The Russellville Democrat., 1888-08-02

or FfctOr1ouS retreat h the life or our
 Joshua, the Jesus of the ages First fall
 ing back from an appalling height to an
 1 appalling depth, falling from celestial hills 10 terrestrial valleys, from throne to
 fnanager yof that did not seem to snfaeo
 Him as a retreat Failing back still further from Bethlehem to Nazareth. from
 Nazareth fo Jerusalem, back from Jeru- i salem to GoIgotha, back from Golgotha 1 so the nausoleum in the rock. back down over the precipices of perdition until He 1 walked amid the caverns of the eternal
 captives, and drank of the wine of the wrath of Almighty God amid the Arabs and the Jezebels and the Beishazzars. 0 men Of the pulpit and men of fhe pew, 1 Christ,s descent from Heaven to earth l does not measure half the distance. It
 was from glory to perdition. He de- seconded into hell All the records of earthly retreat are as nothing compared with this falling back Santa Ana. with l the fragments of the army. flying over 1 the p1ateaux of Mexico, and Napoleon and 1 his army retreating from Moscow into the l awful shows of Russia, are not worthy to be mentioned with this retreat when all 1 the power of darkness seem to be pur- suing Christ as He fell back, until the body of Him who came to do such won- 1 derfuI things lay pulsehess and stripped. Methfnks that no City of Al was waSnot
 so emptied of it's inhabitants when they
 went to pursue Joshua as psrdition was emptied of devils when they started for l thelpursuit of Christ and He fell back and back, down lower, down lower. chasm be- low chasm, pit below pit, until he seemed to strike the bottom of objurgation and
 scorn and torture. Oh, the long, loud 1 jubilant shout of hell at the defeat of the
 Lord God Almighty.
 But let not the powers of darkness re- l joice quite so soon. Doyou hear that dis | turbanse in the tomb of Arimatheaf I
 hear the shee ct rendingl What means
 that store hurled down the side of the hills Push Him back: the dead must not stalk in this open sunlight Oh. it is our l Joshua Let Him come out He comes forth and starts for the city. He takes
 the spear of the Roman guard and points l that way. Chur ch militant marches up
 on one side and the church triumphant 1 down on the other side. And .the powers of darkness being caught between these ranks of celestial and terrestrial valor.
 nothing is left of them save inst enough I to illustrate the direful overthrow of hell | and our Joshua's eternal victory. On His head be all the crowns. In His hand bs | all the scepters. At His feet be all the human hearts; and here, Lord. Is one Of l them.
 l Lesson the second: The triumph of the l wicked is short. Did you ever see an army I in panic? There ls nothing so uncon- | trolable. If you had stood at Long I Bridge, Washington. during the opening | of our civil war, you would know what it I is to sec an army run. And when those men | of Ali looked out end saw those mon of l Joshua in a stampede, they expected easy work. They would scatter them as the l equinox the leaves. O, the gleefut and 1 jubilant descent of the men of Ali upon the men of JoshuaI But their exhflaration was brief, for the tide of battle turned and these quondram conquerors left their miserable carcasses in the wilderness of Bethaven. So it always ia. The triumph l of the wicked is short You make twenty l thousand dollars at the gaming table. Do you expect to keep itr You will die in l the poor house. You make fortune by iniquitous traffic. Do you expect to keep its Your money will scatter, or it will stay long enough to curse your children after yon are dead. Call over the roll of bad men who pros. pered and see how short was their pros perity. For awhile. like the men of Ali, they went from conquest to conquest but after awhile disaster rolled back upon them and they were divided into three | parts: Misfortune took their property, the grave took their body and the lost world took their soul. 1 am always in- terested in the bui lding of theaters and the building of dissipating saloons. like to have them built of the best granite -I hnx ha da fore md fr have the pillars made very firm. God is going to conquer them and they will be turned into asylums and art galleries and churches. The stores in which fraud ulent men do business. the splendid banking institutions where the president and cashier put all their property in their wives' hands and then fail for S2O0, ,00o-. all these institutions are to become the places where honest Christian men do business.
 How long will it take your boys to get through your ill., gotten gains? The wicked do not live out half their days. For awhile they swagger and strut and make great splash in the newspapers, but after awhile it all dwindles down into a brief paragraph; Died suddenly July e2 issS at thirty-ive years of age Relatives and friends of the fam fly are invited to attend the funeral on Wcdncs- day at two o'clock, from his late residence on Madison Square. Interment at Greenwood. Some of them jumped of the docks. Some of them took prussic acid. Some of them fell under the snap of Derringer pistol. Some of them spent their last days in lunatic asylum Where are William Tweed and his associates? Where are Ketcham and Swartwout, ab- sconding swindlers? Where is James Fisk, the iiibertine' Where is John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, and all the other misdemeanants, The wicked do not live out half their days. Disembogue, o world of darknessl Come up Hilde- brand. and Henry IL, and Robert Robes pierre, and with blistering and blas- pheming and ashen lips hiss out: ''The triumph of the wicked is short" Alas for the men of Ali when Joshua stretches out his ear toward the city! Lesson the third: How much may be accomplished by lying in ambush for op- portunities, Are you hypercritical of Joshua's maneuver- Do yoR say that it was cheating for him to take that city by ambuscadey Was it wrong for " Washing ton to kindle camp-fres on the New Jer- sey heights, giving the impression to the opposing force that great army was en- camped there when there was none at all? answer, if the war was right then Joshua was right in his stratagem. He violated no flag of truce. He broke no treaty, but by lawful ambuscade captured the city of Ali. Oh, that we all knew how to lie in ambush for opportunities to serve God.
 The best of our opportunities do not lie on the surface, but are secreted; by tact,
 by stratagem, by Christian ambuscade you can take almost any castle of sin for Christ. Come up toward men with a
 regular besiegement of argument and you
 will be defeated; but just wait until the door of their hearts Is set ajar, or they
 are of their guard, or their severe eau
 ton Is away from home, and then drop in on them from a Christian ambuscade.