Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-08-01

safety is to get away from them. Yonr dii
Isipating companions will come around yo
for your overthrow. Run for your life
Fall back! Fall back from the drinkin
lsaloon. Fall back from the wine party
Your flight is your advance. Your retrea
lis your victory. There is saloon down o.
the next street that has almost been tn
ruin of your soul. Then why do you g
along that street? Why do you not pas
through some other street rather than b,
the place of your calamity? A spoonful O
brandy taken for medicinal purposes by
man who twenty yeas before had been re
formed from drunkenness, hurled into inc
briefly and the grave one of the best friends
| ever had. Your retreat is your victory
Here is converted inf1del. He is so strong
now in his faith in the Gospel he says ht
can read anything. What are you reading;
Bolingbroke Andrew Jackson Davis
tracts? Tyndalps Glasgow University ad
dress? Drop them and run. You will be
an infidel before you die unless you quiz
that. These men of All will be too much
for you. Turn your back on the rank and
file of unbelief. Fly before they cut yor
with their swords and tranefix you with
their jayelins.
There are people who have been well-nigt
L
pedition in the presence of mighty and
overwhelming temptations, and the men o.
All made morning meal of them. So also
| there is such thing as victorious retreat
in the religious world. Thousands of times
the kingdom of Christ has seemed to fall
back. When the blood of the Scotch Gov
enanters gave deeper dye to the heather ol
the Highlands; when the Vaudois of France
chose determination rather than make an
unchristian surrender; when, on st. Bar.
tholomew's Day, mounted assassins rode
through the streets of Paris, crying: "Kill
Blood letting is good in August KILL
Death to the Huguenots Kill p when
| Lady Jane Gray's head rolled from the exe-
| cutioner's block; when Calvin was impris-
| oned in the castle; when John Knox died
for the truth; when John Bunyan lay rot
ting in Bedford Jail, saying: s'If God will
help me and my physical life continues, I
| will stay here until the moss grows on my
eyebrows. rather than give up my faith"
The days of retreat for the Church were
days of victory.
The Pilgrim Fathers fell back from the
other side of the sea to Plymouth Rock, but
now are marshalling continent for the
Christianisation of the world. The Church
of Christ falling back from Piedmont, fall
ing back from Rue st Jacques, falling back
from st. Denis, falling back from Wuttem-
burg castles, falling back from the Brussels
marketplace, yet all the time trlumphing.
Notwithstanding all the shocking reverses
which the Church of Christ suffers, what do
we see to-day? Three thousand missiona-
ries of the cross on heather ground; sixty
thousand ministers of Jesus Christ in this
land; at least two hundred millions of Chris
tians on the earth All nations to day
kindling in blaze of revival. Falling
back, yet advancing until the old Wesleyan
hymn will prove true:
"The lion of Judah shall break the chain.
And give us The victory again and again" ]"
| But there is more marked illustration
of victorious retreat in the life of our
Joshua, the Jesus of the ages. First fall
ing back from an appalling height to an ap-
palling depth, falling from celestial hills to
terrestrial valleys, from throne to manger;
yet that did not seem to suffice Him as a
retreat. Falling back still further from
Bethlehem to Nazareth, from Nazareth to
Jerusalem, back from Jerusalem to Col
gotha, back from Golgotha to the mausoleum
in the rock, back down over the precipices
of perdition until He walked amid the
caverns of the eternal captives and drank
of the wine of the wrath of Almighty God
amid the Ahabs and the Jezebels and Bel
| shazzars. o men of the pulpit and men of
the pew, Christ's descent from heaven to
earth does not measure halt the distance.
1t was from glory to perdition. He des-
cended into hell. ALI the records of earth
ly retreat are as nothing compared with
this falling back. Santa Anna, with the
fragments of his army flying over the pla-
teaux of Mexico, and Napoleon and his
army retreating from Moscow into the aw-
full SHOWS of Russia are not worthy to be
mentioned with this retreat, when all the
powers of darkness seem to be pursuing
Christ as he fell back, until the body of
Him who came to do such wonderful things
lay pulseless and stripped. Methinks that
the city of All was not SO emptied Of its in-
habitants when they went to pursue Joshua,
as perdition was emptied of devils when
they started for the pursuit of Christ and
He fell back and back, down lower, down
lower, chasm below chasm, pit below pit,
until he seemed to strike the bottom of Oh.
jurgation and scorn and torture. All, the
long, loud, iubilant shout of hell at the de-
feat of the Lord God Almighty!
But let not the powers of darkness re-
joice quite SO soon. Do you hear that dis
turbance in the tomb of Arimathea? Ihear
the sheet rendingl What means that stone
hurled down the side of the hill? Who is
this coming out? Push him back! the dead
must not stalk in this sunlight. o, it is
our Joshua. Let him come out? He came
forth and starts for the city. He takes the
spear of the Roman guide and points that
way. Church militant marches up on one
side and the Church triumphant marches
down on the other side. Aud the powers
toc Iar hatn hot
ranks of celestial and terrestrial valor, moth.
ing is left of them save just enough to illus.
| trate the direful overthrow of hell and cur
Joshua's eternal victory. On His head be
all the crowns. In His hand be all the
sceptres. At His feet be all the human
hearts; and here, Lord, is ono of them.
Lesson the second: The triumph of the
wicked is short? Did you ever see an army
in a paDic2 There is nothing so uncontrol
liable. If you had stood at Long Bridge
Washington, during the opening of our SAD
civil war you would know what it is to see
an army run. And when those men of A
looked out and saw those men of Joshua in
a stampede they expected easy work. They
would scatter them as the equinox the
leaves. O, the gleeful and jubilant descen
of the men of All upon the men of Joshua
But their exhilaration was brief, for the tid
of battle turned and these quondam con
querors left their miserable carcasses in th'
wilderness of Bethaven. So it always is
The triumph of the wicked is short. Yol
make 800, 900 at the gaming table. Do yol
expect to keep it2 You will die in the poor
house. You made fortune by iniquitou
traffic. Do you expect to keep it? You
money will scatter, or it will stay loDI
enough to curse your children after you ar
|. dead. Call over the roll of bad men VIII
J prospered and see how short was their pros
perity. For while like the men of A
!: they went from conquest to conquest, bu
, after while disaster rolled back upo
them, and they were divided into thre
parts; misfortune took their property, th
| grave took their body, and the lost worl
took their soul. am always interested il
: the building of theatres and the building o
J dissipating saloons. like to have then
: built of the best granite and have the room
made large and to have the pillars mad
. very firm. God is going to conquer them
, and they will be turned into asylums an
art galleries and churches. The stores il
which fraudulent men do business, the spler
) did banking institutions where the pres
dent and cashier put all their property il
, their wives hand and then fail for 5000, 90
8 all these institutions are to become th
} places where honest Christian men do bus
4