Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-05

whole, that its influence has been benefcent,
come to you with both hands extended toward
have nothing. This Bible in one hand will
surrender for ever just as soon as in my Other
hand you can put book that is better. To
day 1 invite you back into the good old
fashioned religion of your fathers-to the God
whom they worshipped, to the Bible they read,
to the promises on which they leaned. to the
cross on which they hung their eternal expecta-
tions. You have not been happy day since
you swung of; you will not be happy minute
| until you swing back.
Again: There may be some of you who in the
attempt after Christian life. will have to run
against powerful passions and appetites. Per-
| maps 1t is disposition to anger that you have
to contend against; and perhaps. while in very
makes you feel that you must swear or die. 1
know Christian man who was once so ex-
asperated that he said to mean customer, II
of the church; but if you will go down stairs
my partner in business will swear at you" All
your good resolutions heretofore have been
TORN TO TATTERs
BY explosion of temper. Now there is no harm
in getting mad if you only get mad at SIN. You
need to bride and saddle those hot-breathed
passions, and with them ride down injustice
and wrong. There are thousand things Iii the
world that we ought TO be mad at. There is no
harm in getting red-hot if you only bring to the
forge that which needs hammering. A man
who has no power of righteous Indignation is
an imbecile. But be sure it is righteous in
dgnation. and not a petulancy that blurs and
unravels and depletes the soul.
There is a large class of persons in mid-life
who have still in them appetites that were
aroused in early manhood, at a time when they
prided themselves on being q "little fast"
''high livers." free and easy" 'hail-fellow
well met" They are now paying in compound
interest, for troubles they collected 20 years
ago Some of you are trying to escape, and
you will-yet very narrowly. ''as with the skin
of your teeth" God and your own soul only
know what the struggle is. Omnipotent grace
mas pulled out many soul that was deeper in
heaven-the multitude whom God has rescued
from the thrall of suicidal habits. II you this
day turn your back on the wrong and start
anew God will help YOU.
If, with all the influences favorable for a
right life, men make so many mistakes how
much harder it is when, for instance, some
appetite thrusts its iron grapple into the roots
of the tongue, and pulls a man down with
hands of destruction If. under such circum-
stances, he break away, there will be no sport
in the undertaking, no holiday enjoyment, but
a struggle in which the wrestlers move from
side to side. and bend and twist, a1d watch for
an opportunity to get in a heavier stroke, until
with one final effort, in which the muscles are
dlstended, and the veins stand out, and the
blood starts. the swarthy habit falls under the
knee of the victor-escaped at last as with the
skin of his teeth"
There are men who have been capsized of
Of evil passions. and capsized mid-ocean and
they they are ar Ia thousand 3ns miles away from any
ing to dig their way out. They have been dig
ging away. and digging away but they can
never be delivered unless they will hoist
SOME SIGNAL OF DISTRESS.
However weak and feeble it may be, Christ |
will see it, and bear down upon the helpless |
craft, and take them on board; and it will be |
known in earth and in heaven how narrowly |
they escaped-"escaped as with the skin of |
their teeth" There are others who in at |
tempting to come to God must run be- |
tween great many business perplexities. |
1t man 60 over to business at 10
O'Clock in the morning. and come away at |
O'Clock in the afternoon, he has some time for
religion: but how shall you find time for relig-
ious contemplation when you are driven from
sunrise to sunset, and have been for five years
going behind in business. and are frequently
dunned by creditors whom you cannot paw. and
when from Monday morning until Saturday
night you are lodging bills that you cannot
meet? You walk day by day in uncertainties
that have kept your brain on fire for the past
three years. Some With ess business troubles
than you have gone crazy. The clerk has heard
a noise in the back counting room and gone In
maniac; or the wife has heard the bang
Of pistol in the back parlor and gone
n stumbling over the dead BODY of
N this house to-day 800 men pursued, harassed.
.rodden down, and scalped, of business per-
Dlexities, and which way to turn next they do
not know. Now God will not be hard on you.
He knows what obstacles are in the way of
your being Christian, and your first effort in
he right direction He will crown with success
Do not let Satan. with cotton bales and kegs
md hogsheads and counters and stocks of un- |
'alable goods block up your way to heaven.
Gather up all your energies. Tighten the |
,irdle abou. your loins. Take an agonizlng
ook into the face of God and then say Here |
GRAND effort md /
hen bound away for heaven, escaping as with |
he skin of your teeth"
In the last day it will be found that Hugh |
Iatimer and John Knox and Huss and Ridley
we're not the greatest martyrs, but Christian
nen who went up incorrupt from the contami- |
ations and perplexitles of Wall street. Water
nd Third street. On earth they were called |
rokers or stock jobbers, retailers, or i'm
orters; but in heaven Christian heroes. No
agots were heaped about their feet: no inOuisi-
ion demanded from them recantation; no SOL
ier aimed pike at their heart; but they had |
Mental tortures. compared with which all pbysi-
al consuming is as the breath of spring /,
morning.
A PROSECUTED CLASS.
find in the community large class of men I
Tho have been SO cheated SO lied about SO {
wronged, that they have lost their
aith in everything In a world where every ,
hing seems SO topsy-turvey they do not see
i and frenzied and misanthropic. Elaborate ]
rguments to prove to them the truth of Chris I
anity, or the truth of anything else, touch
lem nowhere. Bear me, all such men. l Z
reach to you no rounded periods, no ornamen- !
i discourse, but put my hand on your shoul-
er and invite you into the peace of the gospel. {
ere is a rock on which you may stand firm, /
ough the waves dash against it harder than c
e Atlantic. pitching its surf clear above Ed r
'stone Lighthouse. Do not charge upon God Z
these troubles of the world AS long as the =
Orld stuck to God, God stuck to the world;
1T the earth seeded from His government.
I'd hence all these outrages and all these woes c
cd is good. For many hundreds of years He n
IS been coaxing the world to come back to o
i'm; but the more He has coaxed, the more IL
Olent have men been in their resistance ani 81
ey have stepped back and stepped back until T.
ey have dropped into ruin. II
Try this God, We who have had the blood | c
unds after you, and who have thought that p
I'd had forgotten you. Try Him and see If Ia
e will not help. Try Him and see if He will fl
It pardon. Try Him and see il He will not la
eet as the Towering of Christ's affections. | G
lie sun hath no warmth compared with the P
)w of His heart. The waters have no re- o.
,shment like the fountain that will slake the p;
lrst of thy soul. At the moment the rein
er stands with his lip and nostril thrust in
e cool mountain torrent the hunter may be
ming through the thicket. Without crack n,
G stick under his foot. he comes close by =