Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1888-09-21

You save. wei dOnel You have succeeded.
You have made q chain-the tobacco habit
one link, the rum habit ono link, tho impure
club another link, iniidelity another link,
Sabbath dissertation another link, unclean-
ness another link, and altogether they make
a chain. And 50 there is q chain on your
hand and a chain on your foot and a chain
on your tongue and a chain on your eye
and chain on your brain and a chain
on your property and chain ON your soul.
Some day you wake APP and you say: ~ am
tired Of this, and l am going to get loose
from this shackle.n You pound away with
the hammer Of good resolution but cannot
break the thrall Your friends join you in a
conspiracy Of help but fall exhausted I'm the
unavailing attempt Now you begin and
with the writing Of a LAGOON, to try to
break away, and the muscles are distended,
and the great beads Of perspiration dot your
forehead, and the eyes stand out from the
sockets, and with all the concentrated ener-
gies 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 a devil of its own
come out and sit around you and chat
ter. In some midnight you spring Prom
your couch and cry; Il am fast. o God,
let me loose! o ye powers of darkness, let
me loosel Father and mother and brothers
and sisters, help me to get loosen And you
turn your prayer to hlasphemy, and then
your blasphemy into prayer and TO all the
din and uproar there is played an acconpa-
niment, not an accompaniment by key and
pedal, but the accompaniment is rattle, and
the rattle IS that of a chain For five years,
for ten years, for twenty years, you have
been making a chain
But hero | take a 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 tho hammer of the Gospel
have broken of, il piled together, would
make a mountain. The captives whom
Christ has set free, if stood side by side,
would make an army. Quicker than a ship
chambers furnace ever melted a cable,
quicker than key ever unlocked a handcuff,
quicker than the bayonets Of revolution pried
open the Bastile, you may be liberated and
made free son or free daughter of God
You have only to choose between serf-
dom and emancipation, between a chain and
a 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 differ
ext regions asking them whether he
should march through their countries
as q friend or an enemy. "By all means
as FRIEND" answered most Of the
regions, but the king Of Macedon replied: Il
will take time to consider it." ''Then,n 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 long been considering what we had
better do; but meantime he marches on, and
our opportunities are marching by. And we
shall be the loving subjects Of his reign, or
the victims of our own obduracy. So, urge
you TO precipitancy, rather than slow
elaboration, and I will write all over your
soul the words Of Christ I saw inscribed on
the monument OF Princess Elizabeth In the
Isle Of Wight, the words to which her index
finger pointed In the open Bible when she was
found dead in her bed after a lifetime Of
trouble: "Come unto me, all We who are
weary and heavy laden, and / win give you
rest" Is there drunkard herei You may, by
the Saviour's grace, have that fire of thirst ut
terly extinguished. Is there a defrarder
here' You may be made a saint. Is there
libertine here, You may be made as pure as
the light. When a minister in an outdoor
meeting IN Scotland was eulogizing goodness,
there were hanging around the edge Of the
audience some Of the most depraved 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 wanderings, and here is a rope that
Is long enough to rescue the worst: "Whoso-
ever will"
But why take extreme cases, when we all
have been or are now the captives Of sin and
deathi And we may through the great
Emancipator drop our shackles and take a
throne. You have looked at your hand and
arm only as being useful now, and a curious
piece Of anatomy, but there is something
about your hand and arm that make me
think they are an undeveloped wing And
If you would know what possibilities are
suggested by that ask the eagle that hes
looked close into the eye Of the MONDAY sun:
or ask the alabatross that has struck its claw
into the black locks of the tempest; or ask
the condor that this morning is descending
to the highest peak Of Chimborazo. Your
right hand and arm and your left hand and
arm, two undeveloped wings, better get
ready for the empyrean.
Rise, my SOUL and stretch thy wing,
my Detter portion trace
There have been chains famous in the
worlds history, such as the chain which fas-
tened the prisoner Of Chillon to the pillar,
into the staple Of which I 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 ST.
IBERIA; 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 in chains; but
thank God, the last one Of them shall
be broken, and under the hberating
power Of the omnipotent Gospel the shackles
shall fall from the last neck and the last arm
and the last foot. But these shattered fet-
tiers shall all be gathered up again from the
dungeons and the work houses and the mines
and 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 re-
creant world and a lost world, shall by
that chain be lifted and hung to the throne
Of God, no longer the iron chain of oppres-
SION but the golden chain of redeeming love. |
There let this old ransOmed world swing for
ever Roll on, ye years; roll on, ye days;
roll o., ye hours, and hasten the glorious
consummationl
The Swallows OF Niagara.
The Niagara river is a favorlte haunt for
the swallows ANY cool evening thousands |