The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1890-05-10

Bile men in your profession. Is that any
thing against medicine? You are a mer-
chant. There are thieves and defraud-
ers in your business. Is that any thing
against merchandise? Behold, then,
the unfairness of charging upon Chris
tianity the wickedness of its disciples.
We admit some of the charges against
those who profess religion. Some of the
most gigantic swindles of the 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 dollars 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 sac
rament, 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
q 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
Nv w boho uNl ~ hldl > u US u SDttl-
men of religion han you have to take
the twisted iron 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 re-
ligion and the frailties of those who pro-
fess It.
Do you not feel that the Bible, take
1t all in all, is about the best book that
the world has ever seen? Do you know
any book that has as much in itp Do
you think, upon the whole, that its in
fuence has beer beneficentP come to
you with both hands extended toward
you. In one hand / rave the Bible, and
In the other I have nothing. This Bible
In one hand l will surrender for aver
just as soon as in my other hand you can
put q book that is better.
Again: There may be some of you
who, in the attempt after a Christian
life, will have to run against powerful
passions n appetites. Perhaps 1t is a
disposition to anger that you nave to
contend against; and perhaps, while in
q very serious mood, you hear of some
thing that makes you feel that you must
swear or die. 1 know a Christian man
1 WIN was ohCo oo eAhSpCEhJCu JldU no
said to a NEAR customer: 81 can not
swear at you myself, for l am q member
Of the church, but II you will go down
stairs my partner in business will swear
at you"
There is a large class Of persons in
mid life who have still in them appe-
tites that were aroused in early man
hood, at a time when they prided them
selves on being a 'little fast" ''high
livers," ''free and easy" ''hail fellows
we'll met" They are now paying, in
compound interest, for troubles they
collected twenty 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. Omnip-
otent grace has pulled out many a soul
that was deeper in the mire 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.
If, with all the influences favorable
for a right life, men make so many mis-
takes. how much harder it is when, for
ihoOnhSC, oOhlO oPPOOl1C v IIOh
grapple into the roots of the tongue and
pulls a man down with hands of destruc-
ton! II, under such circumstances, he
break away there will be no sport in the
undertaking, no holiday enjoyment, but
a struggle in which the wrestlers move
from side to side, and bend and twist
and watch for an opportunity to get in a
heavier stroke, until with one final eff
fort, in which h muscles are distended
and the veins stand out, and the blood
starts, the swarthy habit falls under the
knee Of the victim-escaped at last as
with the skin of his teeth"
The ship Emma, bound from Gotten
burg to Harwich, vas sailing on, when
the man on the lookout saw something
that he pronounced a vessel bottom up.
There was something oil 1t hat looked
like a sea gull, but was afterward found
to be a waving handkerchief. In the
small boat the crew pushed out to the
wreck and found that it was a capsized
vessel and that three men had been dig
ging their way out through the bottom
of the ship. When the vessel capsized
they had no means of escape. The Cap
tain 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 we'll nigh paralyzed and
he sank back faint and sick. After long
and tedious work the light broke through
the bottom of the ship. Handkerchief
was hoisted. Help came. They were
taken on board the vessel and saved.
Did ever men como SO near q watery
grave without dropping into it? How
narrowly they escaped!-escaped only
with the skin of their teeth"
There are men who have been cap
sized ofevil passions, and capsizedin mid
ocean, and they are q thousand miles
have for years been trying to dig their
way out. They have been digging
away, and digging away, but they can
never be delivered unless they will
hoist some signal of distress. However
weak and feeble 1t may be Christ will
see 1t and bear down upon the helpless
craft and take them on board.
There are others who in attempting
to come to God must run between .
great many business perplexities. II O
man go over to business at ten o'clock
in the morning and comes away at three
In the afternoon he has some time for
religion; but how shall you find time for
religious contemplation when you are
driven from sunrise to sunset, and have
| been for five years going behind in bust
ness, and are frequently dunned by
creditors whom you can not pay, and
when, from Monday morning until Satur-
day night, you are lodging bills that
you can not meet?
You walk day by day in uncertainties
that have kept yoHr brain on fire for the
past three years. Some with less bust
ness troubles than you have gone crazy.
The clerk has heard q noise in the back
c~ounting-room and gone in. and found
the chief man of the firm a raving ma
MAC; or the wife has heard the bang Of
o pistol in the back parlor, and gone in,
stumbling over the dead body of her
husbsnd-a suicide. There are in this
house to-day three hundred men pur-
sued, harassed, trodden down, and
scalped Of business perplexities, and
which way to turn ext they do not
know. Now God will not be hard on
you. He knows what obstacles are IN
the way OF your being @ Christian, and
your first effort in the rightdirection He
will crown with success. Do not let Satan,
with cotton bales and kegs and hogsheads
and counters and stocks of unusual goods