Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-10

| fortunate and unconsecrated YOU have got on
so Iar toierably well, if nothing more than
| Ioleraple; AS Tor myself, though my life has
been far from being as consecrated as would
| ike to have had it, would not want to try il
uEer W again, lest next time / would do worse;
| why, Just look at the temptations we have all
passed through and Just look at the multitudes
VINO nave gone completely under. Just
CALL OVER THE ROLL
of your school mates and college mates, the
clerks who were with you in the same store OF
bank, or the operatives in the same factory
with Just as good prospects as you, VINO nave
come to complete mishsp. Some young man
tnat told you he was going to be mlllonalre
ana own the fastest trotters on Westcnester
turnpike and retire by the time he was % years
OF age. you do not hear from for many years
and know nothing about him until some oay ne
comes into your store and asks for 3 cents TO get
mug of beer. You, the good mother Oh a
household and all your children rising up 10
call you blessed, can remember when you were
| quite jealous OF the belle of the village VINO
was SO transcendently fair and popular. but
while you have these two honoraoie ana
| queenly names of wife and mother she became
a poor waif of the street, and went into the
| blackness of darkness forever. Live .life over
again? Why, if many of those who are now
respectable were permitted to experiment, the
next journey would be demolition.
You got through, as Job says, by the skin OF
the teeth. Next time you might not get
him now better than did before, and have for
so years been studying his weaknesses, and l
will weave stronger web OF circumstances to
catch him next time" And Satan would con-
center his forces on this one man. and the last
state of that man would be worse than the first.
My friends our faces are in the right direction.
Better go forward than backward, even If We
had the choice The greatest disaster can
think Of would he for you to return to boyhood
in 1890. Oh. if life were a smooth Luzerne or
Cayuga lake l would like to get into yacht
tWlCe-yea a
thousand times But life is an uncertain sea,
and some of the ships crash on the icebergs of
cold indifference and some take fire of evil
passion and some lose their bearing and run into
the skerries and some are never heard OF.
Surely on such treacherous sea as that one
voyage is enough.
have your wish and live life over again it would
put you so much further from reunion with
your friends in heaven 4? If you are in the noon
of life or the evening of life you not very
FAR from the golden gate at which you are to
meet your transported and emparadised loved
ones. You are now, let us say, 20 years or 10
years or year off from celestial conjunction.
Now suppose you went back in your earthly
lie 80 years or 80 years or 90 years, what
AN AWFUL PosTPoNEMENT
of the time of reunion! 1t would be as though
you were going to San Francisco TO great
banquet, and you got to Oakland. four or five
miles this side OF it, and then came back to
Hobokea or Harlem to get a better start; as
though you were going to England to be
crowned and having come in sight of the
mountains of Wales you put back to
Sandy Hook in order to make a
better voyage. The further on you get in life.
if Christian, the nearer you are to the re-
newal of broken up companionship. No; the
wheel of time turns in the right direction and
it is well it turns SO fast Three hundred and
sixty-five revolutions in a year and forward.
rather than 365 revolutions in year and back
ward. But hear yei hear ye! while 1 tell you
how you may practically live your life over
again and be all the better for it. You may put
into the remaining years of your life all you
have learned of wisdom in your past life. You |
may the coming 10 years worth the preceding |
40 or 80 years. When a man SAYS he would like |
to live his life over again because he would do |
so much better, and yet goes right on living as |
he has always lived, do you not see he stultifes
himself? He proves that If he could go back |
he would do almost the same as he has done.
If a man eat green apples some Wednesday |
in cholera time and is thrown into fearful |
cramps and says on Thursday: II wish had |
been more prudent in my diet; oh, if could |
live Wednesday over again." and then on |
Friday eats apples just as green he proves that |
it would have been no advantage for him to |
live Wednesday over again. And IL we, de- |
ploring our past life and with the idea of i'm !
provement, long for an opportunity to try it |
over again, yet 60 on making the same mis- |
takes and committing the same sins, we only |
o
ence would afford no improvement. 1t was |
green apples before and it would be green |
apples over again. As soon as ship captain |
strikes rock in the lake or sea he reports it
and buoy is swung over that reef and mariners /
henceforth stand off from that rock. And all
our mistakes in the past ought to be buoys
warning us to keep in the right channel. There
8 no excuse for us il we split on the same rock
where we split before. Going along the side
walk at night where excavations are being
made, we frequently see lantern on frame
unrR and fnrp cir 10 for fl,af Inn farr |
Keep out of this hole. And all along the path
way of life lanterns are set as warnings and by
.he time we come to midlife we ought to know
where it is safe to walk and where it is unsafe.
THE BEST AToNEMENT.
Beside that we have all these years been
earning how to be useful, and in the next
lecade we ought to accomplish more for God
ind the church and the world than in any pre-
Tious four decades. The best way to atone for
last Incidence or past transgresson is by future
Issiduity. Yet you often find Christian men
Who were not converted until they were 40 or
10, as old age comes on saying: "We ell, my work
$ about done and it is time for me to rest"
They gave 40 years of their life to Satan and
he world, little fragment of their life to
Sod and now they want to rest. Whether that
belongs to comedy or tragedy say not The
nan who gave one-half of his earthly exist
nee to the world and of the remaining two
quarters one to Christian work aud the other
o rest, would not, suppose. get very bril-
liant reception in heaven. If there are any
Tried leaves in heaven they would be
appropriate for his garand; or if
here is any throne with broken steps it would
With relaxed string it would be appropriate for
lis lingering. MY brother, you give nine-tenths |
f your life to sin and Satan and then get con-
erted and then rest awhile in sanctified lazi-
ess. and then go up to get your heavenly
eward, and warrant it will not take the |
asher of the royal banking house great
Fhile to count out to you all your dues. He
Vill not ask you whether you will have it in |
ills of large denomination or small. / would |
ike to put one sentence of my sermon in italics |
nd have it underscored, and three exclama-
ion points at the end of the sentence ard that
entence is this: As we cannot live our lives
ver again, the nearest we can come to atone |
or the past is by redoubled holiness and in
lustry in the future!
If this rail train of life has been detained and
witched off and is far behind the time table,
he engineer for the rest of the way must put |
N more pressure of steam and go mile
minute in order to arrive at the right time and
lace under the approval OF conductor and di-
ectors
AS supposed it would be, there are multi
udes of young people listening to this sermon | ,
n whom this subject has acted with the force
4 galvanic batter. Without my SAYING a
Tord to them they have soliloquzed, saving:
AS one cannot live his life over again, and
an make only one trip, must make no mis-
axes: have but one chance and must make
he most of It." My young friends, am glad
on made this application of the sermon your {
elf. When a minister toward the close Of his
ermon says: Now few words by way of ap-
people begin to look around for ,
heir hats and get their arm through one sleeve !
their overcoats and
THE SERMONIC APPLICATION
a failure. i am glad you have made your
wn application and that you are resolved, like
Quaker of whom 1 read years ago, who in
said: II shall be along this path of
fe but once and so I must do all the kindness ,
can and all the good 1 can." My hearers. the
istakes of youth can never be corrected |
ime gone is gone forever. An opportunity $