The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1888-04-19
HOLY SABBATH.
SWEETEST DAY OF THE WEEK.
Let US Lay Aside all Thoughts and
Cares of the World, and Lift our
Hearts in Praise and Thanks
giving On the Lords Day.
[Charlotte Chronicle.l

MS Is j naiioweu DAY, the sweetest
of the week. During its hours churches
are opened and the gospel is preached.
TO see laFgeerewds vending their way
to these earthly sanctuaries in town
and country is blessed and hopeful
sight. TIE world is full of evil. A
glorious opportunity is afforded by this
day of cessation from toll and the
preached gospel to repress wrong doing
and infuse holier conceptions in right
living. All men, whether church
! members or not, have an abiding
interest in the right observance of the
day, and hearing of the preaching of
the gospel by ever swelling crowds of
people. Every man should go to
church and bring his neighbor with
| him.
A notable gospel reflector who lived
several decades ago near our city, said
with fearful candor when asked by
Jealous Christian man for contribution
to help build house..of worship, ,she des-
pised the hear demands of religion,
but he would give cheerfully to build
church edifice, because it was, he
must confess, the best of locks to his
granery and meat house. Men may
be averse to thegospel, which is every
where proclaimed to-day, yet they
must confess its purity and its beauty
and its power, and wish the land to be
shadowed by its benign influences. 1t
is our great refuge in the last extremity.
Our statutes, however long and COM
plete, depend for their efficacy upon
the gospel for their enforcement. For
instance, after human learning and in
genuity have been exhausted in franz
ing laws to guard the funds Of bank
or of a railway company, or of the
goods of store against theft by the Of
fcials, or employees in charge of them,
it is invariably found that the safety
of the money or goods depends, at last,
upon the sheer honesty of the officials
or employees. This great practical
fact demonstrates the unspeakable
value of gospel teaching in Inculcat-
ing and fixing right principles and
guiding and fostering moral habits.
Confidence between man and man, a
thing SO necessary to S uccessful conf
merce, is deepened and strengthened
by its influence. 1t is the only thing
that makes Judges and juries and
counsel faithful in enforcing law. The
safety of our person, our lives, our
property awaits the power it wields.
Men may arrange for arbitration dis
putes among nations; terms tor the
equitable settlement of controversies
between employers and employees, and
capital and labor; laws for. intercept
ing fraud in the exercise of the right of
suffrage and for numerous other
measures for repressing evil, but they
cannot touch and reform the fountain
whence flows the streams of evil: The
dispositions of the heart are fundamen-
tally wrong. This is the spring from
which flows the streams of our woes.
1t is not circumstances that make men
love to do evil. As another says
"Whep man did fall, he fell, not
in a metropolitan alley, not in Lon
don slum he fell where the shunshine
broadest, where the rivers were
deepest and calmest. When he fell
was he was amid surroundings which
God himself had placed for his con.
venlence and qualification. The cure
is not in change of circumstances, but
in change of heart"
Let the preaching of the gospel be
heard, therefore, this beautiful Sabbath
day by the men, women and children
: of the land, and its truths be taken in.
to all hearts SO as to be felt in al
lives.