The weekly sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1886-1887, 1886-12-02


one Christian is bound to so anywhere to a
church where the unconverted companion is
willing to go, if he or she will go to no other.
You, OF the connubial partnership, a
Christian. You are safe for the skies Then /
1T is your first duty to secure the eternal
safety of your lifetime associate. Is not the |
everlasting welfare of your wife ilnpenitent, i
or your husband impenitent, of more i'm !
portance than your church relationship? Is |
not the residence of your companion for the |
next quadrillion of years mightier considera- !
ticn to you than the qualification of your |
ecclesiastical taste for forty or fifty yearss /
A man or woman that would stop |
half a minute to weigh preferences as I
to whether he or she had better go with the
unconverted companion to this or that |
church or denomination has no religion at
all, and never has had, and 1 fear never will |
have. You are loaded up with what you
suppose to be religion but you are like Capt
Frobsher who brought back from his voy-
age of discovery shipload of what he sup
posed valuable minerals, yet instead OF being
silver and gold, were nothing but common
stones of the field, to be hurled out finally as
useless. Mighty Godl In all Thy realm is
there one man or woman protesting religion,
yet so stolid, untitled so far gone unto
death that there would be any hesitancy in
surrendering all preferences before such an
opportunity of salvation and heavenly re-
union? If you, e Christian wife, attend
ant upon this Brooklyn Tabernacle, and your
unconverted husband does not come here, be-
cause he does not like its preacher or its
music, or its architecture, or its uncomfort-
able crowding, and goes not to any house of
worship, but would go if you would accom-
pany him somewhere else, change your
church relations. Take your hymn book
home with you to-day. Say good-by to
your friends in the neighboring pews, and go
with him to any one of hundred churches,
till his soul is saved and he joins you in the
march to heaven. More important than that
ring on the third finger of your left hand,
it is that your Heavenly Father command
the angel of mercy concerning your husband
at, his conversion, in the parable of old:
"Put a ring on his hand"
No letter of more importance ever came to
the great city of Corinth, situated what
was called the bridge of the Sea-" and
glistening with sculpture, and gated with a
style of brass the magnificence of which the
following ages have not been able successfully
to initiate, and overshadowed by the Aero
Corinthus, a fortress of rock 2, 900 feet high
I say no letter ever came to that great city
of more Importance than that letter in which
Paul puts the two startling questions: What
knowest thou, oh wife, whether thou shalt
save thy husband? Or how knowest thou,
oh man, whether thou shalt save thy wife!"
The dearest sacrifice on the part of the one Is
cheap if it rescue the other. Better go to the
smallest, weakest, most Insignificant church
on earth, and be co-partners in eternal bliss,
than pass your earthly membership in most
gorgeously attractive church while your
companion stays outside Of evangelical privi-
1ege. Better have the drowning saved by
scow OF sloop than let him or her go down
while you sail by in the gilded cabins of a
Britannia or a Great Eastern.
| Second remark: If both of the married
couple be Christians, but one is SO naturally
constructed that it is impossible to enjoy the
services of a particular denomination, and
the other is not SO sectarian or punctilious,
| let the one less particular go with the other
who is very particular. As for myself, feel
as much at home in one denomination of
evangelical Christians as another, and I
! think must have been born very near the
| line. I like the solemn roll of the Episcopal
| liturgy, and I like the spontaneity Of the
! Methodists and like the Importance given
to the ordinance Of Baptism by the Baptists,
and like the freedom of the Congrega-
tionalfsts, and I like the government
and the sublime doctrine of the
Presbyterians and I like many Of the
others just good as any have mentioned,
and 1 could happily live and die, and preach,
and be buried from any of them. But others
are born with so stout and unbending and
inexorable liking for some denomination
that It Is a positive necessity they have the
advantage of that one What they were In
tended to be in ecclesiasticism was written
in the sides of their cradle, if the father and
mother had eyes keen enough to see
! it. They would not stop crying until
they had put into their hands as
i playthings a Westminster Catechism or
the Thirty nine Articles. The whole eur
rent Of their temperament and thought and
character runs into one sect Of religionists as
naturally as the James river into the
Chesapeake. It would be a torture
to such persons to be anything outside of
that one church. Now, let the wife or hus-
band who is not SO constructed sacrifice the
milder preference for the one more inf1exible
and rigorous Let the grapevine follow the
rugosities and sinuosities of the oak OF
hickory Abram, the richer in focks OF
Christian grace, should say to Lot, who is
built ON smaller scale: "Let there be nc
strife, 1 pray thee. between me and thee, and
between my herdmen and thy herdmen. L
, not the whole land before thee?" As you car
be edited and happy anywhere, go with YOU
companion to the church to which he or she
must go or be miserable
Remark the third: II both the married
couple are very strong in their sectarianisms
let them attend the different churches pro
, ferred 1t is not necessary that you attend
the same church. Religion is between YOU
conscience and your God. Like Abram anl
= Lot. agree to differ. When on Sabbath morn
, ing you come out Of the door of your hom
? together, and one goes one way and the othe
the other, heartily wish each other goot
sermon and time of profitable devotion, ant
r when you meet again at the monday repas
let it be evident each to each, and to you
r children, and to the hired help, that you hav
e both been on the Mount of TRANSPORTATION
ont Inv of
E that YOU have both been fed by the bread O
r life. though kneaded by different hands, Il
. different trays, and baked in different ovens
' HBut how about the children2" l am oftel
e asked by hundreds Of parents. Let then
t also make their choice They will grow VI
: with reverence for both the denomination
g represented by father ard mother, if you