The Russellville Democrat., 1889-02-07
PRICE FIVE CENTS.


 scores have been brought to God through his instrumentality.
 l A little while after his conversion he
 was on ship of Cape Hatteras in thick
 and prolonged fog, and they were at their
 wits ends and knew not what to do, the ship drifting about hither and thither,
 and they lost their bearings; and the con
 verted sea captain went to his room and
 asked God for the salvation of his ship
 and God revealed it to him while he was | on his knees that at certain hour, only
 a little way off, the fog would lift; and the l converted sea captain came out on the 1 deck and told how God heard his prayer. 1 He said: ''It is all right, boys, very soon
 now the fog will lift" mentioning tho l hour. A man who stood there laughed aloud in derision at the idea that God
 would answer prayer; but just at the hour when God had assured the captain the fog would lift, there came flash of lightning | through the fog, and the man who had l iee-ed and laughed was stunned and fell t1
 the deck. The fog lifted. Wonder wal | Cape Hatteras lighthouse. The ship wa l put on the right course, and sailed on h
 the harbor of safety.
 When in seaport the captain spends most of his time in evangelical work. He
 kneels down by one who has been help | less in the bed for many months, and the
 next day he walks forth in the streets well. | He kneels beside one who has long been | decrepit and he resigns the crutches. He | kneels beside one who had not seen enough | to be able to read for ten years, and she | reads the Bible that day. Con sumptions | go away and those who had diseases that were appalling to behold come up to rapid 1 convalescence and to complete health. ] am not telling you any thizg second | handed. l have had the story from tho 1 lips of the patients in this very house, those who were brought to health of | body while at the same time brought to l God. No second hand story, this. have l heard the testimony from men and women l who have been cured. You may call 1t l faith cure, or you may call 1t the power of God coming down in answer to prayer; do not care what you call it, it is fact. The scohing sea captain, his heart full of 1 hatred for Christianity, now becomes follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, giving all the time to evangelical labors, or all the time hs can spare from other occupations. That is regeneration; that is regeneration. Man all made over again. ''There is your absurd doctrine of vi- carious sacrifice" say these men who have chewed up the little books of creeds and have the consequent embittered
 stomaelA .Vicarious sacrifice Let every
 man sU4T {1xs hiHlsaA6ksxlMl bat do want
 scoff at the fdea 5z vieef <N, while they admire it everywhefe e19e &x- eept in Christ. People see it's beauty when mother suffers for her child. Peo- pie see its beauty when a patriot suffers for his country. People see it's beauty
 when man denies himself for friend. They can see the beauty of vicarious sac- ridce in every one but Christ.
 A young lady in one of the literary in- stitntions was a teacher. She was very
 reticent and retired in her habits, and she
 formed no companionship in the new
 position she occupied, and her dress was
 very plain-sometimes it was very shab-
 by. After awhile she was discharged from the place for that reason, but no
 reason was given. In answer to the let
 ter discharging her from the position she
 said: 'Well, if have failed to please,
 suppose it is my own fault" She went
 here and there for employment but found
 none, and in desperation and dementin
 she ended her life by suicide. Investiga-
 ton was made and it was found that out
 of her small means she had supported her
 father, eighty years of age, and was paying the way for her brother in Yale College on
 his way to the ministry It was found that she had no blanket on the bed that win.
 ter, and she had no fire on the very coldest
 day of all the season. People found Il
 out, and there was large gathering at
 the funeral. the largest ever at any fu-
 neral in that place; and the very people
 who had scoffed came and looked upon the pale face of the martyr, and all honor
 was done her; but it was too late Vicari-
 ous sacrifice. All are thrilled with such
 instances as that. But many are not moved by the fact that Christ paid His
 poverty for our riches, His self-abnega-
 ton for our enthronement, and knelt on
 the sharp edges of humiliati on that we might climb over His lacerated shoulder
 into peace and Heaven.
 Be 1t ours to admire and adore these doctrines at which others jeer. Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearoha-
 ble is His wisdom, and His ways are past finding out. Oh, the height, the depth, the length the breadth, the infinity, the immensity, the eternity of that lovel Let
 our earnest prayers go out in behalf of all thess who scoff at these doctrines of grace. When the London plague was raging, in the year 1865, there was hotel near the chief burial place that excited much comment. England was ill fright and bereavement. The dead carts went through the streets day and night, and the cry: Bring out ths deadp' was an-
 swered by the bringing out of the forms of the loved ones, and they were put twenty or thirty in a cart, and the wagons went on to the cemetery, and these dead taI 4st hfit n trenches in great pits, in one pit eleven hundred and fourteen burials. The carts would come up with their great burden of twenty or thirty to the mouth of the pit, and the front of the cart was lifted and the dead shot into the pit All the churches
 in London were open for prayer day and night and EnglaLd was in great an- guish At that very time, at hotel, at a wayside inn near the chief burial place, there was a group of hard ened n1en, who sat day after day and night after night blaspheming God and im- itating the grief struck who went by to the burial place These men sat there day after day and night after night, and
 they scoffed at men, and they scofed al God But after awhile one of them was
 struck with the plague, and in two weeks
 all of the group were down in the trench,
 from the margin of which they had ut-
 tered their ribaldry My friends, s
 greater plague is abroad in the world.
 Millions have died of it. Millions are
 smitten with it now. Plague of sin,
 plague of sorrow, plague of wretched.
 ness, plague Of woe. And consecrated
 women and men from all Christendom arc going out trying to stay the plague and al- leyiate the anguish, and there is group of men in this country base enough to sit and deride the work. They soon at the Bible. and they scofI at evangelism, and thev scoff at Jesus Christ, and they i soosf at God. if these words shall reach | them. either while they are sitting here to-dav or through the printing press, let
 me tell them to remember the fate of that -. l.. tl,..- ...n,..IlIe inn Nphiln the nlnQne