The Russellville Democrat., 1890-07-10

unspeakable 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 1t, 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 arc as beautiful in Gods eyes as in ours. Punctuaiity, trnthfulness, alms-giying, affection and many other excelences of life that might be men toned will always be admired of God and man, but we take the po- sition that good works can not be the ground of our salvation. What
 we do right can not pay for what we do wrong. Admit that you have all those traits of character which give merely worldly responsibility and in- fluence, 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 difflcnlt matters to be settled? An, my friends, we must have an atonement No Christ, no salvation.
 The Great Redeemer comes fa and says,
 "I 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 the scourged and bleeding shoulders He
 carries us up over the mountain of our sins and the hills of our iniquities.
 Christ's good works accepted are suffici- ent for us, but they who reject them, depending upon their own, must per ish. 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 a house floor would not do for a ships hulk. Mere morality might be enough here, but can not take you through deaths storm into Heavens
 harbor. Christ has announced for all ages: T am the way, the truth and
 the life, him that cometh unto Me will
 in no wise cast out" But pitiablo in
 the day of accounts will be the condi-
 tion of that man, though he may have given all his estate to benevolent
 purposes and passed his life in the vis- iting of tho distressed and done much to excite the admiration of the good
 and the great if h have no intimate
 relation to Jesus Christi There is a
 pride and deprayity in his soul that he has never discovered. A brilliant outside will be no apology for a de- prayed inside It is no theory of mine, but an announcement of God, who can
 not lie: By the deeds of the law shall | no flesh living be justified" Open the GOT of Heaven and look in. Howard is there, but he did not secure his en-
 trance by the dungeons he illumined
 and the lazzarettos into which he car ried the medicines. Paul is there, but
 he did not earn his way in by the ship
 wreeks and imprisonments and scourg- ings. On throne overlapping perhaps all other, except Christ's, the old mis- sionary exclaims: By the grace of God am what I am,"
 Again: Exalted social position will be no cloak for sin. Men look through
 the wiclSets of prisons, and seeing the
 incarcerated wretchcs exclaim: "0h, | And they pass through the streets of a 1 degraded city, and looking into the oors of novels and dens of corruption they call them God-forsaken abodes. But you might walk along avenues | through which the opulent roll in their | fiourishing pomp and into mansions elegantly adorned, and find that even in the admired walks of life Satan works mischief and death. The first temptation Sata wrought in a garden, and he understands yet most thoroughly how to insinuate him self into any door of ease and splendor. Men frequently judge of sin by the places in which it is committed, but iniquity in satin is to God as loath- some as iniquity in rags, and in the day of judgment the sins of Madison avenue and Elm street will all be driven in ono herd. Men can not es- cape at last for being respectfully sin ful. You know Dives were clothed in
 purple and fine linen and fared sumpt-
 uously every day, but his fine clothes
 and good dinners did not save him. He
 might on earth have drunk something
 as rich as champagne and cognac, but
 at last he asked for one drop of water.
 You can not trade of your attractive
 abodes here for house of many
 mansions on high and your ele- gant 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 garden of delights and com forts will never save a man or a woman. By giving you so much earthly luxury and refinement, Ho intimated that He
 would not have you enjoy yourselves,
 but He would not have you wrap your selves up in them as cloak to hide your sins God now walks in your garden as He did in Eden, over in the cool of the day, and He stands by your well as He did by well in Samaria,
 and He would make your comfort on earth type of your rapture in Heaven.
 Furthermorel Mere soundness of re- ligious belief will not hido our iniqui- ties. There are men whose heads are as sound as Jonathan Edwards or John 1GSAtI7 NnOot AANaAt ta sdf0 ap APNb'i fha
 Tom Paine's or Charles Guiteau's. 1t is important that we be theoretical Christians. It is tutor folly in this day for man to have no preference for any one form of faith, when it is so easy
 to become conversant with the faith of the different sects. An intoxicated man staggered into my house one night begging lodging. Ile made great pretentions to religion. asked where he went to church.
 He said Nowhere; I belong to lib eral Christianity" But there are those who never become Christians be- cause their obstinacy prevents them from ever taking fair view of what religion is. They are like brute beast in the fact that their greatest strength lies in their horns, They are combatant and all they are ever will ing to do for their souls is to enter an ecclesiastical fight I have met men