The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1888-08-23

unto sin but alive to God through our
Lord Jesus Christ" None of us scru-
pies to apply military figures to christ
ian life. The inlistment, the march.
the watch, struggle, wounds, victor
les, these all find their counterpart in
religious experience. Why? Because
as Christians we must always be dis
troying or preparing to destroy some
thing. Everywhere we see the opera
ton OF the same law, destruction the
price of development.
We must bear in mind, however,
that destruction is not annihilation.
We have no power to annihilate any
thing. If you think you have, try it.
l do not affirm that the Creator canzot
annihilate but l am by no means cer-
tain that he ever will. Modern science
has established the fact that no atom OF
matter, no degree Of force can perish.
Matter and force may change their
form but they do not lose their being.
They disappeas in one guise only to
reappear in some other. Coal disap-
pears to fall in ashes, rise in smoke or
float in gases. A tree is destroyed as
a tree to reappcar in house or ship.
You snelt iron ore; as ore it loses its
form, it is no longer rock impregnated
with mineral, but it reappears as pig
iron or cast iron or wrought iron.
Destruction ought always to operate
for the sake of construction. II
is poor economy to destroy if you do
not construct something better than
what you destroy. l could not take
away the faith of a Mahomedan or a
Fetish worshipper unless 1 could re-
place it. by something better. And
here let me say, is one secret of our
failure to reform men. You take
strong drink from q man-what do
you give him in its place? What prin-
ciple do you give him to take the
place of selishness and appetitep
What fellowship do you offer him to
take the place of the fellowship of the
bar-room? In the sphere of morals,
displacement must always be followed
by replacement. You crowd out bad
thoughts and habits by crowding in
good ones. 1t is the empty heart
that attracts ''the unclean spirit
1t often happens that the first result
OF destructiveness is confusion. Let
man try to cut himself loose from
bad associations and he feels for time
as If he had been struck by cyclone.
Shake a mans faith in what is false,
you may possibly at first shake his
faith in everything. 1t is just SO in
the salvation of a soul. God wants to
make the soul strong and calm and
joyful. but at first he seems to break it
entirely down. He brings it to the
brink of despair. Why? Till the
foundations of our self-righteousness
are destroyed we can never build on
Christ. But God destroys them that
we may build on Christ. He breaks
down to build up.
We see the same thing in history.
See it in the late civil war. The gen.
ius of destructiveness was abroad, and
as he hurried from place to place his
track was marked by smoking ruins,
mangled and writhing bodies. weeping
widows, desolate orphans. Business
was paralyzed. Schools were closed.
Churches were turned into arsenals.
Railways and telegraphs were torn up.
Many a Goshen was transformed into
Sahara. Property lost its sacred
ness and law its power. But there is
another side to the picture.
Il looked; as de the dust cloud rolled
The Waster seemed the Build. r too;
Up-springing from the ruin old
saw the new.
Twas but the ruin OF the bad.
The wasting of the wrong and ill;
Whate'er of good the old time had
Is living still"
What do we see now? The nation 5
credit is established. The foul blot of
slavery has been wiped from the nation
al escutchcon. All over the sunny South
are churches and schools, fertile farms
and happy homes; the hum of machin-
cry and the whistle of the locomotive
mingle their sounds with the songs of
birds and the laughter Of happy chill
dren. This country is no longer a
bundle of loosely connected frag-
ments, It is nation. Not
long ago a representative man
addressing representative gathering
made a remarkable statement. The
gathering was the general conference of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, in
session in New York; the man was
Rev. DR.. Steel, fraternal delegate from
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
DIR. Steel said: 1.-The war did not
merely save the union. it made the
union" In an important sense this is
true. Before the war the union exist
ed on paper, existed in Legislative
enactments, but was practically and
persistently repudiated by large part
Of the community. But now, if we
are to believe pr. Steel. the North is
no truer to the Union than the South.
Leaders of public thought in the
South do not scruple to declare that
they are glad the war ended us it did.
To quote DIR. Steel again: 1.-The South
would no more bring back slavery than
New England would bring back the
burning of witches Tell me, if you
please that the Ku-Klux spirit is not
quite dead, that the ballot box is not
free, that many would reassert the ''lost
cause" if they could. that some moth
ers still swear their little Hannibals to
eternal enmity to the Union. Tell me
that many of the Negroes are virtually
slaves and that many of them are ig-
norant and immoral. l tell you the
blood of the war was not shed in vain.
The curse and the shadows are passing
from tho land. The trend of events is
in the direction of progress. Both
slave and STAKEHOLDER are developing a
nobler manhood. The reunited nation
exerts a much greater influence than
could be exerted by two jealous and
hostile nations whose very proximity
would make them fetter and injure
each other. and its influence is on the
whole good. The national conscience is
purer than ever. The wonderful devcl-
ment of the nations resources during
the last ten years has been. believe,
under the guidance of intelligence and
religion. The nation is not only grow
ing great but good, and is learning fas,
to do good. And if it be true to its
obligations; if it trample on the foul,
the false, the selfish, the sectional, the