The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1889-08-22

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Now, God says this Bible is to BIO a lamp TO
our feet and a lantern to our path, to guide
| Us through the midnight of this world to the
gates OF the celestial city. We take hold Of
SIN sharp criticism, 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 homel
| Then We do not read the Bible as we read
other books Weread it perhaps four or five
minutes just before we retire at night. We
are weary and sleepy, so somnolent we hardly
know which end Of the book is up. We drop
our eye, perhaps on the story of Sampson
and the foxes, or upon some genealogical tabl o
Important in its place, but stirring no more
religious emotion than the announcement
that somebody begat somebody else.
and he begat somebody else instead
Of opening tho book and saying: snow /
must read for my immortal life My eternal
destiny is involved In this book"
How little we use common sense In
prayer We say: ''Oh, Lord give me
this" and "Oh Lord, give me that" and
"Oh, Lord, give me something elso,n and We
do not expect to get, it, or getting it,
we do not know we have it. We have
no anxiety about 1t. We do not watch
and wait for its coming
to some other city for bill OF goods You
say: send mo by such express or by such
steamer. or by such rail train" Tho day ar
rives. You send your wagon to tho 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. Wowant thcm 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 depot or to
the express Office, or to the wharf, until you
get the goods.
In matters Of religion we arc not so wiso
as that, We ask certain things to be sent
from heaven. We do not know whether
they como or not. We have not any special
anxiety as to whether they come or not
We may get them and may not get them.
Instead of at o'clock in the morning
saying: ''Have | got that blessing y
at IL o'clock MONDAY, asking: Have
got that blessingw at 7 o'clock in
the evening saying: "Have 1 received that
pieading-begging, begging asking, asking
until you get Now, my brethren, is not
that common sense? If we ask thing from
God, who has sworn by His eternal throne
that lie will do that which We ask is it not
common sense that we should watch and
wait until we get it?
But remark again: We want more COM
mon 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 ex-
erclse the same tact, the same ingenuity, the
same stratagen, the same common sense in
the work of Christ that they do in worldly
things. Otherwise they would succeed in
this direction as well as they succeed
in the other. There are many men
who hcye IN arrogant way with
them, although they may not feel arrogant
Or they have patronizing way. They talk
to man of the world in O manner which
seems to say: Don't you wish you were as
good as ! ami Why, / have to look clear
down before l can see you, you are so far
beneath mo.n That mariner always dis
gusts always drives men awey from the
kingdom of Jesus Christ instead Of
bringing them in. When / was a
lad l was one day in village store, and
there was large group Of young mCn there
full of rollicking and finn, ard Christian
man came in, and without any Introduction
of the subject, and while there were in great
hilarity, said to one of them: George what
is the first step of wisdomw George looked
up and said: Every man to mind his own
business We'll, it was very rough answer,
hurled in there ds though it were a bomb
shell. We must be adroit in the presenta-
ton of religion to tho world.
Do you suppose that Mary in her CONVEX
sation with Christ lost her simplicity? or
that Paul, laundering from Mars Hill took
the pulpit toner Why is it people cannot
talk as naturally in prayer meeting and on
religious subjects as they do in worldly
circles? For no one ever succeeds in any
kind of Christian work unless he works
naturally. We want to initiate tho Lord
Jesus Christ, who pluckcd poem from the
+ grass of the field. We all want to
initiate Him who talked with
farmers about The man who went
forth to sow. and talked with the fisher.
men about the drawn net that bronght in
fish of all sorts and talked with the vina
dresser about the idler in tho vineyard and
taiTed viii, tbose newly o;nnced 9hout tho tho
marriage simmer and talked with Tia man
cramped in money matters about the tive
dahtdpe o,,d tnI1.o3 .;tS H. 'uouU sae wv
tbe vesst tbot "' Nv ane T i aouS
talked WITH the Shenherd about tbo iost Shoe,,
nh we n,;abt ootp,. go 4ho ataus 81 ~
CIV and t,,ist TO-, i'll, $50, uo =, t to
oarland of Jesns We ,,ns+ ,,l, a,,at ~ S9
70 H;Ntbo rveslth Of ionoana a. t. vm1es
ness of sentin,ent ,ba daiicaen' s"p
s,,rf IF tba tnsS;ro coz tha L,rstrl, ~.
onns Of tbs stnsm Ts Observation-Disclosures ID 'nul Wes
s sra,,y, sto ". ,,,st n,+ Jnnn ~ Hi,
bai;ct,o,,a ,,,,s. fh,aa,ha He ,.a;sn' 49,
IT,, ~ a. l,,,n. sI',,,nr ,,,,,st T,,i, ~
iory, AZ ali In tho traa hranoSos nf +bo forasi
b ,n tpo;r u,,'s;o IN tha erro, , 81,
Which shaII ,vo ~, 1o ru
Now, all this being so, what is the common
sense thing for you and for me to do? What
we do l think will depend upon three great
facts. The first fact that sin has ruined us.
1t has blasted body, mind and soul.
We want no Bible to prove that we are
sinners. Any man who is not willing
to acknowledge himself an imperfect
and a sinful being is simply fool and not to
he argued with. We all feel that sin has dis
orpanized orr entire nature That is one
fast. Another fact is that Christ came to
reconstruct To restore TO revise TO correct.
to redeem. That is a second fact The
third fact is that the only time we are sure
Christ will pardon us is the pres
ent. Now, what is the common sense thing
for us to do in view of these three facts?
You will oil agree with me to quit sin. take
Christ and take Him now. SUPPOSE some
business man in whose skill YOU had perfect
confidence should tell you that tomorrow
(Mondayl morning between II and IL o'clock
you could by certain financial trans
action make five thousand dollars but
that on Tuesday perhaps you might
make it, but there would not be any posi-
tiveness about it, and on Wednesday there
would not be so much, and Thursday less,
Friday less, and so on, less and less-when
would you attend to the matter? Why, your
common sense would dictate: Immediately: