The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-06-05


would be tramping the street, the laugh
ing stock OF men and the grief OF the an
gels of God, dungeoned, body, mind and
soul, in the blackness of despair. All, do
not let us solace ourselves with the thought
that other people are worse than we. Per-
haps in the future, when our fortunes may
change, unless God prevents it, we may
be worse than they are. Many man,
after thirty years, after forty years, after
fifty years, after sixty years, has gone to
pieces on the sand-bars. Oh instead of
wasting our time in hypercriticism about
Others, let us ask ourselves the questions:
| Where do we stand? What are our sins
! What are our deficits? What are our
perils? What are our hopes? Let each
one say to himself: "Where will / be :?
Shall | range in summary fields, or grind
in the mills of great night? Where?
| Where?"
Some winter morning you 90 out and
see a snow bank in graceful drifts, as
though by some heavenly compass it had
been curved; and as the sun glints it the
luster is almost insufferable, and it seems
as If God had wrapped the earth in
shroud with white plaits woven in looms
celestial. And you say: "Was there ever
anything so pure as the snow, so beautiful
| as the snow?" But you brought pail of
| that snow and put it upon the stove and
| melted it, and you found that there was
| sediment at the bottom; and every drop
| of that snow water was riled; and you
/ found that the snow bank had gathered
/ up the impurity of the field, and that
after all it was not fit to wash in. And so
| say it will be if we will try TO gather up
| these contrasts and comparisons with
/ others. and with these apologies attempt
/ to wash out the sins OF your heart and
] life. 1t will be unsuccessful ablution.
| Such snow water will never wash away
| single stain of an immortal soul.
! But hear some say: II will try some
| thing better than that. / will try the
/ force of a good resolution. That will be
/ more pungent, more cauCtic, more extir-
| pating. more cleansing. The snow water
\ has failed. and now / will try the alkali of
/ the good, strong resolution" My dear
| brother, have you anv idea that resolu-
| ton about the future will liquidate the
past? Suppose l owed you 5000 and 1
| should colne 10 you tomorrow and say:
''Sir, will never run in debt to you
| again; If / should live thirty years, l will
never run in debt to you again." will YOU
turn to me and say: ''If you will not run
in debt in the future, l will forgive you
the 5000" Will you do that? No Nor
will God. We have been running up a
/ long score OF Indebtedness with God. If
for the future we should abstain from
sin. that would be no defravment
OF past Indebtedness Though YOU should
live from this time forth pure as an arch
angel before the throne that would not
redeem the past. God in the bible de-
clares that lie will require that which is
past"-Dast opportunities, past neglects,
past wicked words, past impure imagin-
great cemetery. and every day is buried in
it. And here is long row Of SO graves.
They are the dead DAYS of 1888. Here is a
long row OF 500 more graves, and they are
the dead DAYS of 1897. And here is long
row of 365 more graves, and they are the
dead days of 1856. 1t is a vast cemetery
of the past. But God will rouse them ali
up with resurrectionary blast, and as the
prisoner stands face tO.face with juror and
Judge, so you and / will have to come up
and look upon those departed days face to
face, exulting in their smile or covering
in their frown.
Murder will out" is a proverb that
stops too short. Every sin, however small,
as we'll as great, will out. In hard times
in England. years ago, it is authenticity
stated that manufacturer was on his
way, with a bag OF money, 10 pay off his
hands. 4 man, Infatuated with hunger,
met him on the road and took rail with
a nail in it IRON paling fence and struck
him down, and the nail entering the SKULL
instantly slew him. Thirty wears after that
the murderer went back to that place. He
passed into the graveyard, where the sex
ton was digging a grave, and while he
stood there the spade of the sexton turned
up a skull; and, 10! the murderer saw
a nail protruding from the back part
OF the skull; and, as the sexton turned
the skull, it seemed, with hollow eyes,
to glare on the murderer, and he,
first petrified with horror, stood in silence,
but soon cried out: Guilty guilty O
Cod" The mystery of the crime was
over. The man was tried and executed.
My friends, all the unpardoned sins OF
our lives, though we may think they are
buried out of sight and gone into a mere
skeleton of memory, will turn up in the
cemetery of the past, and glover upon us
with their misdoings. / say all our I'M
pardoned sins. Oh, have you done the
preposterous thing of supposing that
good resolutions Tor the future will wipe
cut the past? Good resolutions, though
they may be pungent and caustic as alkali,
have no power to neutralize a sin. have
no power to wash away transgression,
1t wants something more than earthly
chemistry to do this. Yea, yea, though Il
wash myself with snow-water, and should
| cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt
thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine
own clothes shall abhor me-"
You see from the last part of this text
that Jobs idea of sin was very different
from that OF Eugene Sue, or George Sand,
or VI. ]. Michelet. or any OF the hundreds
OF writers who have done up iniquity in
mezzo-tint and garlanded the wine cup
with eglantine and rosemary and made
the path of the libertine end in bowers OF
ease instead of on the hot tagging of
eternal torture. You see that Job thinks
that sin is not fowery parterre; that il
is rot table land of fine prospects: that
it is not music. dulcimer, violoncello, cas-
tanet and pandean pipes, all making music
together. No. He saws it is ditch, long,
deep, loathsome, stenchful, and we are all
plunged into il, and there we wallow and
sink and struggle, not able to get out.
Our robes OF propriety and robes of world
" profession are saturated in the slime
and abominatiOn, and our soul, covered
over with transgression, hates its cover
ing and the covering hates the soul until
we are plunged into the ditch, and our
own clothes abhor us.
1 know that some modern religionists
caricature sorrow for sin, and they make
out an easier path than the pilgrims
progress" that John Bunyan dreamed of.
The road they travel does not stop where