Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-06-21

Christ as Lord sn Saviour. To such they
were primarily addressed; beseeching Cor.
| rinthisn believers that they receive not the
grace of Christ in vain. The most prevalent
and most deadly of the practical heresies that
curse the church today is that which makes
the grace of Christ of little immediate effect,
BY representing salvation, not As a noble life
in the present. but as 3 sort of honorary de-
gree to be conferred in the hereafter.
Salvation is . life of unselfsh service and
peaceful joy. 1t 10 a life of which God is the
Lord; Christ the Ideal, and the Holy Spirit
the inspiration. As such it must be wrought
out here and now, not in the remote heaven
of a far-of future. Now or never, here or
nowhere. is the stern gospel alternative.
Here and now you have Gods word, Gods
will, Gods work, Gods church, Gods spirit,
Gods grace. All the essential elements of
any conceivable Heaven are present before
you here and now. Live this blessed life of
tilial obedience to the Father, of joyous
union with the Saviour; of deep inbreathing
of the Spirit here and now, and heaven is
yours now and forever. here and hereafter.
Fall short of this here and now; receive the
grace of Christ in vain; in other words. not
withstanding your formal professions, live
worldly. selfish, grovelling lives. and in all
the width of the universe, and in all the ex-
tent of eternity, there neither is nor ever will
be heaven that you can enter. The day of
judgment begins with the hour of present
choice between duty and indulgence; between
selhshness and consecration; between pres
ent right and present wrong.
We are indeed taught to hope for better
things. "We are saved by hope" But hope
is of two kinds, one noble and prophetic; the
other deadening and delusive. One is the
hope of the industrious youth that justly ex-
poets to see industry ripen into prosperity.
The other is the hope of the loafer standing
with his hands in his pockets waiting for
something to turn up. One Christian hopes
that present union with his Saviour will un-
told to all eternity new beauties of truth and
goodness in the infinite personality with
which his life is evermore united in indisso-
uble bonds of affection and devotion. Such
hope, grounded in the real experience of the
present time, is the sure prophet and expo
nent of the enveloping eternity. The tender
bud, unfolding under the nclement skies of
earth is the unfailing promise that in the
perennial summer of the heavenly cline
there shall be evolved the perfect flower and
fruit.
But to expect that something here or here
after will happen to make us better of than
we are now; to hope for a future which is
not the development but the denial of the
present is the grossest self-deception. No
more solemn moment will ever come than the
moment in which you decide respecting pres
ent duty. AS compared to this, the hour of
death is only what bedtime is to the hours
of toll. He that labors faithfully while it is
day may lie down at night to peaceful, un-
troubled slumber. But no feverish restless-
ness at night can bring back the opportuni-
ties that forever passed away with the de-
scending sun.