Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-05-05

with the inconsistent character of some
whoprofess it. You are a lawyer In your
profession there are mean and dishonest
men. Is that anything against the lawf You
are doctor. There are unskilled and con
temptible men in your profession. Is that
anything against medicine? You are a mer.
chant. There are thieves and defrauders
in your business Is that anything against
merchandise? Behold, then, the unfair.
ness of charging upon Christianity the
wickedness of its disciples. We admit some
of the charges against those who profess re
Hgion. Some of the most gigantic swindles
of the present day have been carried on by
members of the church. There are men
standing in the front rank in the churches
who would not be trusted for five doHars
without good collateral security They
leave their business dishonesties in the
vestibule of the church as they go in and
sit at the communion. Having concluded
the sacrament, they get up, wipe the wine
from their lips go out, and take up their
sins where they left off. To serve the devil
is their regular work; to serve God, sort
Of play spell. With a Sunday sponge they
expect to wipe off from their business slate
all the past weeks inconsistencies. You
have no more right to take such a mans
life as a specimen of religion than you have
to take the twisted irons and split timbers
that lie on the beach at Coney Island as "a
specimen of an American ship. 1t is time
that we draw a line between religion and
the frailties of those who profess it.
THE BIBLE.
Do you not feel that the Bible, take it
all in all, is about the best book that the
world has ever seen? Do you know any
book that has as much in it? Do you not
think, upon the whole, that its influence
has been beneGcent? | come to you with
both hands extended toward you. In one
hand | have the Bible, and in the other
have nothing This Bible in one hand
will surrender forever just as soon as in
my other hand you can put book that is
better. Today invite you back into the
good Old fashioned religion of your fathers
to the God whom they worshiped to the
Bible they read, to the promises on which
they leaned, to the cross on which they
hung their eternal expectations. You have
not been happy day since you swung off;
you will not be happy minute until you
swing back
Again; There may be some of you who,
in the attempt after Christian life, will
have to run against powerful passions and
appetites. Perhaps it is disposition to
anger that you have to contend against;
and perhaps, while in very serious mood,
you hear of something that makes you feel
that you must swear or die. | know
Christian man who was once so eXasperated
that he said to mean customer: 81 can
not swear at you myself, for am men,
Der of the church; but if you will go down
stairs my partner in business will swear at
you" All your good resolutions hereto
fore have been torn to tatters by explosion
of temper. Now there is no harm in get
ting mad IL you only get mad at sin. You
need to bride and saddle those hot breathed
passions, and with them ride down inius-
tice and wrong. There are thousand
things in the world that we ought to be
mad at There is no harm in getting red
hot if you only bring to the forge that
which needs hammering A man who has
no power of righteous indignation is an
imbecile But be sure it is righteous in
dignation, and not petulancy that blurs
and unravels and depletes the soul.
There is large class of persons in mid
life who have still in them appetites that
were aroused in early manhood, at a time
when they prided themselves on being a
little fast, "high livers, " "free and easy"
"hail fellows well met" They are now
paying, in campound interest, for troubles
they collected twen6y Years ago. Some OF
you are trying to escape, and you will-yet
very narrowly, "as with the skin of your
teeth" God and your own soul only know
what the struggle is Omnipotent grace
has pulled out many soul that was deeper
in the miro than you are. They line the
beach Of heaven-the multitude whom God
has rescued from the thrall of suicidal
habits. If you this day turn your back on
the wrong and start anew, God will help
you. Oh, the weakness of human helpl
Men will sympathize for while, and then
turn you off. If you ask for their pardon,
they will give it, and say they will try you
again; but, falling away again under the
power of temptation they cast you off
forever. But God forgives seventy times
seven; yea, seven hundred times; yea,
though this he the ten-thousandth time,
he is more earnest, more sympathetic,
more helpful, this last time than when you
took your first misstep.
A HARD STRUGGLE.
If, with all the influences favorable for a
right life, men make so many mistakes,
how much harder it is when, for instance,
some appetite thrusts its iron grapple into
the roots of the tongue and pulls man
down with hands of destruction If, under
such circumstances, he break away, there
will be no sport in the undertaking, no hol-
iday enjoyment, but struggle in which
the wrestlers move from side to side, and
bend and twist, and watch for an opportu-
nifty to get in heavier stroke, until with
one final effort, in which the muscles are
distended, and the veins stand out, and the
blood starts, the swarthy habit falls under
the knee of the victor-escaped at last as
with the skin Of his teeth"
The ship Emma bound from Gottenburg
to Harwch, was sailing on, when the man
on the lookout saw something that he pro-
nounced n vessel bottom up, There was
on it that looked like sea gull,
but was afterward found to be a waving
In the small boat the crew
pushed out to the wreck, and found that il
was a capsized vessel, and that three men
had been digging their way out through
the bottom of the ship. When the vessel
capsized they had no means of escape. The
captain took his penknife and dug away
through the planks until his knife broke
Then an old nail was found, with which
they attempted to scrape their way out OF
the darkness, each one working until his
hand was well nigh paralyzed and he sank
back faint and sick. After long and tedious
work the light broke through the bottom
of the ship. A handkerchief was hoisted.
Help came They were taken on board the
vessel and saved. Did ever men come so
near watery grave without dropping into
it? How narrowly they escaped escaped
only with the skin of their teeth"
There are men who have been capsized OF
Cvil passions, and oapsized mid-ocean, and
they are thousand miles away from any
shore of help. They have for years been