Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-01-19

Kind, although you saouid sleep OF down
OF swan, or ride in carriages OF softest
upholstery, or have Oh your tGble M the
Injuries that were poured from the wine
watts Of Ispahan and Shiraz. Our religion
says: Away TO the bank! away 10 the
field, away to the shop! away to the
factory do something that viii enlist all
the energies Of your body, mind and
soul "Diligenl in business, feryent in
spirit, serving the Lord" while upon the
bare back of the idler and the dronc
comes down the sharp lash Of the apostle
as he says: IF any man will not work,
neither shall he eat"
Oh, how important in this day, when
SO much is said about anatomy and physi-
olOgy and therapeutics II some new
style of medicine is ever and anon spring
ing upon the would, that you should
understand that the highest school If
medicine is the school of Christ. which
declares teat Goodness is profitable unto
all things, having the promise Of the life
that now is as well as Of that which is TO
come" SO if you start out two men in
the world with equal physical health, and
then one Of them shall get the religion of
the Lord Jesus Christ in his heart, and
the other shall not get it, the one who
becomes a son Of the Lord Almighty will
live the longer. with long life will /
satisfy thee, and show thee my saliva
ton
Again remark that Goodness is good
for the intellect | know that some have
supposed that just as soon as a man
enters into the Christian life, his
intellect goes into a bedwarling process.
So far from that, religion will give new
bri.liancy to the intellect, new strength
to the imagination, new force to the will
and wider swing to all the intellectual
faculties. Christianity is the great cen
tral fire at which philosophy has lighted
its brightest torch. The religion of the
Lord Jesus Christ is the fountain out Of
which learning has dipped IFS dearest
draught. The Helicon pOurs forth no
SUCH inspiring waters as those which flow
from under the throne OF God, clear rs
crystal. Religion has given new energy
10 pCesy, weeping III DR.. IOuhg's might
Thoughts, teaching n Cowper's Task"
flaming in Charles Wesley's hymns, and
rushing with archangeiic spiendort through
Milton's Paradise Lost" The religion
Of Jesus Christ has hung in studio and in
gallery OF art and in Vatican, the best
pictures - Titian's Assumption, Ra-
phaei's TRANSPORTATION, Rubcns' De
scent From the Cross Claude's Burn
ing Bush and Augclo's Last Judg-
mcrt. Religion has made the best
music of the ~orld-IIaydn's 'Crration.'
Handei's Messiah" Mozart's Re.
QUEEN Is il possible that a religion
which builds such indestructible monu-
ments, and which lifts its ensign on the
highest ~promontories of worldly power,
can have any effect upon Ii mans intel
lect but elevation and enlargement? Now,
i commend GOdliness as the best mental
discipline better than bellies lettres to
purify the taste, better than mathematics
to harness the mind to all intricacy and
elaboration, better than logic to marshal
the intellectual forces for onset and vic
tory. 1t will go with Hugh Miller and
show him the footprints of the Creator
IN the red sandstone. 1t will 60 with the
botanist and show him celestial glorics
encamped under the curtain of a water
lily. 1t will go with the astronomer on
the great heights where God shepherds
the great flock of worlds, that wander on
the hills Of heaven, answering His voice
as Tie calls them all by their names.
Again ! remark that Goodness is profit
able for ones disposition. Lord Ashley,
before he went into a great battle. was
heard to offer this prayer: 20 Lord, |
shall be very busy today; if ! forget
Thee, forget me not" With such a
Christian disposition as that, a man is in
dependent Of all circumstances. Our
piety will have a tinge Of our natural
temperament. If a man be cross and
sour and fretful naturally, after he be-
comes a Christian he will always have TO
be armed against the rebellion Of those
evil inclinations; but religion has tanned
the widest nature; it has turned fretful-
ness into gratitude, dependency into
good cheer, and those who were hard
and ungovernable and uncompromising
have been made pliable and conciliatory.
Good resolution, reformatory effort, will
not effect the change. 1t takes a mightier
arm and a mightier hand to bend evil
habits than the hand that bent the bow
of Ulysses, and it takes "A stronger lasso
than ever held the buffalo on the prairie.
A man annot go forth with any human
weapons and Centcnd successfully against
these Tltans armed with uptorn mountain.
But you have known men into whose
spirit the influence of the Gospel Of
Christ came, until their disposition was
entirely changed. SO it was with two
merchants in New York. They were
very antagonistic. They had done all
they could 10 injure each other. They
were in the same line of business. One
Of the merchants was converted to God.
Having been converted, he asked the
Lord to teach him how 10 bear himself
toward that business antagonist, and he
was impressed with the fact that it was
his duty when IA customer asked for Ger
tain kinds of goods which he had not,
but which be knew his opponent had, to
recommend him To 20 10 that store. |
suppose that is about the hardest thing "A
man could do; but being thoroughly con
verted to God, he resolved to do that very
thing, and being asked for a certain kind
of goods which be had not he said:
You go to such and such a store and
you will get It," After a while, merchant
number two found these customers com-
ing SO sent. and he found also that mcr
chant number one had been brought To
God, and he sought the same religion.
Row they are good friends and good
neighbors, the grace of GOD entirely
changing their disposition.
Oh says some one, II have ar0ugh,
Jagged, impetuOus nature, and religion
can't do anything for me- Do you
know that Martin Luther and Robert
Newton and Richard Baxter were impet-