St. Landry democrat., 1886-05-29


of some financial Or social game. With
your pen or pencil you are pursuing it.
This very morning you are devouring the
prey; but tonight you will be in differ
emit mood. You find that all heaven is Of
fered you. You wonder how you can
get it for yourself and for your family.
You wonder what resources it will give
you now and hereafter. You are dividing
peace and comfort and satisfaction and
Christian reward in your soul. You are
dividing the spoil.
On Sabbath night at the close of the
service said to some persons:
"When did you first become serious
about your soul:"
And they told me:
"To- might"
And said to others:
"When did you give your neart ia
God?"
And they said:
"To- night"
And said to still others:
"When did you resolve to serve the Lord
all the days Of your life?"
And they said:
"To-nighJ."
saw by their apparel that when the
grace of God struck them they were de-
vouring the prey; but l saw also in the food
of joyful tears and in the kindling rap
lures on their brow, and in their exhil-
arant and transporting utterances, th at
they were dividing the spoil. At night.
with one touch Of electricity, all these
lights blaze. Oh, l would to God that
the darkness of your souls might be
broken up, and that by one quick, over
whelming, instantaneous fash of illum-
ination you might be brougt into the
light and the liberty of the sons of God
You see that religion is different thing
from what some of you people supposed.
You thought it was decadence; you
thought religion was emaciation; you
thought it was highway robbery; that it
struck one down and left him half dead;
that it plucked out the eyes; that it
plucked out the plumes of the SOUL that it
broke the wing and crushed the beak as it
came clawing with its black talons through
the air. No, that is not religion. What is
religion? 1t is dividing the spoil. 1t is
taking defenseless soul and panoplying
tion of prizes by the kings hand, every
medal stamped with coronation. 1t is
an exhilara ton, an expansion. 1t is inn
paradisation. It Is enthronement. Re-
ligion makes a man master of earth, and
death, and hell. 1t goes forth to gather
the medals of victory won by Prince EN-
manuel, and the diadems of heaven and
the glories of realms terrestrial and celes-
tial, and then, after ranging all worlds for
everything that is respondent, it divides
the spoil.
What was IL that James Turner, che
famous English evangelist, was doing when
in his dying moment he said: "Christ is
all Christ is ALL" Why, he was enter
ing into light; he was rounding the Cape
of Good Hope; he was dividing the spoil.
What was the. aged Christian Quakeress
doing when at eighty years of age she
arose in the meeting one day and said:
"The time of my departure is come. MY
grave-clothes are falling off," She was
dividing the spoil.
She longed with wings TO fly away,
And mix with that eternal day.
What is Daniel now doing, the lion.
tanner? and Elijah, who was drawn by the
flaming coursers? and Paul, the rattling of
whose chains made kings quake? and all
the other victims of flood, and fire, and
wreck, and guillotine? Where are theyf
Dividing the spoil.
Ten thousand times ten thousand,
In sparkling raiment bright,
The armies of the ransomed saints
Throng up the sleeps of light.
'Tis finished, all is finished,
Their fight with death and sin;
Lift high your golden gates
And let the victors in.
Oh, what a grand thing it is to be
Christian! We begin on earth to divide
the spoil, but the distribution will net be
to all eternity. There is pow
erty struck soul, there is business de-
spoiled soul, there is sin struck soul, there
Is bereaved soul-why do you not come
and get the spoils of Christian character,
the comfort, the joy, the peace, the saliva
ton that am sent to offer you in my
masters name? Though your knees
knock together in weakness, though
your hand tremble in fear, though your
eyes rain tears of uncomfortable weeping
come and get the spoils. Rest for all the
weary. Pardon for all the guilty. Labor
for all the bestormed. Life for all the
dead. verify believe that there are some
who have come in here outcast because the
world is against them, and because they
feel God is against them, who win 60
away to-day saying:
came to Jesus as I was,
Weary, and worn, and sad;
found In him resting place.
And He has made me glad.
Though you came in children Of the
world, you may go away heirs of Heaven.
Though you were devouring the prey, now,
Ill worlds witnessing, you may divide the
spoil.
The strike of the piano makers at New