The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-10-16

and fell back INTO GeSolaJlon ana DANISH
ment The American ship, damaged OF the
storm, to-day puts up in st. Helena and the
crew 20 UP to see the spot where the French
exile expired in loneliness and disgrace,
the mightiest of all Samsons shorn of his LOCKS
by ambition, that most merclless OIL all
Delilahs
I have not time to enumerate. Evil
associations sudden successes, spendthrtt
habits, miserly proclivities and dissipation
are the names of some of the shears with
which men are every day made powerless.
They have strewn the earth with the car
casses of giants and filed the great prison
house with destroyed Samsons, who sit
grinding the mills of despair, their locks
shorn and their eyes out. If parents only
knew to what temptations their children
were subjected they would be more earnest
in their prayers and more careful about their
example. No young man escapes having the
pathway of sin pictured in bright coiors
before him. =,
The first time ever saw city-it was the
CITY of Philadelphia was mere Lad.
stopped at hotel, and I remember IN the
eventide corrupt man piled me with his In,
fernal art. He saw was green. He wanted
TO show me the sights of the town. Hepainted
the nath of sin until it looked like emerald
but 7 was afraid of him. I showed back from
the basilisk. made up my mind he was
basilisk. I remember how he reeled his chair
round in front of me and with contracted
and diabolical effort attempted to destroy my
soul: but there were good angels IN the air
that night. 1t was no good resolutlon on my
part, but it was the all encompassing grace OF
good God that delivered me. beWarel De-
ware! Oyoung man!
There is way that seemeth right unto
man, but the end thereof is death. If all the
victims of an impure life in all lands and
ages could be gathered together, they would
make a host vaster than that which Xer1es
led across the Hellespont, than Timour led
across India, than William the Conqueror
led across Engls-'l than A6ou-Bekr led
across Syria; ana Il they could be stretched
out in single file across this continent. |
think the vanguard Of the host would stand
On the beach Of the Pacific while yet the rear
guard stood on the beach of the Atlantic.
say this not because I expect to reclaim
any one that has gone astray in this fearful
path, but because I want to utter warning
for those who still maintain their integrity.
The cases of reclamation of those who have
given themselves fully up to an impure life
are so few, probably you do not know one OF
them. have seen good many start cut on
that road. How many have 1 seen come
back? Not one that now think of. 1t seems
as il the spell of death is on them and no hu-
man voice or the voice Of God can break the
spell. Their feet are hoppled, their wrists
are hnndcuffed. They have around them
girdle of reptiles punched at the waist, fas-
tening them to an iron dome; every time
they breathe the forked tongues strike them
and they strain to break away until the ten
dons snap and the blood eNudes; and amidst
their contortions they cry out: Take me
back to my fathers house. Where is moth
er? Take me home! Take me homer
Do stand before a man to-day the locks
of whose strength are being toyed with, let
me tell you to escape lest the shears of de-
struction take your moral and your spiritual
integrity. Do you not see your sandals be-
ginning to curl on that red hot path? This
day in the name OF Almighty God tear
Off the beautifying veil and the EN-
broidered mantle of this old hag OF
iniquity, and I show you the ulcers
and the bloody ichor and the cancered lip
and the parting joints and the macerated
limbs and the wriggling putrefaction, and
cry out: Oh, horror of horrors! In the still
ness of this Sabbath hour I lift warning.
Remember it is much easier to form bad
habits than to get clear of them; in one
minute of time you may get into a sin from
which all eternity cannot get you out.
Oh. that the voice of Gods truth might
drown the voice Of Delilah. Come into the
ways of pleasantness and the pathes OF peace
and by the grace of pardoning God start
for thrones Of honor and dominion upon
which you may reign, rather than travel the
road to a dungeon, where the destroyed
grind in the mills of despair, their locks shorn
and their eyes out.