Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-04-10

than a great opportunity passed. We
spend much of our time in saying: eff
only had" We can all look back and
see some occasion where we might have
effected an important rescue, or we
might have dealt a stroke that would
have accomplished a vast result
Through stupidity or lack of apprecia.
ton of the crisis, or through procrasti'
nation, we let the chance go by. How
much time we have wasted in thinking
of what we might have said or might
have done? We spend hours and days
and years in walking around that dead
lion We can not resuscitate it
The most useless and painful feeling
is the one of regret. Repent of lost op-
portunities we must, and get pardon we
may, but regrets weaken, dishearten
and cripple for future work. Take what
you have of opportunity left Do your
best of what remains. Your shortest
winter day is worth more 10 you than
can be the longest day of previous
summer. Your opportunity now, as
compared with previous opportunities,
may be small a rat terrier compared
with the lion which at Matabosa, fatally
wounded by the gun of David Living
stone, in its death agony leaped upon
the missionary explorer and with its
| jaws crushed the bone of his arm to
| splinters and then rolled over and ex-
pired, but Better is living dog than a
dead lion"
My text also means that the condition
of the most wretched man alive is bet
ter than the most favored sinner de-
parted. The chance of these last is
gone. Where they are they can not
make any earthly assets available. At
| ter Charlemagne was dead he was set in
an ornamented sepulcher on a golden
throne, and crown was put on his cold
brow and scepter in his stiff hand, but
that gave him no dominion in the next
world. One of the most intensely in
teresting things l saw last winter in
Egypt was Pharaoh of olden times, the
very Pharaoh who oppressed the Israel
ties. The inscription on his sarcopha-
gus, and the writing on his mummy
bandages, proved beyond controversy
that he was the Pharaoh of Bible times
All the Psychologists and the explora-
lions agree that it is the old scoundrel
himself Visible are the very teeth with
which he CRASHED against the Israelitish
brick makers. There are the sock
cts of the merciless eyes with
which he looked upon the overburdened
people of God. There is the hair that
fioated in the breeze off the Red sea.
There are the very lips with which he
commanded them to make bricks with
out straw. Thousands of years after
ward, when the wrappings of the num-
my were unrolled, old Pharaoh lifted
up his arm as if in imploration, but his
skinny bones can not again clutch his
shattered scepter. He is dead lion.
What thing to congratulate you on
is your life! Why, it is worth more
than ali the gems of the universe
kindled into one precious stone.
Why, it means that 1 still have all
opportunity of being saved myself
and helping others to be saved. To
be alive! Why, it means that l have
yet another chance to correct my past
mistakes and make sure work for
Heaven.
What encouragement in the text for
all Christian workers! Despair of no
ones salvation. While there is life
there is hope. Go forth and save the
lost and remember however depraved,
however ragged, however filthy and I'M
done a child is, or man is, or woman
is, they are worth an effort l would
rather have their opportunity than any
that will ever be given to those who
lived in magnificent sin and splendid
unrighteousness and then wrapped their
gorgeous tapestry around them and
without prayer expired. 'Better is
living dog than a dead lion"
In the great day it will be found that
the last shall be first. There are in tho
grogshops and in the haunts of iniquity
to-day those who will yet be models OF
holiness and preach Christ to the people.
In yonder group of young men who came
here with no useful purpose, there is
one who will yet live for Christ and per
haps die for Him. My nearer, give no one
up. The casemay seem desperate, but the
grace of God likes to undertake dead
lift. proclaim it this day to all the peo-
ple-free grace. Living and dying, be that
my theme-free grace! Sound it across
the continent, sound it across the seas
free grace! Spell out those words in
flowers, lift them in arches, build them
in thrones roll them in oratorios-free
grace! That will yet Edenize the earth
and people Heaven with nations re-
deemed. Free grace.
SalvLtiOni o, the joyful sound,
Ills pleasure to our ears,
'overeign balm for eve'y wound,
A cordial for our fears.
Buried in sorrow and in sin
At deaths dark door we lay,
But we arise by grace divine,
10 see a heavenly day.