Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-11-30

WAsh tSD~SO0 AA6EAhS lOo tIACh
TO get into harbor, did they hold for
you q plank or throw you a rope?
Not one. Satan has got thousands of
men into trouble, but he never got one
out. He led them into theft, but he
defendant. The spider shows the fly
the way Over the gossamer bridge into
the cobweb; but It never shows the fly
gossamer bridge. l think that there
were plenty OF fast young men TO help
the prodigal spend his money; but when
he had wasted his substance in riotous
living, they let him go to the swine
pastures, while they betook themselves
TO some other new conner. They who
take Paul out OF Fair Ravens will be of
no help TO him when he gets into the
breakers of Melita.
/ remark again, as a lesson learned
from the text, that il is dangerous to re-
fuse the counsel of competent advisers.
Paul told them not to go out with that
ship. They thought he knew nothing
about it. They said: "He is only a
minister" They went, and the ship
was destroyed. There are a great many
people who now say of ministers: They
know nothing about the world. They
cannot talk to usi" All, my friends, 1t
is not necessary TO have the Asiatic
cholera before you can give 1t medical
treatment in others. 1t is not necessary
to have your own arm broken before you
can know hog to splinter q fracture.
And we who stand in the pulpit, and in the
Office Of a Christian teacher, know that
there are certain styles of belief and
certain kinds of behavior that will lead
to destruction as certainly as Paul knew
that if that ship went out of Fair Ravens
it would go to destruction. Rejoice, o
young man, in thy youth; and let thy
heart cheer thee in the days of thy
youth; but know thou that for all these
things God will bring thee into judg-
ment." We may not know much, but
we know that.
Young people refuse the advice Of
parents. They say: Father Is over
suspicious, and mother is getting old"
But those parents have been on the sea
of life. They know where the storms
sleep, and during their voyage have seen
a thousand battered hulks making the
place where beauty burned and intel
lect foundered, and morality sank. They
are old sailors, having answered many a
signal of distress, and endured great
stress of weather, and gone scudding
under bare poles; and the old folks
know what they are talking about.
Look at that man-in his cheek the
glow of internal fires. His eye flashes
not as once with thought, but with low
passion. His brain Is a sewer through
which impurity floats, and his heart q
trough in which lust wallows and drinks.
Men shudder as the leper passes, and
parents cry, "Wolfl wolff" Yet be once
said the Lords prayer at his mothers
knee, and against that iniquitous brow
once pressed a pure mothers lip. But
he refused her counsel. He went where
euroclydons have their lair. He found
cred on the sea, while all hell echoed at
the roar of the wreck: Lost Pacifics!
Lost Paciflcsl
Another lesson from the subject is
that Christians are always safe.
There did not seem to be much chance
for Paul getting out OF that shipwreck,
did there? They had not, in those days,
rockets with which to throw ropes over
laundering vessels. Their lifeboats
were of but little worth. And yet, not
withstanding all the danger, my text
says that Paul escaped safe 90 land.
And so it will always be with Gods
children. They may be plunged into
darkness and trouble, but by the throne
of the eternal God, l assert it, ''they
shall all escape safe TO land"
Sometimes there comes a storm Of
commercial disaster. The cables break.
The masts fall. The cargoes are scat
tered over the seas. Oh! what strug-
CLING and leaping on kegs and hogs
heads and eornbins and store shelves!
And yet though they may have it so
very hard in commercial circles, the
good, trusting in God, all come safe 70
land.
Wreckers go out on the oceans
beach and find the shattered hulks Of
vessels; and on the streets Of our great
cities there is many a wreck. Mainsail
slit with bankers pen. Hulks abeam's
end on insurance counters. Vast cred
its sinking, having suddenly sprung q
leak. Yet all of them who are Gods
children shall at last, through his good
ness and amercy, escape safe to- land.
The Scandinavian warriors used to
drink wine out Of the skulls of the enc
mics they had slain. Even so God will
help US, out of the conquered ills and
disasters of life, Il drink sweetness and
strength for our souls.
You have, my friends. had illustra-
tions, in your own life. of how God de-
livers his reople. I have had iuustra-
tions in my own life of the same truth.
I was once in what on your Mediterran-
can you call a euroclydon. but what on
the Atlantic we cali a cyclone, but the
same storm. The steamer Greece of
the National line, swung but into the
river Mersey, at Liverpool, bound for
New York. We had on beard 700, crew
and passengers. We came together
strangers-Italians, Irishmen. English
men, Swedes, Norwegians, Americans.
Two flags floated from the mAsts-Brit-
Iish and American ensigns- We had =
new vessel, or one 50 thoroughly re-
modelled that the voyage had around 1t
all the uncertainties OF . trial trip. The
great steamer felt its way cautiously
out into the sea. The pilot was dis
charged; and, committing ourselves to
the care of him who holdeth the winds
in his fist, we were fairly started on
our voyage Of 5000 miles 1t was rough
nearly all the way-the sea with strong
buffeting disputing our path. But one
night, at III o'clock. after the lights had
been put out, . cyclone-a wind just
made to tear ships to pieces-caught US
1 a. Geo clutchoa IL anna AoUu un au1-