News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-04-18


come in and drive the stake for their en-
campment.
A steamer 1900 miles from shore with
broken rudder and lost compass and hulk
leaking fifty gallons the hour, is better off
than a young man when you have robbed
him of his Bible Have you ever noticed how
deSpicably mean it is to take away the worlds
Bible without proposing a substitute? 1t Is
meaner than to come to sick man and steal
his medicine, meaner than to come to d
cripple and steal his crutch meaneT than to
come to paupar and steal his crust, meaner
than to come to poor man and burn his house
down 1t is the worst of all larcenieS to steal
the Bible, which has been the crutch and
medicine and food and eternal home to so
many! w hat a generous and magnanlmous
business infidelity has gone into? This spIlt-
ting up of life boats and taking away of ire
escapes and extinguishing of lighthouses;
I come out and say to such people: What
are Won doing all this fOr?" ''Oh," they say,
lust for fun 1t is such fun TO see
Christians try to hold on to their Bibles!
Many of them have lost loved ones, and have
been told that there is q resurrection, ana IL
is such fun TO tell them there Will he
no resurrection Many of them have
believed that Christ came to carry the
burdens and to heal the wounds of the world,
and it is such fun to tell them they will have
to be their own saviour Think of tho
meanest thing you ever heard of; then go
down thousand feet underneath it, and you
viii find yourself at the top of stairs hun
dred miles long; go to the bottom of the
stairs, and you will find ladder a
thousand miles long; then go to the
foes6 of the ladder and look off Drecl-
pice half as far as from here to China, and
You viii find the headquarters of the mean
ness that would rob this world of its only
coznfort in life, its only peace in death and
its Only hope for Immortality. Slaughter
Young mans faith in God and there is not
much more left TO slaughter.
Now what has become of the slaughtered?
Well some Of them are in their fathers or
mothers house broken down i'll health, wait
ing to die; others arc in the hospital; others
are in Greenwood, or, rather, their bodies are,
for their souls have gone on tC rctribution Not
much prospect for young man who started
life with good health, and good education,
and a Christian example set him, and oppOr-
tUmity of usefulness, who gathered all his
treasures and put them in one box, and then
dropped it into the sea.
Row, how is this wholesale slaughter to be
stopped There is not person in the house
but is interested in that question. Young
man, arm yourself. The object of my SER
mon is to put weapon in each of your hands
for your own defense. Wait not for Young
Mems Christian Associations to protect you,
or churches to protect you. Appealing to
God for help, take care of yourself.
First, have a room somewhere that you can
call your own. Whether it he the back par
lor of fashionable boarding house, or
room in the fourth story of a cheap lodging,
| care not. Only have that one room your
fortress. Let not the diSsipator or unclean
step over the threshold. If they come
up the long fight of stairs and
knock at the door, meet them face to face
and kindly yet firmly refuse them admit
tance. Have few family portraits on the
wall, if You brought them with You from
your country homo. Have a Bible on the
stand. If you can afford it and you play on
one have an instrument of muSic-harp or
flute, or coi'net, or melodcOn, or violin
or piano. Every morning before you
leave that room, pray. Every night after
that room your Gibraltar your Sebastapol
your Mount Zion. Let no bad book or news
paper come INTO that room, any more than
YOU would allow cobra to coil on your table.
Take care of yourself. Nobody else will take
care of you. Your help will not come up two
or three or four flights of stairs; your help
will come through the roof down from
heaven, from that God who in the six thou
sand years On the worlds history never
BETRAYED a yc<tng man who tried to be
good and Christian. Let me say i'll regard
to your adverse worldly circumstances, in
passing, that you are on level now with
those who are finally TO succeed. Mark my
words young man, and think of it thirty
years from now. You will find that those
who thirty years from now are the million
r..
the country, who are the poets of the coun-
try, who are the strong merchants of the
country, who are the great philanthropistS of
the colIntry-mghtest in church and State
are this morning on level with you, not an
inch above, and you in straitened circum-
stances now.
Herschel earned his living by playing a
violin at parties, and in the iutersticeS of the
play he would go out and look up at the mid
night heavens, the fields of his immortal
A.,
being the foreman III a colliery to be the
most renowned of the worlds engineers. No
outfit, capital to start with Young man,
20 down to the Mercantile Library and get
some books andread Of what wonderful mech
anism God gave you in your hand, in your
foot, in your eye, in your ear, and then ask
some doctor to take YOU into the dis
secting room and Illustrate to you what
YOU have read about. and never
again commit the biasphemy of saying you
have no capital to start with. Equipped!
Why, the poorest young man in this house is
equipped as only the God of the whole uni
verse could afford to equip him. Then his
body-a very poor affair compared with his
wonderful soul-oh, that is what
makes me soEcitous. | am not so much
anxious about you, young man, because you
have 50 little to do with, as | am anxious
about you because you have much to risk
and lose or gain.
There Is no class of pers>As that so stir my
zympathies as young men in great cities. Not
quite enough salary to live on and all the
temptations that come from that deficit
Invited ON all hands TO drink, and their
exhausted nervous system seeming to dc
mand stimulus Their religion caricatured
by the most of the clerks in the store
and most of the operatives in the factory.
The rapids Of temptation ana death rushing
against that younS man forty miles the hour,
and he in a frail boat headed up stream
Int 70
Unless Almighty God help them they will
20 under.
An when l told you to take care of your
self you misunderstood me if You thought
meant you are to depend upon human rcsolu-
luton, which may be dissolved in the foam
the first gust Of temptation. Here is the
helmet, the sword of Lord God Al
mighty. Clothe yourself in that panoply and
you shall not be put to confusion. Sin pays
well neither in this world nor the next, but
right thinking and right believing and right
acting viii take you in safety through this
life and IN transport through the next.
never shall forget a prayer L heard n
young man make some fifteen years ago. 1t
was very short prayer, but it was tremend-
Gus prayer: ''Oh Lord help us. We find it
so very easy TO do wrong and so hard to do
right. Lord, helpus." That prayer, warrant
yen, reached the CIR Of God, and reached
His heart And there are in this house a
hundred men who have found out-a thou
sand young ncn perhaps, who have found
out that very thing. 1t is so very easy 20 do
wrong, and 50 hard 10 do right.
got letter, only one paragraph OF which
shall read: Having moved around some
what l have run across many young men of
intelligence, ardent strivCrs after that will-o'-
the wisp, fortune, and of one of these [ would
SPEAK lie WAS 4 young Englishman of
tTenty-thrcc or four years, who came to
New York, where he had acquaintance,
with barely sufficient to keep him
couple of weeks. He had
been tcndcrly reared; perhaps l should
say too tenderly, and was not used to earning
his living, ard found il extremely difficult 10
get any position that lie was capable of fill
ing. After many vain efforts in this dircc-
ton hc found himself on Sunday evening i'll
Brooklyn, near your church, with about
three dollars left of his small capital. Provi-
dencc seemed to lead him TO your door. and
he determined to go in and hear you.
He told me his going to hsa~ You that
night was undoubtedly the turning point in
his life, for when he went into your church
he felt desperate, but while listening TO your
discourse his better natu.1 got the mastery
l truly believe from what this young man
told Inc that your sounding the depths of his
heart that night alone brought him back TO
his God whom he was SO near having
The echo, that is, of multitud-s in the
mouse am not preaching an abstraction,
but a great reality. Oh! friendless young
man. OH prodigal young man, Oh broken
hearted young man, discouraged young man.
wounded young man, / commend you to
Christ this day, the best friend a man
ever had. He meets you this
morning. You have come here for
this blessing. Despisc not that emotion ris-
ing ip your soul; it is diyins'y lifted Look
into the face of Christ. Lis one prayer to
your tatherS God, to your mothers God and
get the pardOning blessing Now, while ]
ems Il,