The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1889-06-01

NANbs u y hAo
force of good resolution. That will be
more pungent, more caustic, more extir-
pating, more cleansing. The snow water
has failed and now I will try the alkali of
the good strong resolution" NV dear
brother, have you any idea that a resoIu-
ton about the future will liquidate the
pastP Suppose 1 owed you 5000 and 1
should come to you tomorrow and say:
Sir, L will never run in debt to you again;
II L should live thirty years 1 will never
run in debt to you again;" will you turn
to me and say: "If you will not run in
debt in the future l will give you the
5000" Will you do that? Mol Nor will
God. We have been running up a long
score of indebtedness with God. If for
the future we should abstain from sin
that would be no defrayment of past in
d~ebtedness. Though you should live from
this time forth pure as an archangel be-
fore the throne that would not re-
deem the past. God, In the BibS,
distinctly declares that He "wiIl
require that which Is past"-past OPP
p~ortunities, past neglects, past wicked
words, past impure imaginations, past ev-
cry thing. The past is a great cemetery,
and every day is buried in it. And here
is a long row of 1856 days. They are the
dead days of 1883. Here is u long row of
| uOAc BIdNosp huu buoy are Inc ueau
days of 1881. And here is a long row of
1855 more graves, and they are the dead
days of 1885. 1t is a vast cemetery of the
past. But God will rouse them all up with
resurrectionary blast. and as the prisoner
stands face to face with juror and judge,
so you and l will nave to come up and
look upon those departed days face TO
face, exulting in their smile or covering
in their frown.
Murder will out" is a proverb that
stops too short. Every sin, however small,
as we'll as great, will out. I'm hard times
in England, years ago, it is automatically
stated that a manufacturer was on the
way with a bag of money to pay off his
hands. A man Infatuated with hunger
met him on the road and took a rail with
a nail in it from a paling fence n struck
him down. and the nail catering the skull
instantly slew him.. Thirty years after
that the murdere went back TO that place.
He passed into the grave yard where the
sexton was digging a grave and while he
stood there the spad, Of the sexton turned
up a skull, and. lol the murderer saw a
nail p~rotruding from the back part of the
skull; 1t sc emed with hollow eyes to glare
on the murderer, and he, first petriied
with horror, stood in silence but soon cried
out, "Guilty! guilty! o God!" The
mystery of the crime was soon over. The
man was tried and executed. My friends,
all the unpardoned sins of our lives though
we may think they are buried out of
sight and gone into a mere skeleton of
memory will turn up in the cemetery of
the past, inc g over upon us with their
misdoings. 1 say all of our unpardoned
s Ms. O, have you done the preposterous
thing of %supposing that good resolutions
for tho fntura will wina ont tho noutp |
You see 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 or any of the hundreds
of writer's who have done up iniquity in |
mezzotlnt and g%arlanded the win cup
with sglantine and rosemary, and made
the path of the libertine end in bowers off,
ease instead Of on the hot tagging of
eternal torture. You zee that Job thinks |
that sin is not a howsry parterre; that Ii
is not n tableland of fine prospects,; that |
it is not music. du'oimer, violoncello, |
c~astanet and Pancean pipes, all making
music together. No. He says it is a
ditch, long, deep, loathsome, s%tenchful
and we are oil plunged into 1t, and there
we wallow and sink and struggle, not
able to get out. Our robes of propriety
aud robes OF worldly profession are sat-
urated in the slime and abomination, and
our soul, covered with transgression,
hates its covering and the covering hates |
the soul until we are plunged into the
ditch and cur own clothes abhor us.
know hat some modern religionists |
caricature sorrow for sin, and they make
out an easier path than the "Pilgrim's
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 I am
very certain that it will not come out
where Johns did. under the shining ram
parts Of the celestial city. No repentance. |
no pardon. II you do not, my brother,
feel that you are down In the ditch, what
do you want Of Christ to lift you outf If
you have no appreciation of the fact that
you are astray, what do you want of Him
who comes to seek and save that which
was lost? Yonder is the City Of Paris, the
swiftest Of the lnmans, coming across the
Atlantic. The wind is abaft. so that she
has not only her engines at work. but all
sails up. l am on board the Umbria of
the Cunard line. The boat davits are
swung around. The boat is lowered. I
get into it with a red flag and cross over
to where the City Of Paris is coming, and
l wave the flag. The Captain looks Off
from the bridge and says: What
do you want?" I reply: II come
to take some Of your passengers
across to the other vessel. I think they
will be safer and happier there" The cap.
tain would look down with indignation
and say: Get out OF the way, or I will
run you Town." And then I would back
oars, mids the jeering of two or three
people looking over the taffrail.
the Umbria and the City of Paris
maat nndar difaranf ,irau oFko,
The City of Paris Is coming out
OF a cyclone; the lifeboats are smashed;
the bulwarks gone; the vesse rapidly GO
ing down. The boatswain gives his last
whistle OF despairing command. The
passengers run up and down the deck,
and some pray. and all make a great out
cry. The captain says: You have about
fifteen minutes now to prepare for the
next world" mo hopeW sounds from
stem to stern and from the r~atlines down
to the cabin. / see the distress. am let
down by the side of the Umbrla. push
of as fast as l can toward the sinking
City of Paris. Before I come up the people
are leaping into the water in their anxiety
to get 10 the boat, and when 1 have swung
up under the side of the City of Paris, the
passengers rush through the gang
way until the officers, with axe and club
and pistols, try to keep back the crowd,
wanting his turn to come next. There
is Int one life boat and they all want to
get into II, and the cry Is: 'Me nextl me
nektl" You see the application before i
make it. As long as a man going on in
he sins feels that all is~gell, that be 10
out at a beautiful port, and has
all sail set, he wants no Christ, he wants no
help, he wants no rescue; but If under the
fash of Gods coDvicting spirit he shall
see that by reason Of sin he Is dismasted
and waterlogged, and going down into
the trough of the sea where he can not
live, how soon he puts the sea glass to his
eve and sweeps the hor zon, and at the
first sign of help cries out: II want to be
saved. i want to be saved now. I want
to be saved forever" No sense of danger,
no application for rescue.
o., that Gods eternal spirit would fash
us a sense OF our sinfulnessI The
Bible tells the story in letters of Ere, but
we get used to 1t. We joke about sin. We
make merry over it. What 10 sinf Is 1t q
thing! Sin is q vampire that ia
sucking out the life blood OF your i'm
mortal nature. SIM It is q Bastils that
no earthly key ever unlocked. SIM 1t Is
repatriation from God and Heaven. Sini
IL Is grand larceny against the Almighty,
for the Bible asks the question:: Twill a
man rob God?" answering 10 in the affirm
alive. This gospel is a writ of replevin to
recover property ~unlawfully detained
God.
In the Shetland islands there Is a man
leprosy. The hollow Of the foot has
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