St. Landry democrat., 1886-07-24

becomes a type of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who Is the mightiest of all restorativss. !
have carried this campfire plant into the
sick room after the doctors had held their
consultation and said there was NO hope
and nothing more could be done,
and the soul frightened up under
the spiritual restorative. There ie no
fever, no marasmus, no neuralgia, no con.
sumption, no disease of the body that the
grace of God will not help. I wish thu
over every bod of pain and through every
hospital of distress we might swing this
"cluster of campfire from the viney ards
of En-gedi." Christ's hand is the softest
pillow, Christ's pardon is the strongest
stimulus, Christ's comfort is the mightiest
anodyne, Christ's salvation is the grand
est restorative. 1t makes a man mightier
than his physical distress.
Art thou weary? Art thou ianguid? Art
thou sore distressed?
"Come to me,' saith one-"and coming, he
at rest"
II 1 ask him to receive me, will he say me
nay?
Not till earth and not till heaven pass away.
Finding, following, keeping, struggling, is He
sure to bless?
Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs, answer
"Yes!'
This grace is also a restorative for the
backslider. Who do you mean by that?
you say. l mean you who used to FREE
quent the house of God, but seldom go
there now; you who once used to pray,
but never pray now; you who once sat at
the holy communion, but take not the
Lords cup now; l mean you vino once re-
joiced in Christian society, but now sit
amid s~coffers. Backslider! Oh, what a
suggestive word! B%ackslider! From what
have you slid back? You nave slid
back from your fathers faith, from
your early good habits. You nave
been sliding back from Christ, from
the cross-sliding bach from Heaven.
When a man begins to slide he
knows not where he will go. You have
been sliding back toward darkness. You
have been sliding back toward an I'M
blessed grave, toward a precipice, the first
10000, 900 miles of which downward are
only a mall part of the eternal plunge.
You were, perhaps, professors in the
country; you have made shipwreck in the
town. 1t may be that the club blasted
you; it may be that fashionable society
destroyed you; it may be the kind of wife
whom you married. You AVE no more
hope for heaven now than if you had lived
in Central Asia and never heard of Christ
and the judgment. Oh. where is that
Bible you use to read? Where is that
room where you used to pray? What
have you done with that Jesus whose |
voice you once heard? Oh, MUIR !
dered hours! Oh, massacred privileges! /
Oh, dead opportunities! Wake up now
and shrek in that mans ear until he shall |
rouse himself from the horrible somnam.
bulism, walking, as he does, fast asleep, |
within an nch of hell. Oh, that he might
cry out now: Golden Sabbaths, come |
back! Communion seasons, come back!
Wooings of the Holy Ghost, come back!" /
But they will not come. Gone! gone!
gonei Sorrow will come, but not they.
Oh, that you might save the few remain.
ing years of your life and consecrate them
to Christi have seen sad sights, I have
heard sad sounds; but, I tell you, the
ghastliest thing outside the gates of the
damned is a backslider's death bed. Do
you not feel like having applied to your
soul this divine prerogative? Do you
not feeh like crying out with David: IRE
store unto me the joys of Thy salvationi~
For great sin, great pardon. For deep
wounds, o%mnipotent surgery. For deaf
ears, a divine aurist. For blind eyes, q
heavenly oculist. For the dead in sin, the
upheaval Of a great resurrection.
But in the heavenly world we shall feel
the chief restorative power of religion.
This is a planet of weeping we are living
on. We enter upon life with a cry and
leave it with a long sigh. If I could gath.
er up the griefs of this audience and put
them in one sentence, and then utter it, it
would make every thing between here and
the throne of God shudder and
howl. The earth is gashed daep
with graves. As at the close of the
war, sometimes we saw a regiment of one
hundred and fifty men, the fragment of
the thousand men that went out; so, as /
stand before you ] can not but realize the
fact that you are the fragments represent.
ing hundreds Of regiments of joyful assoc
Citations that have been broken up forever.
@, this is a world of sorrow! But, blessed
be God. there will be no sorrow in Heaven!
The undertaken will have to have some
other business there. In the summer time
cur cities have bills of mortality which are
Neutrality-suspicious. in New York a thou.
sand deaths ina week, sometimes it has
been two Thousand in London; but
in that great heavenly city there
will be not a single case of sick
ness or death; nss one black dress Of
mourning, but plenty of white robes Of
joy; hand-shaking of welcome, but one
of separation. Why, if one trouble should
attempt to enter Heaven, the shining pc.
lice of the city would put it under ever.
arrest. If all the sorrows of life,
mailed and sworded under Apollyon,
should attempt to force that gate, n
from the tower would strike them