Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-08-18

and vineyards Of the Bible, aud standing
amid the haFvests and orchards aud vine
| yards Of our own country-I want 20 run
out the analogy between the production u
crops and the growth Of grace In the soul
all these sacred writers making use Of that
analogy.
PLow DEEP PLow DERP
In the first place remark, In grace as In
the fields there must be a plow That
which tkeologians call conviction Is only
the ploe share turning up the sins that
haze been rooted and mated 81 the soil
A farmer said TO his indolent son, 'Thcre
are n hundred dollars buried deep in that
field" The son went to work and plowcd
the field from fence to fence, and he plowed
II very deep and then complained that he
had not found the money, but when the
crop had been gathered ana sold for hun
dred dollars more than any previous year
then the young man took the hint rs to
what his father meant when he said there
were II hundred dollars buried down in
that field. Deep blowing for n crop. Deep
blowing for soul lie who makes light
of sin will never amount TO anything in
tic church or in the world II man
speaks of sin rs though it were an mac
curacy or mistake, instead of the loathe
some, abominablc, consuming and damn
ing thing that God hates, that man will
never yield harvest of usefulness
When | was a boy plowed field with
team of spirited horses plowed it very
quickly. Once In while ! passed over
some of the sod without turning it, but
did not jerk back the pillow with its rafting
clevises. | thought it made no difference.
After while my father came along aud
said: "Why, this will never do; this isn't
plowed deep enough; there you have missed
this and you have missed that" And he
plowcd it over again. The difficulty with
great many people is that they are only
scratched with conviction when the subsoil
pillow of Gods truth ought to be put in up
to the beam.
My word Is to all Sabbath school teach
ers, to all parents, to all Christian workers
pillow deep! pillow deep!
And if in your own personal experience
you are apt to take a lenient view of the
sinful side of your nature put down into
your soul the ten commandments, which
reveal the holiness of God, and that sharp
and glittering coulter will turn up your
soul to the deepest depths If a man
breaches to you that You are only little
out of order by reason of sin and that you
need only II little fixing up, he deceives!
You have suffered an appalling injury by
reason of sin. There are quick poisons and
slow poisons, but the druggist could give
you one drop that would kill the body.
And sin is like that drug; so virulent, so
poisonous, so fatal that one drop is enough
to kill the soul.
FLOWING FOR A SOUL
Deep blowing for n crop. Deep blowing
for n soul. Broken heart or no religion !
Broken soul or no harvest Why was it |
that David and the jailer and the publican
and Paul made such ado about their sins? |
Had they lost their senses? No. The |
plowshare struck them. Conviction turned |
up a great many things that were forgotten
As Il farmer blowing sometimes turns up
the skeleton of a man or the anatomy of a
monster long ago buried, so the plowsharc j
of conviction turns up the CHASTITY skeletons |
of sin long ago intombed. Biologists |
never brought up from the depths of the
mountain mightier ichthyosaurIs or me |
gatherium.
But what means all this crooked pillow |
ing, these crooked burrows, the repentance
that amounts to nothing the repentance |
that ends in nothing? Men groan over
their sins, but get no better. They weep, |
but their tears are not counted. They get |
convicted, but not converted. What is the
reason? | remember that on the farm
we set standard with n red flag Mt the .
other end of the field We kept our eve
on that We aimed Mt that. We plowed |
up to that. Losing sight of that we
made crooked fuTow. Keeping our
eyes ON that we made II straight furrow.
Now in this matter of conviction we must
have some standard to guide us. 1t il
red standard that God has set at the
other end of the field 1t is the cross.
Keeping your eye on that you will make Il
straight furTow. Losing sight of it you
will make a crooked furrow. Pillow up to
the cross. Aim not at either end of the
horizontal piece of the cross but at the
upright piece, at the center of it, the heart
of the Son of God, who bore your sins and
made satisfaction. Crying and weeping
will not bring you through Him hath
God exalted to be Prince and Saviour
to give repentance" Oh, pillow up to the
crOss
Again | remark, in grace rs in the field
there must be sowing. In the autumn
weather you find the farmer going across
the field at a stride of about twenty three
inches, and ut every stride he puts his hand
into the sack of grain and he sprinklcs the
seed corn over the field, 1t looks silly to a
man who does not know what he is doing
He is doing "A very important work He is
the winter grain, and though
the snow may come, the next year there
will be n great crop. Now, that il what
we are doing when we are preaching the
are scattering the seed. 1t is
the fOolishness of preaching, but it is the
winter grain; and though the snow of
worldlncss may come down upon it. it
will yield after while glorious harvest.
Let us be sure we SOW the right kind of
seed. Sow mullen stalk and mullen stalk
will come up. Sow Canada thistles and
Canada thistles will come up. Sow wheat
and wheat will come up. Let us distin-
guish between truth and error. Let us
know the difference between wheat and
hellebore, oats and hcnhanc
THE RELIGION OF NEGATIoN.
The largest denomination in this country
Is the denomination of Nothingarians
Their religion is II system of negations.
You say to one of them, "What do You be
lieve'" well, | don't believe in infant
baptism" what do you believe?" "WeIl,
| don't believe in the perseverance Of the
saints" "Wcll, now tell me what you do
believe" "Well, don't lelieve in the
eternal punishment Of the wicked" So
their religion is n row Of cyphers Believe
and teach it; or, to resume the
figure of my text, scatter abroad the right
Kind of seed.
a minister in New York preached ser.
non calculated to set the denominations
IF Christians quarreling lie was sowing
ncttles, A minister in Boston advertised
hat he would preach n sermon on the su
)erioTity of transcendental ana organized