Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-04-27

o. and Of Bishop McIlvaine the sword
Of the Lord and OF Adoniram Judson, the
sword of the Lord and Of Martin Luther,
60 into the last decade of the ninteenth
century.
Is it audacious for me TO propose itf
Oh, no; a captive servant in the kitchen
of Naaman tolu the commander-in.chief
where he could get rid of the blotches Of
his awful leprosy and his complexion be-
came as fair as a babes. And didn't
Christ in order to take the ophthalmia
out of the eyes of the blind man use q
mixture of spittle AMI dust? And who
showed Butcher q short cut for his army
30 that instead of taking the regular road
by which he would have been too late,
ne cam up in time to save Waterloo and
Europes Was it not an unknown lad,
who perhaps could not write his w
name. And 80 l, "who am less than the
least of all saints" propose q short cut to
victory and am willing to be the expecto.
ration on some blind eye and tell some OF
the ~brigadier generals Of the Lord OF
hosts how this leprosied world may in
the final decade Of the nineteenth cen
fury have it's flesh come again "a the
flesh of . little child.
Is there anything in prophecy to hinder
this speedy consummation2 No. Some
n begins TO quote from Daniel o
time, times and half time" and takes
from Revelation the seven trumpets blow.
ing them all at once in my ear. But
with utmost reverence / take up the plo-
phecies and hold them toward heaven
and say God new has and never will stop
consecrated effort and holy determination
and magnificent resolve, and that If the
church of God will rise up to its full
work it can make Daniels time twenty
years and his half time ten years. Neither
Isaiah, nor Ezekiel, nor Micah, nor Mala-
Chi, nor jeremiah, nor any OF the major
or minor prophets will hinder AS a sec
ond. Suppose the Bible had announced
the millennium TO begin 1889, that would
be no hindrance. In one sense God never
changes his mind, being the same yester-
day, today and forever. But in another
sense he does change his mind and times
without number every day, and that IS
when his people pray. Didn't he change
his mind about Nineveh? BY Gods
command Jonah, at the top OF
his voice, while standing on the
steps Of the merchants exchange and
the p~alatial residences of that city, cried
out, "Yet forty days and Nlneveh shall
be overthrown." Was it overthrown in
forty days? No. The people gave up
their sins and cried for mercy, and
though Jonah got mad because his whole
course of sermons had been spoiled and
went into a d~isgraceful pouting, we have
the record so sublime | cannot read it
without feeling a nervous chill running
through me. God saw their works that
they turned from their evil way and God
repented of the evil that he had said he
would do unto them, and he did 1t not
God is q father, and some of us know
what that means, and some time when
we have promised chastisement and the
child deserved it, the little darling has
put her arms around our neck and ex-
presses such sorrow and such promises
of doing better that her tears landed on
the lips of our kiss, and we held her a
half hour after on our knee and would as
soon think of Shaping an angel In the
face as Of even striking her with the
weight of our little finger. God is a
father, and while he has promised this
world s%courgings, though they were to be
for /, 900 years or 5000 years, he would,
if the world repented, substitute benedic'
ton and divine caress. God changed his
mind about Sodom six times. He had
determined on it's destruction. Abraham
asked him if he would not spare 1t if
fifty righteous people were found there;
and, narrowing down the number, If
forty.fve people were found there; if
forty people; if thirty people; if twenty
people; if ten people were found there.
And each of the six times the Lord an
swered yes. Oh, why didn't Abraham
90 on Just two steps further and say If
five be found there and if one be found
there, for then for the sake Of Lot. its one
good citizen, | think Sodom would have
been spared. Eight times does the Bible
say that God repented when he had
promised punishments and withheld the
stroke. Was il a slip of Paul's pen when
he spoke of Gods cutting short the work
in righteOusnessP No, Pauls pen never
slipped. There is nothing in the way Of
prophecy to hinder the crusade | have
proposed for the last decade OF the nine
teenth century.
The whole trouble is that we put of
the completion Of the worlds redemp-
ton to such long and indefinite distances.
The old proverb that what is every
body's business is nohody's business, .
might be changed . little and be made
truthfully to say what is the gospel bust.
ness Of all ages is the gospel business OF
no age. We are SO constituted we can
not get up much enthusiasm about some
thing $50 years from now OF
200 years from now. We arehght,
ing at too long a range. That gun called
the Swamp Angel was a nuisance. II
shot six miles, but it hardly ever hit any
thing. 1t did its chief destructive work
when it burst and killed those who were
setting it off. Short range is the ehec
tive kind of work, whether ii be fol
worldly or religious purpose. Some mar
with his eyes half shut drones out to M
the Bible quotation: "A thousand year.
are as one day" that is, ten centuries ar
not long for the Lord. But why do 20,
not quote the previous sentence, which
saw that one day is with the Lord a
/, 900 years2 That is, He could dc
the work Of ten centuries in twenty
four hours. The mightiest obstacle t
Christian work is the impression that thu
worlds evangelization is away of. Ant
we take the telescope and look on and Oh
through centuries until we see tive OBJ
iects near each other and We strain GU
vision and guess what they are and W
call great conventions to guess what the.
are, and we get down III heaviest the