Lewiston teller. [volume] (Lewiston, North Idaho) 1878-1900, 1890-07-17

not, beg OF you, look upon your profe .sion
Of religion as anything consolatory. Ifyou
have taken your present position from u
view that you havs OF Christ and your
| need Of Him, rejoice with Joy unspeakable
and full Of glory and clsp your han Is for
gladness, but il you fnl yourself with
| nothing but tn name OF life, while dead in
trespasses and sins. arouse bsfore the
| door is shut. That gilied 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.
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. Punctu.
ality, truthfulness, aims giving. fife ton
| and many other excellences of life that
might be mentioned 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 cannot
pay for what we do wrong. Admit that
yc have all those traits Of character which
| gi'e merely worldly respectabilty 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
| my friends we must have an atonemenk
No Christ, no salvation. The great re-
deemer comes In and says: Il will pay
| your Indebtedness" So that which was
dark enough before, ii bright enough now.
The stripes that we deserve are fallen upon
| Carist. On His scouged and bleeding
shoulders He carries US up over the noun
tain of our aims and over the hills Of our
! iniquites. Chrisrs good works accepted
l 0ri~ fn~ A,~A ~Vhn
them, depending upon their own, must per-
ish. Traits Of character that may make US
influential on earth will not necess lrly
open to us the gate Of heaven
| The plank that will DO strong
enough for a house floor would not do for
ships hulk. Mere morality might be
enough here but cannot take you through
deaths storm into heavens harbor. Christ
has announced for all ages, II am the way,
the truth and the life, him that cometh unto
me will In no wise cast out" But pitia-
diti0n 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 excits the adj
miration of the good and the great, II he
have no intimate relation to Jesus Christ.
There is pride and depravity In
his soul that he has never dis
covered. A brilliant outside will be
no apology for a depraved inside. 1t is no
theory of mine but an announcement OF
God. who cannot lie, ''By the deeds Of the
Open the door of heaven and look In.
Howard is there, but he did not secure his
entrance by the dungeons he i.lumined
and the lazzarettos into which he carried
the medicines. Paul il there, but he did
not earn his way in by the ship-wrecks and
imprisonments and sourgings. On throne
overlapping perhaps all others, except
Christs, the old missionary exclaims: ''By
the grace of Go am what am"
Again: Exalted social position will be no
CLOAK for sim Men look through the wick.
ct door OF prisons, and seeing the iDcar-
cerated wretches exclaim, ooh, Low much
vice there is in the world! And they
pass through the degraded streets of a
city, and looking into the doors of novels
and the dens of corruption they call them
God -forsaken abodes. But you might
wax along this avenues through which the
opulent roll In their f1ourishing 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 wrought in q garden,
and he understands yet most thorou ghly
how to insinuate himself into any door OF
i |
OF sin by the places in which it is commit.
ted, but iniquity in satin is to God az loath-
some a. iniquity in rags, and in the Day OF
Judgment the sins Of Madison Avenue and
Kim Street will all be driven in one herd.
Men cannot escape at last for being re-
, specially sinful. You know Dives was
clothed in purple and fine linen and Jared
sumptuously every day, but his fne clothes
! and good dinners did not save him. He
I might on earth have drunk something US
rich as champagne and co9nac but at last
he asked for one dropof water. You canno,
trade Off your attractive abodes here fol
house of many mansions on high and
your elegant shade groves here VII moi
warrant you a seat under the tree OF life.
When Goa drove Adam aud Eve out OF
Eden, He showed that merely living in q
garden OF delights and comforts will never
save man or WON IN. BY giving yoa 30
much earthly luxury and refinement He
intimated that He would have you enj oy
yourselves, but He would not have you
, wrap yourself up in them rs Il cloak tc
hide your sins. God now walks in your
! garden as He did in Eden, even in the cool
OF the day, and ne st .nds by your well as
} He did by ~ we'll in Samaria, and He
would make your comfort on earth u typ.
? Of your rapture in heaven.
Furthermore: Mere soundness OF re-
{ ligious belief will not hide our iniquities.
There are men whose heads are as sound
as Jonathan Edwards or John Wesley
{ whose hearts are as rotten as Tom Paine.
t or Charles Gaiteau =. It is important thu,
, we be theoretical Christians. It is utter
> folly in this day. for man to have NJ
. preference for any one form OF faith. wher
, it Is so easy to become conversant with the
. faith OF the different sects. An intoxica Ted
} man staggered into my house QUE nigh
: begging for lodging. He made great pre-
tensions to religion. I asked where b,
4 went to church. He said: 'Nowhere;
, telong to liberal Christianity" Blu
there are those who never become Chris
: tlans because their obs,inacy prevents
them from ever taking q fair view of wha,
religion is. They are lik, brute beas,
9 In the fact that their greatest strength lies
Q in their horns They are comb Itast, and
all they are ever willing to do for theil
: souls is to enter an ecclesiastical fight,