The Russellville Democrat., 1889-08-15

| 1t is this moment a matter of free choice whether you will accept Christ or reject Him.
 l In all the army of banners there is not one conscript Men are not to be dra- | gooned into Heaven. Among all the tens | of thousands of the Lords soldiery there
 is not one man but will tell you: q chose l Christ; wanted Him; 1 desired to be in His service; am not conscript--I am Q volunteer" Oh. that men had the same common sense in the matters of religion
 that they have in the matters of the world
 the same concentration, the same push,
 the same enthusiasm In the one case a secular enthusiasm; in the other, Q con- secrated enthusiasm.
 Again 1 remark: We want more com
 mon sense in the building up and enlarg-
 ing of our Christian character. There are
 men here who have for forty years been running the Christian race, and they have net run a quarter of milel No business man would be willing to have his invest ments unaccumulatiye. If you invest dollar you expect that dollar to come home bringing another dollar on it's back.
 What would you think of q man who should invest ten thousand dollars in a monetary institution, then go off for five years, make no inquiry in regard to the investment, then come back, step up to the cashier of the institution, and say:
 Have you kept those ten thou sand dollars safely that I lodged with you" but asking no ques ton about interest or dividend. Why. you say, 'That is not common sense." Neither is it, but that is the way we act in matters of the soul. We make far rfa inv tap thousand dollars. We invest our soul. Is it accumulatiye? Are we growing in grace? Are we getting better? Are we getting worse2 God declares many divi- dends, but we do not collect .hem, we do not ask about them. we do not want them. Oh, that in this matter of accumulation we are as wise in the matters of the soul as we are in the matters of the worldl
 How little common sense in the read ing of the Scriptures We get any other book and we open it and we say: 'Now, what does this book mean to teach me? It is book on astronomy; it will teach me astronomy. It is book on political economy; it will teach mo political economy" Taking up the Bible, do we ask ourselves what it means to teachS It means to do just one thing: get the world converted and get us all to Heaven. That is what it proposes to do. But in- stead Of that we go into the Bible as botanists to pick flowers, or we go as pugilists to get something to fight other Christians with, or we go as logicians trying to sharpen our mental faculties for 6 better argument, and we do not like this about the Bible, and we do not like that and we do not like the other thing. What would you think of a man lost on the mountains? Night has come down, he can not find his way home and he sees light in a mountain cabin; he goes to it. he knocks at the door; the mount aineer comes out and finds the traveller and says:
 ''Well, here have lantern; you can take it and it will guide you on the way home," and suppose that man should say: q don't like that lantern; I don't like the handle of it; there arc ten or fifteen things about it don't like. If you can't give me better lantern than that I won't have any"
 Now, God says this Bible is to be a lamp to our feet and q lantern to our path, to guide us through the midnight of this world to the gates of the celestial city. We take hold of it in sharp criti- cisnl, and deprecate this and deprecate that. Oh, how much wiser we would be if by its holy light we found our way to our everlasting home!
 Then we do not read the Bible as we read other books. We read perhaps four or five minutes just before VIC retire at night We are weary and sleepy, so somnolent we hardly know which end of the Book is up. We drop our eyes, per- haps, on the story of Samson and the foxes or upon some genealogical table, important in it's place, but stirring no more religious emotion than the an- nouncement that somebody begat some- body else, and he begat somebody else, instead of opening the Book and saying:
 'Now 1 must read for my immortal life. My eternal destiny is involved in this Book"
 How little we use common sense in prayeri We say: 'Oh, Lord, give mo this," and "Oh, Lord, give me that" and "Oh, Lord, give me something else," and we do not expect to get 1t, or, getting it, we do not know we have it. We have no anxiety about it. We do not watch aud wait for it's coming. As merchant you telegraph or you write to some other city for bill of goods. You say; Send me by such express, or by steamer, or by 
 send your wagon to the depot or to the wharf. The goods do not come. You immediately telegraph:
 "What is the matter with those goods? We haven't received them. Send them right away. We want them now, or we don't want them at all." And you keep writing and you keep telegraphing, and you keep sending your wagon to the nr fp ba of n la wharf, until you get the goods.
 In matters of religion we are not so wise as that We ask certain things to be sent from Heaven. We do not know whether they come or not. We have not any special anxiety as to whether they come Ornot. We may get them and may D ot get them. Instead of at seven o'clock il, the morning saying: Have l got that blessing?" at twelve o'clock monday saying: Have 1 got that blessing?" at seven o'clock in the evening saying; "Have 1 received that blessingp' and not getting it, pleading, pleading-begging, begging-asking, asking until you get it. Now, my brethren, is not that common sense? If VIC ask thing from God who has sworn by His eternal throne that He will do that which VIC ask is it not oom- mon sense that we should watch and wait until we get it?
 But I remark again: We want more common sense in doing good. How many people there are who want to do good and yet are dead failures? Why is it? They do not exercise the same tact, the same ingenuity, the same stratagem, the same common sense in the work of Christ that they do in worldly things. Other wise they would succeed in this direction as well as they succeed in the other. There are many men who have an arro- gant way with them, although they may not feel arrogant Or they have pat
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