Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-09-05

Perhaps they will not. They are like a
steamer that should go out of New York
next day should start for Havre dc
Grace, and the next Tor Charleston, and
the next for Boston, and the next for
Liverpool-thesc men on the sea of life,
cvcrastingly lacking ship and making
no Roadway. Or they are like IL man
who starts to build house i'm tho Co
rinthian style and changes it to Dorc,
and then completes it in the Ionic, and is
cursed by all styles of architecture.
Young man, start right and keep on.
Have decision of character. Character
is like the goldfnch of Tonquin; it is
magnificent while standing firm, but
loses all its beauty in flight. How much
decision of character in order that these
Young men may be Christians! Their
old associates make sarcastic filings at
them. They go on excursions and do not
invite them. They prophcsy that he will
give out. They wonder if he is not get
ting wings. AS he passes they grimacc
and wink and chucklc, and say, '.There
goes a saint" -
oh, young man, have decision of char
actcr. You can afford in this matter of
religion to be laughed at. What do you
care for the SCOTS of these men who are
atfrontcd because you will not go to ruin
with them? When the grave cracks
open under their feet, and grim mcsscn-
gers push them into it, and eternity
| comes down hard upon their spirit. and
conscience stings, and hopeless ruin lifts
them up to hurl them down, will they
laugh then?
learn also from my subject that men
may take religion into their worldly bus
mess. Daniel had enough work to do to
occupy six men. All the affairs of State
questions of war, of peace, all inter-
national questions were for his settle
mcnt and adjustment. He must have had
a correspondence vast beyond all compu-
taton. There was not u man in all the
earth who had more to do than Daniel,
the Secretary of State. and yet we find
him three times a day bowling before
God in prayer. There are men in our
day who have not hundredth part of
Daniels engagements who say they are
too busy to be religious. They have an
idea, somehow that religion will spoil
their worldly occupation, that it will trip
the accountants pen, the lawyers brief,
or disarrange the merchants store
| shelf.
They think religion is impcrtincnt.
| They would like to have it very we'll
seated beside them in church OH the Sab
bath, to find the place in the Psalm book.
or to nudge them awake when they get
sleepy under the didactic DISCOURSE; or
| they would like to leave it in the pew on
| Sabbath evening, as they go out closing
the door, saying: s'Good night, religion;
| I'll be back next Sunday!'' But to have
| religion go right along by them all
through life, to have religion looking
over their shoulder when they are maxi
| ing bargain, to have religion take up a
| bag of dishonest gold and shake it and
say, "Ha! ha! where did you get that?"
they think that is an impcrtinent re-
! ligion. They would like to have a re-
| ligion to help them when they are sick,
and when the shadow of death comes
they would like to havca religion as a sort
of a night-key with which to open the
door of Heaven; but religion under other
circumstances they take as an imperti-
nence. Now, my friends, religion never
robbed a man of a dollar. Other things
1 being equal, a mason will build better
wall, a cabinet-maker will make a better
chair a plumber will make a better pipe,
\
chant will sell better bill of goods.
say other things being equal. OF
course when religion gives Il man a new
heart it does not propose to give him a
/ now head, or to intellectualiZe him, or to
change a mans condition when his ordi-
nary state is overthrow of the philoso-
phical theory that a total vacuum is inn
possible: but the more letters you have
| to write, the more burdens you have to
carry, the more miles you have to travel,
the more burdens you have to lift, the
more engagements you have to meet, the
more disputes you have to settle, the
more opportunity you have of being a
Christian.
Ii you have a thousand irons in the
fire. you have a thousand more oppor-
tuntics of serving God than if you had
only one iron in the fire. Who so busy
as Christ? And yet who amillionth part
as holy? The busiest men the best men.
| All the persons converted in Scripture
busy at the time of their being converted.
Matthew attending to his custom house
duties; the Prodigal Son ferding swine;
Lydia selling purple; Simon Peter haul
ing in the net from the sea: Saul spur
ring his horse toward Damascus, going
down on his law business. Busy! busy!
Daniel with all the affairs of state
weighing down upon his soul, and yet
three times a day worshiping the God of
Heaven.
Again, ! learn from this subject that a
man may take religion into his politics.
/ Daniel had all the affair of state on hand,
yet Christian. He could notshave kept
his elevated position unless he had been
a thorough politician, and yet all the
thrusts of officials and all the danger of
disgrace did not make him yield one iota
of his high toned religious principle. He
stood before that age, he stands before
all ages a specimen of Christian poll
tician.
So there have been in our. day and
in the days of our fathers, men as emf
nent in the services of God as they have
been eminent in the service of the State
Such was Benjamin Il. Butler, Attorney
General of New York in the time of your
fathers. Such was John Mclean, of
Ohio. Such was George Briggs, of Mas
sachusetts. Such was Theodore Freling-
huysen, of New Jersey. Men faithful to
the State, at the same time faithful to
God.