News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-08-01

L think men also are often hindered from
return by the fact that churches are too anx
1ous about their membership and too anxiouI
ABOUT their denomination, and they rush on
When they see a man about to give up biz
sin and return to God, and ask him how he il
going to be baptized, whether BY sprinkline
or by immersion, and what kind of a church
he Is going to join. Oh, my friends 1t is q
poor time to talk about Presbyterian cate.
Ghlsms, and Episcopal liturgies, and Metho-
dlst ioVe-feasts, and baptisteries to O man
that Is coming out Of the darkness of sin into
the glorious light Of the Gospel. Why, It
reminds US OF a man drowning in the SEQ, and
a I1eooat puts out for him, inc the man in
the boat says to the man out of the
boat; Now, if ! get you ashore,
are you going to live In my streetY'
First get him ashore, and then talk about the
no~n-essentials of religion. Who cares what
church he joins, if he only joins Christ and
starts for heaven? Oh, you ought to have,
ny brother. an illumined face, and a
nearly grip for every one that tries to turn
book with him, though his designations shake
the book, remembering that he that con-
yerteth a sinner from the error of his ways
shall save a soul from death, and hide q
multitude of sins.
Now, 1 have shown you these OBJ
stacles because / want you to under
stand I know all the difficulties in tho
way; but 1 am now to tell you how
Hannibal may scale the Alps and how
the shackles may be unriveted and
how the paths of virtue forsaken may be re-
gained; First of all, my brother, throw
yourself on God. Go to Him, frankly and
earnestly, and tell Him these habits you
have, and ask Him, if there is any help in all
the of ~omnipotent love, to give It
TO you. Do not go with a long rfgmaro1e
people call prayer, made up of ''ohs' and
"ahs" and forever and forever amensr' &c
to God and cry for help! help help and if
you cannot cry for help. just look and live.
remember in the war | was at AntietaIu,
and l went into the hospitals after the
battle, and said to a man, where
but held up his arm swollen and splintered.
| saw where he was hurt. The simple fact
is, when a man has a wounded soul, all he
has to do is to hold it up before a sympathetic
Lord and get it healed. 1t does not take
any long prayer. just hold up the wound.
Oh, it is no small thing when a man is nery-
GUS and weak and exhausted, coming from
his evil ways, to feel that God puts two ON
nipotent arms around about him and says:
Young man, l will stand by you'll The
mountains may depart and the hills be re-
moved, but will never fail you.h And then,
as the soul thinks the news Is too good to be
true, and cannot believe it, and looks UP in
God face, God lifts His right hand and takes
an oath, an affidavit, saying: "As I live,
saith the Lord God, / have no pleasurei in tho
OCdb VI hlAI nav ulcgus
Blessed be God for such q GOSPEL as thisI
"Cut the slices thin" said the wife to the
husband, ''or there will not be enough to go
all around for the children; cut the slices
thin" Blessed be God, there is a full loaf for
every one that wants it; bread enough and
to spare. No thin slices at the Lords table.
l remember when the Master Street hos
pltal, in Philadelphia, was opened during the
war, a telegram came saying: There will be
three hundred wounded men tonight; be
ready to take care of Them" and from my
church there went in some twenty or
thirty men and women to look aftcr
these Door wounded fellows. As the
came, some from one part of Il
land, some from another, no one askc
whether this man was from Oregon, or from,
Massachusetts,, or from Minnesota, or from
New York. There was a wounded soldier,
and the only question was how to take off TIE
rags most gently, and put on the bandage,
and administer the cordial. And when a
soul comes to God He does not ask where
yon came from or what your ancestry was.
Healing for all your wounds. Pardon for all
your guilt. Comfort for all your troubles.
Then, also, | counsel you, if you want to
get back, to quit all your bad associations.
One unholy intimacy will fill your soul with
moral distemper. In oil the ages OF the
church there has not been an instance where
u man kept one evil associate and was re-
formed. Among the fourteen hundred mill
ion of the race not one instance. Go home
to-day, open your desk, q K out letter paper,
stamp and envelope, and then write a letter
something like this:
my old companions: I start this day for
heaven. Until am persuaded you will join
me in this, farewell"
Then sign your name, and send the letter
with the first post. Give up your bad COM
panions, or give up heaven. It is not ten bad
companions that destroy a man, nor five bad
companions, nor three bad companions,
but one. What chance is there for
that young man l saw along the street,
aront of a grog shop, urging him to go in, he
resisting, violently resisting, until after a
while they forced him to go in? 1t was a
summer night and the door was left open,
and / saw the process. They held him fast,
and they put the cup to his lips, and they
forced down the strong drink. What chance
is there for such a young man?
l counsel you also seek Christian advice.
Every Christian man is bound to help you.
First of all, seek God; then seek Christian
counsel. Gather up all the energies OF body,
mind and soul, and appealing to Coo for
success, declare this day everlasting war
against all drinking habits, all gambling
practices, all houses of sin. H~alf-and-half
work will amount to nothing; it must be n
Waterloo. Shrink back now and you arc
lost. Push on and You are saved. A Spar
tcn general fell at the very moment of vic
tory, but he dipped his finger in his own
blood and wrote on u rock near which he was
dying, Sparta has conquered" Though
your struggle to get rid of sin may seem to
be almost a death struggle, you can dip your
finger in your own blood and write on the
Rock of Ages, Victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ"
Oh, what glorious news it would be for
some of these young men to send home to
their parents. They go to the postoffice
every day or two to see whether there are
any letters from you. How anxious they are
to hear.
Some one said to u Grecian general:
What vas the proudcst moment in your
life" He thought a moment, and said:
THE proudest moment of my life was when |
sent word home to my parents that l had
gained the victory.n And the proudest and
most brilliant moment in your life will be the
moment when you can send word to your pa
rents that you have conquered your evil habits
by the grace of God and become eternal victor.
Oh, despise not parental anxiety The time
will come when you viii have neither father
nor mother, and you will go around the place
where they used to watch you and find them
gone from tho house, and gone from the field,
and gone from the neighborhood. Cry
as loud for forgiveness as you may over the
mound in the churchyard, they will not
answer. Deadl Deadl And then you will
take out the white lock of hair that was cut
from your mothers brow just before they
buried her, and you will take the cane with
which your father used to walk, and you will
LINN GNiAd AALh VIZ 'hSA Nae0 -
had done just as they wanted you
to, and would give the world il
you had never thrust a pang through
their dear old hearts. God pity the poor
young man who has brought disgrace on his
fathers namel God pity the young man
who has broken his mothers hearth Better
if he had never been born-better if, in the
first hour of his life, instead of being laid
against the warm bosom of maternal
tenderness, he had been coffined and
sepulchered. There is no balm power
full enough TO neal the heart of one
who has brought parents to a sorrowful
dismal cemetery, rending the hair, and
mothcrP' Oh, that to-day by all the
memories of the past and by Ill the hopes
of the future, you would yield your heart TO
God. May your fathers God and your
mothers God be your God forever!
NOTHING has recently occurred more
startling han 2le unwilling of the
statue of Giordano Bruno at Rome.
This man was in the dungeons of the
Inquisition for seven years, and vas
then burned alive for heresy. Now,
after three centuries, the rulers of
with students and 80, 900 citi-
zens, march with great enthusiasm to
do honor to the martyr. The doctrine
taught by Bruno was singularly like
that to which science leads the ablest
thinkers of the present day-that of