The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1889-11-28

from the text, lnaL IL Is dangerous W
refuse the counsel OF competent advi'
sers. Paul told them not to 60 out
with that ship. They thought he
knew nothing about it. They said
He is only a ministelI" They went,
and the ship WAS destroyed. There
are q great many people who now say
of ministers: They know nothing
about the world. They cannot talk to
" All. my friends, it is not ncces'
sary to have the Asiatic cholera before
you can give it medical treatment in
others II is not necessary to have
your ou. #rm broken before VIZ" ''"''
know how TO splinter fracture. And
we who stand in the pulpit, and in tbe
office Of a Christian teacher, know that
there are certain styles Of belief and
certain kinds of behavior that will
lead to destruction as certainly as Paul
knew that if that ship went out of
Fair Havens it would 60 to destruc-
ton. "Rejoice, o young man, in
thy youth; and let thy heart cheer
thee in the days of thy youth: but
know thou that for all these things
God will bring thee into judgment"
We may not know much, but we know
that.
Young people refuse the advice Of
parents. They say: Father is over.
suspicious, and mother is getting old"
But these parents have been on the
sea Of life They know where the
storms sleep, and during their voyage
have seen thousand battered hunks
marking the place where beauty
burned, and intellect foundered, and
morality sank. They are old sailors,
having answered many q signal OF
distress, and endured great stress of
weather, and gone scudding under
bare poles; and the old folks know
what they are talking about. Look at
that man-in his cheek the glow of
Internal fires. His eye flashes not as
once with thought, but with low pas
sion. His brain is sewer through
which impurity floats, and his heart
the trough in which lust wallows and
drinks. Men shudder as the leper
passes, and parents cry, "Wolf wolf"
Yet he enco said the Lords Prayer at
his mothers knee, and against that in
iquitous brow once pressed pure
mothers lip. But he refused her
counsel. He went where euroclydons
have their lair. He foundereI on the
sea, while all hell echoed at he roar
of the wreck: Lost Pacifcs! Lost Pa
cifcs!
CHRISTIANS ALWAYS SAFE.
" Another lesson from the subject is
that Christians are always safe.
There did not seem to be much
chance for Paul getting out of that
shipwreck, did thereG They had not,
in those days, rockets with which to
throw ropes over foundering vessels.
Their lifeboats were of but little worth.
And yet, notwithstandingN the dan
ger, my text says that Aul escaped
safe to land. And so it will always
be with Gods children. They may
be plunged into darkness and trouble,
but by the throne of the eternal God,
Asssert it, "they shall all escape safe
t&knd."
hetimes there comes a storm
of dsmercial disaster. The cables
breaN 6i1mpasts fall The cargoes
are scat over the sea. Obi what
struggling and leaping on kegs and
hogsheads and corn6ins and store
shelves And yet, though they may
have it so very hard in commercial
circles, the good, trusting in God, all
come safe to land.
Wreckers 60 out on the oceans
beach and find the shattered hulks OF
vessels; and on the streets Of our great
cities there is many a wreck. Mainsail
slit with bankers pen. Hulks abeam's
end on i1NERsnce counters. Vast cred
it's si having suddenly sprung
led q Yet all Of them who are Gods
chi en shall at last, through his good
neg and mercy, escape safe to land.
The Scandinavian warriors used to
drink wine out of the skulls of the
enemies they had slain. Even so. God
will help us, out Of the conquered ills
and disasters of life, TO drink sweetness
and strength for our soulsN
You have, my friends, IN illustra-
tons, in your own life, of how God
delivers his people. l have had illus
trations in my own life of the same
truth. | was once in what on your
Mediterranean you call a Euroclydon,
but what on the Atlantic we call
cyclone, but the same storm. The
steamer Greece of the National line,
swung out into the river Mersey at
Liverpool, bound for New York. W.
had on board seven hundred, crew
and passengers. We came together
ngerS-Italians, Irishmen, Eng
Eshmen, Swedes, Norwegians, Ameri-
cans. Two flags foated from the
masts-British and American en-
signs. We had a new vessel, or one
so thoroughly remodeled that the voy-
age had around it all the uncertain
ties of trial trip. The great steam
er felt its way cautiously out into
the sea. The pilot was discharged;
and, committing ourselves to the care
of him who holdeth the winds in his
fist, we were fairly started on our voy-
age of three thousand miles. H-was
rough nearly all the way-the sea with
strong buffeting disputing our path.
But one night, at eleven o'clock, after
the lights had been put out, a cyclone
"a wind just made to tear ships to
pieces-caught us in its clutches. 1t
came down so suddenly that we<had
not time to take in the sails or to fastcn
the matches. You may know that the
bottom of the Atlantic is strewn with
the ghastly work cf cyclones. Obi
they are cruel winds. They have hot
breath, as though they came up from
internal furnaces. Their merriment
is the cry of affrichted passengers.