The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-06-19

4CU US SSh OUISS1h SS IIlo QUSoI4O1A
Where do we stand? Whatare our deficits
What are our perilss What our hopes
Let each one say to himself: "Where will
I bes Shall range in summery fields, OF
grind in the mills of great nights Where
Where!
Some winter morning you go out and see
q snow bank in graceful drifts, as though
by some heavenly compass it had beer
curved; and as the sun glints it the lustre
IS almost insufferable, and it seems as if Goo
had wrapped the earth in a shroud with
white plaits woven in looms celestial. AND
you say: "Was there ever any thing sc
pure as the snow, so beautiful as the snow?'
But you brought a pail of that snow and pu'
it upon the stove and melted 1t; and you
found that there was a sediment at the bot
tom, and every drop Of that snow waite,
was riled; and you found that the snow
bank had gathered up the impurity Of the
field, and after all it was not fit to wash in.
And so say it will be if you try to gather
up these contrasts and comparisons with
others, and with these apologies attempt to
wash out the sins Of you heart and life. II
vii, be an unsuccessful ablutioD. Such
snow water will never wash away single
stain Of immortal soul.
But I hear some one say: II will try
something better than that. Twill try the
force of good resolu ton. Yhatwill be more
pungent, more caustic, more eXurpatlng,
more cleansing. The snow water has failed,
and now I will try the alkali of the good,
strong resolution" Ny dear brother, have
YOU any idea that resolution about the
future will iQui6ate the past? Suppose
owed you five thousand dollars and should
come to you to morrow and say: ''Sir, Twill
never run in debt to you again; if should
live thirty years, I will never run in debt to
you again. will you turn to me and say
Ifyou will not run in debt in the future, !
will forgive you the five thousand dollars" "
VIII you do that? No! Nor will God.
We have been running up long
score of Indebtedness with God. If for the
future we should abstain from sin, that
would be no defraymcnt Of past indebted
ness. Though you should live from this
time forth pure as an archangel before the
throne. that would not redeem the past.
God, in the Bible, distinctly declares that
He ''will require that which is pasT'-past
opportunities, past neSlects, past wicked
words, past impure imaginatlons, past
every thing. The past is great cemetery,
and every day is buried in it. And here is
long row of three hundred and sixty-five
graves. They are the dead days Of 1885.
Here is g long row Of three hundred and
sixty-fve more graves. and they are the
dead days of 1887. And here is long row
Of three hundred and siyty-tive more graves,
and they are the dead days of 1887. 1t is a
vast cemetery Of the past. But God will
rouse them all up with resurrectionary
blast, and as the prisoner stands face oface
with the juror ard judge, so you and will
have to.come up and look upon those de-
parted days face to face, eXultiug in their
smile or covering IN their frown.
Murder will ouH is proverb that stops
too short. Every si&, however small, as well
as great, Will out In hard times in En-
gland, years ago, it is authentically stated
that manufacturer was Gp the way, with
bag of money-to pay OIL Il sAahaiNds. a man
sfss;s fs;s:;ssfaeeed with hunger met him on the road
and took rail with a hail in it from apaling
fence and struck him down, and the nail en-
tering the skull instantly slew him. Thirty
years after that the murderer went back to
that place. He passed into the graveyard,
where the sexton was digging a grave,
aud while he stood there the spade
Of the sexton turned up skull,
and, 10! the murderer saw q nail
protruding from the back part of the skull,
it seemed with hollow eyes to glare on the
~S1rderer; and IL, frs. ssis57d 9 with hCe-
.'5 Or; stood rheseia in sileT9e, O1S soon cried
out, s'Guilty! guilty! o Cod" The mys-
tery Of the crime was over. The man was
trie6.and executed. Ny friends, all the un-
,ardoned sins of our lives, though we may
think they are buried out Of sight and gone
into mere skeleton of memory, will turn
up in the cemetery of the past and glover
upon US in their misdoings. I say all our
unpardoned sins. o, have you done the
thing Of supposing that good
resolutions for the future will wipe out the
pasta Good resolutions, though they might
be pungent and caustic as alkah, have nc
power to neutralize sin, have no power tc
wash away transgresslon. 1t wants
something more thar earthly chemistry to
do this. Yea, yea, though Il wash myself
with snow water, and should cleanse my
hands in alkaii. yet shalt though plunge me
in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall ab-
nor me''
You sec from the last part of this text
that Jobs idea of sin was very different
from that Of Eugene Sue, or George Sand
or N. J. Michelet, orany of the hundreds o.
writers who have done up iniQuity in nez
zotint, and garlanded the wine cup with
elegantine and rosemary, and made the patti
of the libertine end in bowers of ease IN
stead of on the hot Tagging Of eternal tor.
ture. You see that Job thinks that sin IL
not howery parterre; that it is not table
land of fine prospects; that it is not music
dulcimer, violoncello, castanet and Pandear
pipes, all making music together. No. He
SAYS it is a ditch, long. deep, loathsome
stenchful, and we are all plunged into It,,
and there we wallow, and sink, and strug'
gle, not able to get out Our robes Of pro
priety and robes Of worldly profession are
saturated-in the slime and abomination, anc
our soul, covered over with transgression.
hates its covering, and the covering hates
the soul, until we are plunged intothe ditch,
and our own clothes abhor US.
know that some modern religionists carl.
cature sorrow for sin, and they make out
an easier path than the pilgrims progress
that John Bunyan dreamed Of. The road
they travel does not stop where Johns did:
at the city of Destruction, but at the gate OF
the university; and am very certain that
it will not come out where Johns s.did, unde.
the shining rampant Of the celestial city.
No repentance, no pardon. # you do not,
nv brother, feel that you are down in the
ditch, what do you want of Christ to
lift you out? If you have no apprecia'
ton of the fact that You are astray, what
do YOU want of Him who came to seek
and save that which was lost? Yonder
is the City Of Paris, the swiftest Of
the Inmans, coming across the Atlantic.
The wind is abaft. so that she has not only
her engines at work, but all sails up. am
on board the Umbria, CT the Cunard line.
The boat davits are swung around. The boat
is lowered. get into it with red flag, and
cross over 70 where the City Of Paris is COM
ing, and wave the flag. The captain looks
of from the bridge and says: "What doyou
wan:s" reply: II come 10 take some OF
your passengers across to the othervessel;I
think they will be safer and happier there"
The Captain would look down with lndigna-
ton and say: 'Get out of the way, Or l
will run you down" And then | would
hn ~