The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-09-17

and a chain on your soul Some day you
wake I'D and you say: 81 am tired of this
and | am going TO get loose from this
shackle.n You pound away with the ham
mer of good resolution but cannot break
| the thrall Your friends join you in con-
spiracy Of help, but fall exhausted in the
unavailing attempt. Now you begin, ana
with the writhng of a LAGOON, TO
try to break away, and the muscle
are distended, and the great beads of per
| spiration dot your forehead, and the eyes
! stand out from their sockets, and with all
! the concentered energies of body, mind and
soul you attempt to get loose, but have only
made the chain sink deeper. All the devils
that encamp in the wine flask and the rum
Jug and the decanter-for each one has
! devil of its own-come out and sit around
Won and chatter. In some midnight you
! spring from your couch and cry: Il am
| fast O God, let me loose o We powers of
darkness, let me loose Father and mother
and brothers and sisters, help me 10 get
| loose" And you turn your prayer to bias
| phemy and then your hlasphemy into
prayer, and to all the din and uproar there
| is PLAYED ali accompaniment, not an accom-
paniment by key and pedal, but the accom-
paniment is rattle and the rattle is that Of
chain. For five years, for ten years, for
twenty years, you have been making
chain.
But here take step higher, and tell
you there is power that can break any
chain, chain Of body, chain of mind, chain
of soul The letters that the hammer of the
gospel have broken off; if piled together,
would make a mountain. The captlyes
whom Christ has set free, if stood side by
side, would make an army Quicker than
a ship chambers furnace ever melted ca
bic, quicker than a key ever Unlocked a
handcuff quicker than the bayonets Of rev
olution pried open the Bastile, you may be
liberated and made a free son or free
daughter of God You have only to choose
between serfdom and emancipation, between
a chain and coronet, between Satan and
God Make up your mind and make it up
quick. When the King of Sparta had
crossed the HellespOnt and was about to
march through Thrace, he sent word to
the people in the different regions ask
ing them whether he should march
through their countries as a friend or al
enemy. "By all means as a friend" an
swered most OF the regions, but the king Of
Macedon replied: II will take time to con-
slider it Then" said the king of Sparta,
Let him consider it, but meantime, we
march, we march" So Christ, our king,
gives US our choice between his friendship
and his frown, and many Of US have been
long considering what we had better do;
meantime, he marched on, and our oppor
tunities are marching by And we shall be
the loving subjects of his reign, or the vic
tins of our own obduracy. So, urge you
to precipitancy. rather than slow delibera-
ton, and | write all over your soul the
words of Christ | saw inscribed on the mon
ument of Princess Elizabeth in the Isle of
Wight, the words 10 which her index
finger pointed in the open Bible
when she was found dead in her
bed after lifetime of trouble: Come unto
me, all we who are weary and heavy laden,
and | will give you rest" IS there
drunkard here' You may. by the Saviour's
grace, have that fire of thirst utterly ex-
tinguished Is there a defrauder here?
You may be made saint. Is there libsr-
tine herel You may be made as pure as
the light. When a minister in an outdoor
meeting in Scotland was eulogizing good
ness, there were hanging around the edge Of
the audience some of the most deDraved
men and women, and the minister said
nothing about mercy for prodigals. And
depraved woman cried out: Your rope is
not long enough for the like of u.s." Blessed
be God, our gospel can fathom the deepest
depths and reach to farthest wander
ings. and here is a rope that is long enough
to rescue the worst: 'Whosoever will
But why take extreme cases, when we all
have been or are now the captives of sin
and death And we may through the
great Emancipator drop our shackles and
take throne. You have looked at your
hand and arm only as being useful now,
and curious piece of anatomy, but there is
something about your hand and arm that
makes me think they are an undeveloped
wing. And if you would know what posi-
bilities are suggested by that, ask the eagle
that has looked close into the eye of the
monday sun: or ask the albatross that has
struck its claw into the black locks of the
tempest; or ask the condor that this morn
ing is descending to the highest peak of
Chimborazo. Your right hand and arm
and your left hand and arm two undevel-
oped wings, better get ready for the en-
pyrean.
Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wing,
Thy better portion trace"
There have been chains famous in the
worlds history, such as the chain which
fastened the prisoner of Chillon to the
pillar, into the staple of which have thrust
my hand, on the isolated rock of the Lake
of Geneva; such as the chain which the
Russian exile clanks on his way to the
mines of Siberia; such as the chain which
Zenobia, the captive queen, wore when
brought into the presence of Aurelian. Aye,
there have been races in chains, and nations
in chains, and there has been a
world III chains; but thank God, the
last one of them shall be
broken, and under the liberating
power of the omnipotent Gospel the shackles
shall fall from the last neck and the last
arm and the last foot. But these shattered
letters shall ali be gathered up again from
the dungeons aud the work houses and the
mines aud the rivers and the fields, and
they shall again be welded and again strung
link to link, and polished and transformed
until this world which has wandered off
and been a recreant world and a lost
world, shall by that chain be lifted and
hupg to the throne of God, no longer the
iron chain Of oppression, but the golden
chain of redeeming love. There let this
old ransomed world swing forever! Roll
on, we years, roll on, We days, roll on, ye
hours and hasten the glorious consumma-
toni