Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-06-30

HIS armed Gnoin1SS- IL dIly OI you una
yourselves deficient in the great tests of
Christian character do not, / beg of
you, look upon your profession Of re-
ligion as anything consolatory. If you
have taken your present position from
view that you have of Christ and
your need of him, rejoice with joy I'M
speal<able and full of glory and clap
your hands for gladness; but if you find
yourself with nothing but the name of
life while dead in trespasses and sins,
arouse before the door is shut. That
gilded prOfession-the world may not
be able to see through it, but in the day
of divine reckoning it will be found that
| you have no cloak for your sin.
OUTWARD MORALITY AND HIDDEN IN
EQUITY.
Furthermore, outward morality will
be no covering for the hidden iniquity
of the spirit. The gospel of Christ
makes no assault upon good works.
They are as beautiful in Gods eye as
in ours. Punctuality, truthfulness,
almsgiving, affection and many other
excellences of life that might be men
toned will always be admired of God
and man, but we take the position that
| good works cannot be the ground of
our salvation. What we do right can
not pay for what we do wrong. Ad-
NIT that you have all those traits of
character which give merely worldly
responsibility and influence, you must
at the same time acknowledge that
during the course of your life you have
| done many things you ought not to
| have done How are these difficult
matters to be settled? All, my friends,
we must have an atOnement. No
Christ, no salvation. The great Re
| deemer comes in and says, II will pay
your indebtedness So that which
was dark enough before is bright enough
now The stripes that we deserve are
fallen upon Christ. On his scourged
| and bleeding shoulders he carries us
over the mountain of our sins and the
| hills of our iniquities. Christ's good
works accepted are sufficient for us,
but they who reject them depending
upon their own must perish.
Traits of character that may make
us influential on earth will not neces-
sarily open to us the gate of heaven.
The plank that will be strong enough
for q house floor would not do for a
ships hulk. Mere morality might be
enough here, but cannot take you
through deaths storm into heavens
harbor. Christ has announced for all
ages 'I am the way, the truth and the
life, him that cometh unto me I will in
no wise cast out" But pitiable in the
day of accounts will be the condition
of that man, though he may have given
all his estate to benevolent purposes,
and passed his life in the visiting of the
distressed, and done much to excite the
admiration of the good and the great
if he have no intimate relation to Jesus
Christ. There Is a pride and a depravi-
ty in his soul that he has never discov-
cred. A brilliant outside will be no
apology for depraved inside. 1t is no
theory of mine, but an announcement
of God, who cannot lie. ''By the deeds
of the law shall no flesh living be justi-
fed" Open the door of heaven and
look in. Howard is there, but he did
not secure his entrance by the dungeons
he illumined and the lazzarettos into
which he carried the medicines. Paul
is there, but he did not earn his way in
by the shipwrecks and imprisonments
and scourgings. On a throne overtop-
ping perhaps all others, except Christ's,
the old missionary exclaims, 'EBy the
grace of God [ am what [ ann
SOCIAL POSITION A TRANSPARENT
CLOAK.
Again, exalted social position will be
no cloak for sin. Men look through the
wicket door of prisons and seeing the
incarcerated wretches exclaim, ooh,
how much vice there is in the worldl''
And they pass through the degraded
steeets of a city and looking into the
doors of novels ard the dens of cor
ruption they call them God forsaken
abodes But you might walk along
the avenues through which the opulent
roll in their flourisling pomp and into
mansions elegantly adorned and find
that even in the admired walks of life
Satan works mischief and death. The
first temptation Satan wrougfs in a
garden, and he understands yet most
thoroughly how to insinuate himself
into any door of ease and splendor.
Men frequently judge of sin by the
places in which it is committed, but in
EQUITY in satin is to God as loathsome
as iniquity in rags, and in the day of
Judgment the sins of Madison avenue
and Elm street will all be driven in
one herd. Men cannot escape at last
for being respectfully sinful. You know
Dives was clothed in purple and fine
linen and Jared sump1uously every day,
but his fine clothes and good dinners
did not save him. He might on earth
have drunk something as rich as cham
payne and cognac, but at last he asked
for one drop of water.
You cannot trade off your attractive
abodes here for house of many man.
sions on high, and your elegant shade
groves here will not warrant you a seat
under the tree of life. When God
drove Adam and Eve out of Eden he
showed that merely living in a garden
of delights and comforts will never
save a man or a woman. By giving
you so much earthly luxury and refine
ment he intimated tnat he would have
you enjoy yourselves, but he would
not have you wrap yourself up in them
as a cloak to hide your sins. God now
walks in your garden as he did in
Eden, even in the cool of the day, and
he stands by your well as he did by a
well in Sa1naria, and he would make
your comfort on earth type of your
rapture in heaven.
SOUND HEADS AND ROTTEN HEARTS.
Furthermore, mere soundness of re-
ligious belief will not hide our iniqui- |
ties. There are men whose heads are
as sound as Johnathan Edwards or |
John Wesley's, whose hearts are as rot
ten as Tom Paine's or Charles Gui- |
teau's. 1t is important that we be the
oretical Christians. 1t is utter folly in |
this day for man to have no prefer |
ence for any one form of faith, when it |
is so easy to become conversant with |
the faith of the different sects. An in |
toxicated man staggered into my house |
one night begging for lodging. He |
made great pretentions to religion. | |