The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1886-11-18

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ing rebellious Israel. Not, certainly, in
the nature of commendation, but rather
in the nature of a declaration of char
acter always unstable. "Christians"
are divided into two classes-those who,
being right themselves, want all mankind
to be right-and those who think them
selves right, and dote on believing that
that everybody else is wrong. The first
class reaches out with the grasp of
brother and lifts up with spirit OF char
ity and neighborly kindness all the erring
ones of the human family, whenever and
wherever found, and places upon the
eternal rock the feet that have been tot
tering on toward the brink of the great,
yawning chasm of death. This is the
kind of christianity which, eighteen CEN
turies ago, healed the sick, led the blind,
lifted Up the fallen, made the weak
strong-and glorifed God. This Chris
| tianity takes hold of the young man who
is going astray, and by a friendly persua-
sion and the manifestation of a personal
interest, brings him out into the enjoy
ment of true and noble manhood, a
! creditable citizenship; that wipes the
tear from sorrows cheek, and blows
away the cloud from the brow of the op-
pressed: that lifts the soul that is sink
ing in despair. and sends it winging its
happy, redeemed flight toward the man
sions of the blessed; that goes into the
haunts where sorrow dwells, and turns
on the soft and mellow light of human
sympathy, softening the hardest hearts,
and bringing the wandering child back
home again; that plants the flowers of
Paradise along the rough and unkempt
garden walks where sin has been permit
ted to grow as rank and poisonous
weed; that tears away the deceptive
mask Of vice, and permits the smiles of
intelligence and joy to reign instead. that
lifts the poor, weak, lowly child of mis-
fortune above the slough of adverse cir
cumstances, and places about the life
that assurance of friendship that bids
the desparing soul to hope for better
things; that brushes away the clouds of
distress, and paints Heaven across the
mortal experience; that gathers the faults
of men in secret, and bearing them tear
fully to the foot of the cross, looks to the
Father, with prayer for such human
failings. This christianity is restful,
trustful, confident in it's sense of the
right, and believer in the worth of hu-
manity.
Another class of mortals are sometimes
recognized as Christians upon verbal in
formation furnished by themselves. You
know they are Christians-because they
tell you so. That Christianity finds a
man down in the slough of despond, and
hears his pitiful cry: els there no friend
left to show ray of sympathy or fellow
ship for me?" and replies: "Ha! ha!
Want to be saved, do you? Serves you
right will not help you out. prefer
to see you die and inherit the portion of
the wicked. L have been trying for hum
dreds of years to drain that old pond,
and now you have fallen into it and must
drown, as a warning to the next poor
fellow who comes along. Help you out ?
Hal hal No sir-it's too good a warningr'
That Christianity builds around itself a
wall of self-conceit, capped with line of
bigotry which condemns all things out
side of the limited circle. A poor weak
brother, in need of help and encourage
|
conceit, and the Christians feathers are
ruff1ed until the angel wings are like the
back of porcupine. Keep awayw is
the cry, Il want you to go on in sin, and
evil practices until 1 can force you to be
good. 1 do not want any attempts at vol
untary reformation. The free moral
agency idea is all a humbug. God placed
upon earth few-a very few representa-
tives of his kingdom, who are perfectly
righteous. And am one of them
This Christianity goes to church to
hear new Minister. what? Do you
preach the Gospel of Christ? Then, sir,
will never hear you preach again until
you throw aside all such stuff and come
square out against God, and preach the
scheme of self-righteousness which I ad-
vocate." The Minister in reply might
say: 81 was called to preach the Gospel
not the babbling of the fool" Then the
answer comes: UNLESS you think as do,
you are lost. Never mind your Bible,
and your church. Throw away all your
ideas save one. The world wants men
with only one idea-no matter about any
thing else. You must adopt the one idea
which l possess, and quit thinking OF
anything else," Here the world steps in
and says to this Christian and the
whisperings of conscience tell it to him
at the same time: "But you must remem-
Der that your character is that of the big
OF, the miserable, wicked, jibbering fool!'
mo matter" comes the reply, "you must
be as I am. Heaven, earth, eternal life,
God, must all sink into insignifcance be
fore my one idea" Astounding as it
may seem, we can say that this soul will
never, in all probability, be lost. The
fact is, it is substantially lost now. To
come to the point, such a character as
that can never enter the Kingdom of
Heaven. God in his wisdom and love
could have no use for it, Such a charac-
ter could only be appropriately used to
stop rat-hole, thing which perhaps
does not exist in Paradise. This charac-
!; ter notifies the Minister that he is in dan
ger of eternal punishment. "Oh, I'm
praying for your Then comes to this
character the still small voice of con-
science: "Pray for yourself, you misera-
BILE, lost sinnerT This type of character
! is even an improvement, in point of
wickedness, over that cited by Moses in
the text. This class of Christians have
always been rebellious against God, and
are travelling the road to ruin, death and
hell, as rapidly as Satan can hurry them
on.
What God wants, and what religious
: work needs, is christians whose heads
are of sufficient capacity to hold more
than one little bit of a narrow idea. A