The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1886-10-14
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day In the name OF Almighty God TO give |
you the choice of two characters the two
histories, the two experiences the two deSti-
nies, the two worlds, the two etsrnlties,
Standing with you at the forks OF the ROAD
something makes me think thai IL to-day
set before the people the uerlnni Of the two
roads they will all of them take the right one.
There are before me in this house and in tiie
invisible audience back of this-for journal,
ism has generously given me every week fuii
opportunity to address the people in all the
towns and cities of Christendom-l say, in
the visible and invisible audience there are
many who have not fully made up their
minds which road to take. "Come with usl"
cry all the voices Of righteousness "Come
with ush cry all the voices of sin,
Now the trouble is that many make
disgraceful surrender. As we all know,
there is honorable aud digniied sur
to superior numbers 1t is no hui
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 a surrender when on their side
they have enough reserve forces to rout all
the armies of perdition whether led on by
what demonographer calls Belial or Beei-
zebub or Apollyon or Abaddon or Ariel The
disgraceful thing about the surrender at
Sedan was that the French handed over 419
field guns and mitrailleuses, six thousand
horses and eighty-three thousand armed men.
And it is base for tnat man to surrender to
sin when all the armaments of Amighti-
ness would have wheeled to the front to fight
his battle Ii he ha / 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
an cestors 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 paltry throne was that
which the unhappy King descended com pared
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 off into
ignominy and everlasting exile. That is an
abdication enough TO shock universe. In
Persia they will not have blind man on tho
throne, and when a reignng monarch is jeal-
GUS of some ambitious relative he has his
eyes extinguished so that he cannot possibly
ever come to crowning. And that suggests
the difference between the way sin and de
vine grace takes hold of man. The former
bin ls him so he may never reach a 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,
and New York I'd Brooklyn damn at least
thousand of them every year. They are
shoveled off and down with no more COM
junction than that with which coal HEAVIER
SCOOPS the anthracite into dark cellar
What with the wine-cup aud the gamblers
die and the scarlet enchantreSs, no young
m ypitbont tho of God iS Safa tan
minutes.
There is much discussion about which is
the worst city of the continent. Some
say 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 indnities and in all our
cities the temptation seems infinite. Wekeep
great many mills running day and night.
Not rice mills nor cotton mills. Not mills Of
corn or wheat, bat 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 ground
about all these soul destroying institutions is
saturated with the blood of victims We sayto
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 moro
parental hearts to pulverize! Pat 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
repent cover us up as quick and as deep as
in August of the year 70 Vesuvius avalanched
Herculaneum.
oh, man or woman, ponder the path of thy
feet See which way you are going. Will
you have the distiny of Edward or Nicho-
las9 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 peO-
pie, arousing an uncomfortable excitement,
and the body of the dead conqueror, accord
ing to ancient custom, had been put upon the
funeral pile and the flames arose, people rushed
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 aSsassnators. 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 tor I'll and start heavenward, q
torch with light for yourself and light for
others, for the race that starts at the cross
en- ds at the throne. While the twenty three
wounds of Caesar 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
happy and forever free