Morning journal and courier., 1888-10-29
TIFF nrn1nE LOVE.


 Notes of An Interesting ana Sugges. 1ive Discourse By Rev. pr. Chapman At the First HI. E. Church Tester" day-HlntS TO Christians.
 A large congregation filled the First M. E..
 church yesterday morning. The pastor,
 Rev. MT. Chapman, occupied the pulpit. After the usual service of song and prayer I the minister announced his texts from Acts, 3,17: "And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance 70 did it, as did also your
 rulers"
 Olives of ignorance" said he, will weaken,
 hurt, cripple, though they may not destroy. | To sin ignorantly in the full light of gospel l truth is still sin. Ignorance may extenuate, bat cannot excuse the deed. Many Chris
 tians, who seem to be full of promise, never
 succeed. They wonder why they are so 1 weak and frail, but never suspect their soul | is bleeding with unconscious sin.
 "Our text usually applies to the wicked, who resist the consciousness of the Holy Spirit and disbslieve in God. Every sinner of this kind is Q sorrow, shame and blot on the face of creation. I think it is worth our while as Christians to consider and endeavor to ascertain how we wound the heart that 1 loves us best. However much the sinner may grieve God, the Christian can grieve him un- measurably more. A child may pierce the very center of our soul. The arrows of love pierce to the very life of the heart. Disci. pies may betray, friends des ert, but we need not go to Shakespeare to find
 How sharper than q serpent's sting It is to have a thankless child" Is it not a very sore and bitter thing with us when a cherished friend becomes 50 inn mersed in other friendships and joys that we are forgottens And yet how many Christians are living in daily neglect of Godi They consult others before they consult hiR. When their plans break down they see theirweakness and cry in helpless misery to their heavenly Father.
 One great thing by which we may grisve the spirit of God ia simple distrust. No in- suit has a sharper sting. How we have cried against him in our misfortune and ds6ed his love in our plenty, when all the time his Bible was packed with promises, every one of which is the pledge of infinite truth and solicitude. Another grief to our creator is our miscon- cieving and misrepresenting Hin. We can forgive friend for sometimes misunder- standing us, but when one of our children throws a false color over ones actions to the world, what grief is so poignanta And yet many do so with God. We have in our blood certain misconceptions of Him. We are only little removed from the old Cal whistle generation, who disbelieved in the salvation of the soul, and worshspped their master more in the oriental manner of mak- ing him appear great and forgetting his goodness. God is love, yet how many Chris- tians think Him hard master as one quick to resent and punish any infringements upon His prerogstive
 How many Christians live in the belief that God is jealous, suspicious and continu- ally watchiag for 8 misdeed. If you want to ruin your children let them live in the at mosphere of continual suspicion. They may outwardly seem more correct, but there will be @ large cavity where their heart ought to be. Suspicion is the nurse and milk of vil- lainy Do you suppose the heavenly father
 who put so much leve in the mothers breast
 has no love for his children! He is infinite in
 patience, infinite in compassion and yet he has been misconeeived as hard master. al-
 most Q vast policeman.
 'Another grief is to belittle his generosity.
 You can no more keep him out of your hearts
 than you can roll back the incoming tide or
 the earth. As far as the east is from the
 west so far does he part our transgressions
 from us We sit by the burned-out craters
 of our sin and belittle the generosity of his
 divine forgiveness. His goodness is no theo-
 logical theory, but a universal fact.
 ''Yet we can read upon the faces of any
 large assembly the ravages of ancestral sin.
 righteous judgel Thou visitest the sins of
 the father upon his children.
 Yet our father is generous despite this ter
 ri6o law. By this very law he suffers with
 his children and grleves at our grief. In was
 in obedience to this that he gave his only
 begotten son to die for us and still yearns
 over his weakest child. It is against such 6
 conception and the belittling of his gener-
 ikv