Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1889-12-21
CORRESPONDENCE
For the Independent.
A Merry Christmas TO You
Kind Folks.

Well, little folks, ! have no doubt
but that you are very glad that
Christmas is so near. Those of you
who live in Martinsburg, or other
towns, larger or nearly as large,
think as you look into the store win
dows, that Christmas is the time for
children, or Children's Happy Day.
Well, be it so. You have holiday
for week, or more that is you do
not go to school for one week, and
some little fellows will be SO happy
that they will wish Christmas to last
all the year. Do the little ones in
the country have snch a good time ?
Well, they do not see the windows
dressed up with dolls and candies,
and Santa Claus, but Santa Claus
goes around their way and fills up
their stockings, and is generally very
good to them and besides, they live
where the turkeys, ducks and chick
ems, fruit and nuts and so many good
vegetables come from. And they
have plenty of room to run their
sleighs if the snow is on the ground,
and to play "hide and seek" around
the barn and stacks of hay and
straw. The country is o great deal
bigger place than the town, and they
can have lots of fun before their
great wood fires on the hearths.
Then they have organs and pianos,
and people to play them and in the
Sunday Schools and in their homes
they have learned of Him, the great
gift Of God to this world, who was
born in Bethlehem, and of whom the
angels sang on the night of His
birth, to the disciples like this
"Glory to God in the highest and on
earth peace good will to men," Do
all you children of country and town
think, that if Jesus had not come we
should have no Christmas How
we all should love the good Lord,
who gave us Jesus and all good
things, with Christmas too.
From a "A New York Pastor the
following is given II have genial
and generous neighbor, whose bust
ness every day brings him in pleas
ant contact with all classes of good
citizens. Urging him to give his
heart to God, he was almost impa-
tient with my urgency, as he said,
az 60 to the church; / was
confirmed there, and so was my wife,
and the Methodists and the
are not much different, you know"
Now my duty was evident. / said
Eyes, there is a great difference.
The -, like the and
some others, allow their people to feel
easy without being converted. So
long as they have been baptized con-
firmed and take the sacrament, and
live upright lives, they are not urged
and required to know that God for
Christ's sake, has saved them from
all their sins, and made them His
children. Methodism emphasizes
this as the great truth of the Bible,
that every man, until saved, is dead
to God /; not dead to business, nor
to pleasure, nor TO education, nor to
friendship, nor to family, but to God.
A man in one of our prisons was con-
demned to die for murder. Every
thing was done by his lawyer and
friends to secure some change in his
sentence. At last the lawyer came
to his cell with the final sad report
that the governor had refused to in
terfere, and he must die. He wept.
then said "Well, IT, must die, bring
me pen and ink, and l will make my
will" "My friend," said the law
yer, 'you cannot make a will, you
are already dead in the eyes OF the
law, and dead men cannot make
Wills In this sense sinner unsav-
ed is dead to God and only the Holy
Spirit can give him life, and when he
does it you will know it. This is
conversion this is the new birth, or
beginning of the new soul-life, which
Jesus insists must take place, or you
cannot enter His Kingdom here or
yonder. The object of the Gospel is
not simply to educate you in good
morals, and good manners, industry
and honesty, and then leave you
with only the sacraments as the foun-
dation of your hope. Jesus Christ
came into the world to saUe sinners.
Has he saved you from your sins ?
Has there been day or an hour in
your life when God halted you by
sense of your sins, and crying for
mercy did you obtain knowledge
of pardon, and comfortable assur-
ance that you were a saved man
do you see what / mean when / say