The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1890-07-05

ing shoulders He carries us IN over the NOM.
tain OF our sins and the hills of our inionities.
Christ,s good works accepted are sufaeient
LOT us but they who reject them. dependinu
their own, must perish. Traits
OF character that may make us iniuentialo on
cas.h Viii not necessarily open to us the
gate OF heaven. The. plank that will be
strong enough for a house floor would not
90 Tor q ships hulk. Mere morality might
DC enough here, but cannot take you through
eeatn,s storm into heavens harbor. Christ
mas for all ages, Il am the. way,
tne truth and the life, him that cometh unto
me will in NO wise cast out" But pitiable
IN me day OF accounts will be the condition
Q! that man, though he may have given all
MS Estates to benevolent purposes and pass
60 ms lie IN the visiting Of the distressed and
done much to excite the admiration of the
good and the great. if he have no intimate
relation to Jesus Christ. There is a pride
and q depravity in his soul that he has never
discovered. A.. brilliant outside will be no
apology for q depraved inside. It is no the.
DRY OF mine, but an announcement of God.
who cannot lie. "By the deeds OF the law
shell no fiesh living be justified" Open the
door OF heaven and look in. Howard is
there, but he did not secure his entrance by
the dungeons he illumined and the lazzaret-
tes into which he carried the medicines,
Paul sthere, but he did not earn his a in
- "l'SNS II lAlpTlbOuHUeuCH ana
scourgings. On q throne overlapping DER.
maps all Others, except Christ's, the old mis-
slonary exclaims: By the grace of God I
am what I am 60
Again: Exalted social position will be no
cloak Tor sin. Men look through the wicket
door, OF prisons, and seeing. the incarcerated
wretches exclaim:' "Oh, how much vice there
'is in the woridl' And they pass though the
degraded streets Of a city, and looking into
the doors OF novels and the dens Of corrup-
ton they cal them God-forsaken abodes.
But you might walk along the avenues
through which the opulen' roll in their -four
lshing pomp and into. ,~nsions elegantly
adorned, and fnd that e,.n in the admired
walks oil. life satan works mischief and death.
The first temptation satan wrought in u oar.
den, and he understands yet most thorough
ly how to insinuate himself 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 loathsome
as fniquity in rags, and in the day OF judg.
ment the sins of Madison avenue and Elm
street will be driven In one herd. Men can.
not escape at last for being respectfully sim
full. You know Dives was, clothed in purple
and fine linen and Jared sumptously
every day, but his fine clothes and
good dinners did no save him He
might on earth have drunk something as
rich as champagne and cognac, but at last
He uSkcu iOf Ou0 uFOp Vi water. lou can
not trade of your attractive abodes here
for q house of many mansions ON high and
your elegant shade groves here will not war;
rant you O seat under the tree of life, When
God drove Adam and Eve out of Eden, He
showed that merely living in a garden of de-
lights and com orts will never save a man
or a woman. By giving you SO much earthly
luxury and refinement, he intimated that He
would have you enjoy. yourselves, but He
would not have you wrap yourself up in
them as O cloak to hide your sins. God now
walks in your. garden as He did in Eden,
even in the cool OF the day, and He stands
By your well as He did by q well in Samaria,
and He would make your com ort on earth
q type OF your rapture in heaven.
Furthermore: Mere soundness O: religious
belief viii 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's OF Charles. Quit
eau's. 1t is important that we are theo.
retical Christians It is utter folly in these
days for a man to have no preference for any
one form of faith, when it is SO easy to be-
come convsrsant with the taith OF the dit.
ferent sects. An intoxicated man staggered
into my house one night begging for lodging.
He made great pretentions of religion.
/ asked where he went to church. He said:
"Nowhere; 1 belong to liberal Christianity"
But there are those who never become Chris
IidnS BECAUSE their oustinacy prevents Gnem
from ever taking a lair view o, what
religion is. They are like O brute beast in
the fact that their gredtest strength lies in
their horns. They are combatant, and all
they ore willing to do for their soul is to en-
ter an ecclesiastical fight. l have met men
who would talk all day upon the ninth
chapter Of Romans, who were. thoroughly
helpless before the 14th chapter of John.
But there are those who, having escaped
from this condition are o depending en-
tirely upon soundness OF. religious theo-
nv. The doctrines of mans depravity
and Christ's atonement and Gods sover.
eighty and theoretically received by them.
But, alasl there they stop. 1t is only the
shell OF Christianity containing no evangeli-
cal life. They stand looking over into heav-
en- and admire its beauty and it's song, and
ore SO pleased with the looks from the out
side thai they cannot be induced to enter.
They could make a better argument for the
trnth han item thousand christians who
have in their hearts received it. If syllogisms
and dilemmas and sonnd propositions and
logical deductions could save their souls,
They could correctly define repentance and
faith and the a%tonement, while they have
never .elt one sorrow for sin nor exercised
q moments confidence in the great sacrifice.
They are almost immovable in their posi-
uion. We cannot present anything about
the religion OIL christ thaG Jney DO not Know.
The Savior described the fate Of such q one
His parable: And that servant which
knew his Lords will, and prepared not HIM
self. neither did according to His will, shall
be beaten with many stripes" Theories in
religion have o beauty Of their own, but II
they result in no warmth OF Christian Ii Q it
lie the beauty of ~hornblende .and feldspar.
Do o call such coldness and hardness re.
ligion. The river or life never freezes over.
Icicles never hang on the caves of heaven.
S~oundiess of intellectual belief is a beauti-
full cloak, well. woven and we'll cut, but in the
hour when God shall demand our souls it
will not of itself be sufficient to hide our iniq-
uities.