The Brookhaven leader., 1889-06-06

ance because my neighb0r has virulent
| typhoid fevery The fact that his disease
is worse than mine-does not cure mine!
| II /, through my foolhardiness, leap off
into ruin, does it break the fall to know
that others leap of \ higher cliff into
deeper darkness! When the Hudson
| River rail train went through the bridge
at Spuyten Duyvil, did it alleviate the
matter at all that instead Of two or three
people being hurt there were seventy five
mangled and crushed?
Because others are depraved, is that
any excuse for my depravity? Am | bet
! ter than they: Perhaps they had worse
temptations than / have had. Perhaps
their surroundings in life were more
overpowering. Perhaps, o man, if you
had been under tho same stress Of temp
tation, instead of sitting here to-day You
would have been looking through the
bars of the penitentiary. Perhaps, o
woman, if you had been under the same
power of temptation instead OF sitting
here to-day you would be tramping the
street. the laughing stock of men and
the grief of the angels OF God dun
geoned, 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. Pef-
| 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 sandbars. Oh! in
stead of wasting our time in hyper
criticism about others, let us ask our
selves the questions: Where do we stand?
What are our sins! What are our de-
ticitsE What are our perils: What our
hopes? Let each one say to himself:
"Where will be? Shall l range in sum-
merry fields, or grind in the mills Of a
| great night? Where? Where:"
Some winter morning you go 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 a
shroud with white plaits woven in looms
| celestial. And you say: "Was there
ever any thing so pure as the snow, so
| beautiful as the snow" But you brought
4 pail of that snow and put it upon the
stove and melted it; and you found that
there was a sediment at the bottom; and
every drop of that snow water was riled;
and you found that the snow bank had
| tuc llllpull Va tIlC liClui oui
that after all it was not fit to wash in.
| And so l say it will be if you 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 ablutiou.
Such snow water will never wash away a
single stail of an immortal soul.
But hear some one say: II will try
| 4hnT I
the force of good resolution. That will
be more pungent, more caustic, more ex-
tirpatiug, more cleansing. The snow
water has failed, and now | will try the
alkali of the good, strong resolution"
My dear brother, have you any idea that
resolution about the future will liqui-
date the past: Suppose | owed you five
thousand dollars and | should come to
you tomorrow and say: ''Sir, will never
run in debt to you again; if | should live
| thirty years | 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
| | will forgive you the five thousand dol
| lars" 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 defrayment of past in
debtedness. 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 He twill require that which is
| past"-past opportunities, past neglects,
past wicked words, past impure imagina-
tions, past every thing. The past is a
great cemetery, and every day is buried
in it. And here is n long row of three
| hundred and sixty-fiv graves. They are
the dead days of 1888. Here is long row
of three hundred and sixty-fve more
| graves, and they arc the dead days of
| 1887. And there is a long row of three
hundred and sixty-ive more graves, and
they are the dead days of 1886. 1t is a
vast cemetery of the past. But God will
rouse them all up with resurrectionary
blast, and as the prisoner stands face to
face with juror and judge, so you and 1
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 proverb that
stops too shot. Every sin, however small,
as well as great, will out. In hard times
in England, years ago, it is authenticity
stated that a manufacturer was on the
way, with bag of money, to pay off his
| hands. man infuriated with hunger
met him ON the road and took a rail with
nail in it from the paling fence and
| struck him down, and the nail entering
| the skull instantly slew him. Thirty
| years after that the murderer went back
| to that place. He passed into the grave
| yard, where the Xton 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 sknll; and, as the
sexton turned the skull, it seemed with
hollow eyes to glare on the mur-
derer, and he, first petriIed with
| horror, stood in silence, but soon cried
out: Guilty! guilty! o. God" 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 unpardoned
sins. Oh, have you done the preposter-
ous thing of supposing that good rosolu-
tons for the future will wipe out 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,s though 81
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-"
1 l. NIot Il l,o.ssN ,aA-