The Russellville Democrat., 1889-06-06

1
| 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. Per-
| haps in the future, when our fortunes
may change, unless God prevents it, we
may be worse than they are. Many a
man after thirty years, after forty years,
after fifty years, after sixty years, has
| gone to pieces on the saudbars. Oh in
stead of wasting our time in hyper
| criticism about others, let us ask our
selves the questions: Where do we standi
| What are our sins What are our de-
fcits? What are our perils? What our
| hopes? Let each one say to himself:
'Where will be? Shall / range in sum-
merry fields, or grind in the mills of a
great night? Where? Where"
Some winter morning you go ont and
see snow bank in graceful drifts, as
though by some heavenly compass 1t had
been curved; and as the sun glints it the
lyeter is almost insufferabfe, and it seems
as Il 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
pail of tAat snow and put it upon the
stove and melted it; and you found that
there was sediment at the bottom; and
every drop of That snow water was riled;
and you found that the snow bank had
gathered up the impu1ity OF the field, and
that after all it was net fit to wash in.
And SO say it will be if ysu 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 abiution.
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. l will try
the force of good resolution. That will
be more pungent, more caustic. more e1-
tirpating, 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
a resolution about the future will liqui-
date the past' Suppose owed you five
thousand dollars and / should come to
you tomorrow and say: 'fSir, will never
run in debt to you ag ain; 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 doll
lars" Will you do that? MOI 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 will 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 1t. And here is long row of three
hundred and sixty five graves. They are
the dead days of 1888. Here is long row
Of three hundred and sixty-fiye more
graves, and they are the dead days of
1887. And there is a long row Of three
hundred and sixty-fve 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
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 a proverb that
stops too shot Every sin, however small,
as well as great will out. In hard times
in England, years ago, it is authentically
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
a nail in 1t from the paling fence and
struck him down, aud 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 sexton was digging
grave, and while he stood there the spade
of the sexton turned up skull; and, 10
the murderer saw nail protruding from
the back part of the skull; and, as the
sexton turned the skull it seemed with
hollow eyes to glare on the mur-
derer, and he, first petrihed with
horror, stood in silence, but soon cried
out; "Guiltyl guiltyl 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
lnisdoings. | say all our unpardoned
sins. oh, have you done the preposter-
GUS thing of supposing that good resolu-
tions for the future win wipe out the
past? Good resolutions, though they
may be pungent and caustic as alkali,
have no power TO neutralize q sin, have
no power to wash away a transgression.
1t wants something more than earthly
chemistry to do this. Yea, yea, though 81
wash myself with snow water, aud should
| cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt |
Thou plunge me In the ditch, and nine
own clothes shall abhor mo-"
You see from the last part of this text |
that Jobs idea of sin was very different |
from that of Eugene Sue, or George Sand, |
or Nj. J. Michelet, or any of the hundreds |
OF writer's who have done up iniquity in
mezzo-tint and garlanded the wine cup
with eglantine and rosemary and made |
the path of the libertine end in bowers of
ease instead of on the hot tagging of |
eternal torture. You see that Job thinks |
that sin is not iowery parterre that 1. |
is not tableland of fine prospects; that
it is not music, dulcimer, violoncello,
castanet and Pandean pipes, all making
music together. No. He says ID is a
ditch, long, deep, loathsome, stenchful,
and we are all plunged into 1t, and there
we wallow and sink and struggle, not
able to get out. Our robes of propriety |
and robes of worldly profession are |
saturated in the slime and abomination, |
aud our soul, covered over with trans
gression, hates its covering, aud the cov-
ering hates the soul until we are plunged |
into the ditch, and our own clothes abhor
us.
know that some modern religionists |
earicature sorrow for sin, aud they make
out an easier path than the "pilgrim's |
progress" that John Buuyan dreamed OF. |
The road they travel does not stop where
JOINTS did, at the city of Destruction, but
at the gate Of the university, and 1 am
very certain that it will not come out
whore Johns did, under the shining ram
parts OF the Celestial City. No repent
auHa no pafdnn !.