Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-06-05

it. In the matter of the soul, every man
for himself. That those persons are not
fully responsible for your sin, prove by the
fact that you still consort with them. gu
cannot get off by blaming them. Though
you gather up all these apologies; though
there were great flood of them; though
they should come down with the force Of
the melting SHOWS from Lebanon, they could
not wash out one stain Of your immortal
soul.
Still further. some persons apologize for
their sins by saying: "We are a great deal
better than some people. You see people
all around about US that are great deal
worse than we" You stand up columnar
in your integrity, and look down upon those
who are PROSTATE in their habit and crimes.
| What Of that, my brother? If | failed
| through recklessness and wicked impru-
| dence for ten thousand dollars, is the mat
ter sllesiased at all by the fact that some
! body els0 has failed for one hundred thou
sand doiffaIss, and somebody else for two
hundred thousand dollarss Oh, no. If |
have the neuralgia, shall ] refuse medical
attendance because my neighbor las ,nss ylru'
lent typhoid fever? The fact that his dis:
ease is worse than mine-does that cure
mine? If l, through my fool-hardiness,
| leap off into ruin. does it break the fail to
know that others leap off higher cliff into
deeper darkness? When the Hudson river
rail train went through the bridge at Spuy-
ten Duyvil, did it alleviate the matter at all
that instead of two or three people being
hurt there were seventy five m angled and
crushed? Because others are depraved, is
that any excuse for my depravity Am |
better than they? Perhaps they had worse
temptations than have had. Perhaps their
surroundings in life were more overpo xer-
ing. Perhaps, o man, if you bad been un-
der the same stress Of temptation, instead
of sitting here to day, you would have been
looking through the bars Of penitentiary.
Perhaps, 0 woman, if you had been under
the same power of temptation, indaad of
sitting here to day, you would be tramping
the street, the laughing stock of men and
the grief of the angels of God, dungeoned,
body, mind and soul, in the blackness of
despair. Alb, do not let us solace ourselves
with the thought that other people are
worsa than we. Perhaps 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, sixty years, has
gone to pieces On the sand bars. Oh! in
stead of wasting our time ia hypercritic;sm
about others, let US ask on selves the ques-
tions, Where do we stand? What are our
sins? What are our deficits? What ars our
perils2 What our hopes? Let each one say
to himself. Where will [ be? Shall range
in summery fields, or grind in the mills of
great night? Where? Where?"
Some winter morning you 90 out ard see
a snow bank in graceful drifts, as though by
some heavenly compass it had been curved; !;
and as the sun glints it the lnstre is almost
insufferable, and it seems as if God had
wrapped The eartn in a shroud With white
| plaits woven in looms celestial. And you
| say: las there ever anything so pnrc as
the snow, SO beautiful as the snow?" But
| you brought q pail Of that snow and put it
upon the stove and melted it; and you found
that there was a sediment at the bottom,
aud every drop of that snow water WAS ril-
ed; aud 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 he 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 an unsuccessful ablutioG. Such snow
water will never wash away single stain
of an immortal soul.
But | hear some one say: 81 will try
something better than that. will try the
more pungent, more caustic, more extir.
patiDg, more cleansing. The snow water
has failed, and now l will try the alkaii of
the good, strong resolution" My dear
brother, have you any idea that a resolu.
ton about the future will liquldate the
past? Suppose 1 owed you five thousand
dollars and l should come to you to morrow
and say: s'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, will forgive you
the five thousand dollars" Will you do
that? No! Nor will God We have been
running up long score of indebtedness
with God. If for the future We should ab-
stain from sin, that would be no defray-
ment of that indebtedness. Though you
should live from this time forth pure as an
arohangel before the throne, that would not
redeem the past. God, in the Bible, dis.
tinctly declares that He "will require that
which is past"-past opportunities, past
negects, past-wicked words, past impure
imaginations, past ersthipg. The past is
a great cemetery, and every day is buried
in it. And here is long row of three hun
dred and sixty five graves. They are the
dead days of 1888. Here is long row of
three hundred and sixty-fye more graves,
and they are the dead days Of 1887. And
here IS long row of three hundred and
sixty-tive moro graves, and they are the
dead days of 1886. 1t is vast cemetery oi
the past. But God will rouse them all up
with resurrectionary blast, and as the pris
cner stands face to face with Juror and
Judge, SO you and will have to come up
aud look upon those departed days face tc
face, e1ulting in their smile or covering iu
their frown.
Murder will out'' is proverb that stops
too short. Every sin, however small, Of
, well as great, will cut. In hard times in
Englan6, yeals age, it ia authenticaly stat
ed that a manufacturer was on the way,
with bag Of money, to pay off his hands
a man infuriated with hunger met him on
tho road, and took rail with nail in i,
frou, a paling fence and struck him down,
and the nail entering the skull instantly
slew him. Thirty years after that ths mur-
derer went back to that place. He passed
into the grave yard, where the sexton was
digging grave, and while he stood there
} the spade of the sexton turned up skull,
, and, 10! the murderer saw a nail protrudine
, from the back part of the skull and as the
, sexton turned the skull it seemed with hol
, low eyes to glare Oh the murderer; and he,
; first petrifed with horror, stood in silence,
but soon cried out Guilty! guiltyi . 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 ont Of sigh
and gone into mere skeleton of memory
, will turn up in the cemetery of the past
3 and glover upon US with their msdoings
J l say all our unpardoned sins. Oh, have
r you done the preposterous thing of suppos
r ing that good resolutions for the future will
wipe ont the past? Good resolutions, though
| they may be pungent and caustic as alkal
! have no power to neutralse sin, have nt
J power to wash away trausgression. i
wants something more chan earthly chemis
[ try to do this. Yea, yea, though 81 wast
myself with snow water, and should
2 cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt thor
! plunge me in the ditch, aud mine owl
D clothes shall abhOr me-"
t You see from the last part of this tex