men.
Go forth in the service Of Christ and do
Your whole duty. You have one sphere, I
have another sphere. "Tbe Lord of Hosts
is with US, and the God of Jacob is our
refuge. Selah." We want more of the
determination of Jonathan. I do not sup
pose he was very wonderful man, but he
got OH his knees and clambered up the
rock, and with the help of his armor- bearer
he hewed down the Philistines: and man
of very ordinary intellectual attainments,
Oh his knees, can storm anything for God
and the truth. We want something of the
determination of the general who went into
the war and as he entered his first battle
his knees Knocked together, his physical
courage not quite up to his moral courage;
and he looked down at his knees and said:
''Ah, if you knew where I was going TO
take you YOU, would shake worse than
that"