Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1890-08-15

81 great institute and Tao daughter or
some man in danger Of being nominated for
the Presidency-she Is drunk. You may
have larger vocabulary than have. and
you may say In regard to her thas she Is
''convivial," or she 10 merry" or she il
festive" or she Is ''exhilerated,n but you
cannot with all your garlands OF verbiage
eover up the plain fact that it is en- old
fashioned case Of drunk.
satan has three or four grades down
nan he takes up. and through one spree
pitches him into eternal darkness. That Is
are case Very seldom, indeed, can you
Ind man who viii be such fool as that
When man goes down to destruction
atau brings him to plain It is almost
level. The depression is so slight that
you can hardly see 1t. That man does not
actually know that he is on the down
grade, and it tips only a little toward
iarkness-just a little. And the first mile
is claret and the second mile it is sherry,
md the third mile it is punch, and the
.ourth mile it is ale, and the fifth mile it is
porter, and the sixth mile it is brandy, and
then it gets sleeper and sleeper, and the man
gets frightened and says, 'Oh, let me get
ofP' mo, says the conductor, this is an
express train and it does not stop until it gets
to the Grand Central depot of Smashupton."
All, look not thou upon the wine when ID is
red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when
it moveth itself Alright. At the last it biteth
line d Tpeub anu Ike an aQUer.
My friends, whether you tarry at home
which will be quite as safe and perhaps quite
IS comfortable-or go into the country. arm
yourselves against temptation. ne grace
of God is the only safe shelter, whether in
town or country. There are watering places
accessible to all of US. You cannot open
book of the Bible without finding out some
such watering place. Fountains open for
sin and uncleanlineSS, wells OF salvation;
streams from Lebanon; flood struck out Of
ha VI nv All in
ness discovered by Hagar; water to drink
and water to battle in; the river of God,
which is full of water; water of which If a
man drink he shall never thirst; wells of
water in the Valley Of Baca; living fountains
of water; pure river of water as clear s
crystal from under the throne Of God.
These are watering places accessible to all
Of us. We do not have a Iaborious packing
up before we start-only the throwing away
of our transgressiOns. No expensive hotel
bills to pay; it is without money and with
out price" No long and dirty travel before
we get there; it is only one step away. In
California in five minutes | walked around
and saw ten fountains, all bubbling up. and
can go through this Bible parterre and find
you fifty bright, sparkling fountains bub-
bling up into eternal life.
A chemist will go to one Of these summer
watering places and take the water and ana
I'VE it, and tell you that it contains SO much
of iron, and so much Of soda, and so much of
lime and so much of magnesia. l come to
this Gospel well, this living fountain, and
analyze the water, and L find that its in
gradients are peace, pardon, forgiveness,
hope, comfort, life, heaven. IHO, every one
that thirsteth, come We" to this watering
place!
Crowd around this Bethesda to-day! Oh,
you sick, you lame you troubled, you dying
crowd around this Bethesda Step N It'll
Oh. step in it! The angel of the covenant to-
day stirs the water. Why do you not step
in it? Some of you are too weak to take a
step in that direction. Then we take you up
in the arms of our closing prayer and plunge
you clean under the wave, hoping that the
cure may be as sudden and as radical as with
Captain Naaman, who, blotched and carbun-
cled stepped into the Jordan, and after the
seventh dive came up, his skin roseate COM
Dlexioned as the flesh of little child.