Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-05-10

tnereis large class OF parsons IN mta-ilIS
who have still in them appetites that
were aroused in early mlnhood, at tims
1 when they prldsd Themselves on being a
little fast, "higa livers,r free and easy
mail fellows well met !" They arenow paying.
in compound interest, for troubles they
| collected tweaty years ago. Soma Of you
| are trying to escape and you will-yet
very narrowly tas with the skin Of your
teeth. God aud your own soul only know
what the struggle is. Omnipotent grace
! has pulled out many soul that was deep7r
in the miro than you are. They line the
beach of heayen--tha multitude whom God
has rescued from the thralI of suicidal
habits. Ii you this day turn your back on the
wrong and start anew, God will help you.
Oh, the weakness of human hslpi Men will
| sympathizs for while AMI then turn you
off. Ifyou ask for their their pardon, they
will give it, AMI say they will try you again;
but, falling away again under the power of
/ temptation, they cast you OF forever. But
1 God forgives seventy timss seven; yea, seven
/ hundred times; yea though this BE- the ten
| thousandth time, He is more earnest, more
| sympathetic, more helpful this last time than
when you took your first misstep.
| IT, with all the influences favorable for a
right life, men make 50 many mistakes, how
much harder it is when for instance, some
appetite thrusts its iron grapple into the roots
j OF the tongue and pulls a man down with
/ hands of desuructioni If, under such circum-
stances, he break away, there will be no sport
in the undertaking, no holiday enjoyment,
| but struggle in which the wrestlers move
| from side to side, and bend and twist and
watch for an opportunity to get in heavier
stroke, until with one final effort in which
the muscles are distendei, and the veins
/ stand out and the blood starts, the swarthy
habit falls under the knee of the victories
/ capped at last as with the skin Of his teeth"
Tne ship Emma, boaad from Gottenburg
to Harwich, was sailing on, when the man Oh
the loo 1out saw som7thing that he pro.
nounce1 vessel bottom up. There was
| something on it that looked ike a sea gull
but was afterward found to be a waving
handkerchief. In the small boat the crew
pushed out to tia wreck, and found that it
was caoslzed vessel and that three men
had been digging their way out through the
/ bottom Of the ship. When the vessel cap
sized they had no means of escape The
1 captain took his penknife and dug away
1 through the planks until his knife broke.
! Then an old nail was found, with which they
| attempted to scrape their way out of the
darkness, each one working until his hand
was well nigh paralyzed and he sank back
faint aud sick. After long and tedious work
the light broke through the bottom of the
| ship. A handkerchief was hosted. Help
came. They were taken on board the vessel
and saved. Did ever men come so near
watery grave without dropping into it?
How narrowly they escaped escaped only
with the skin of their teeth"
There are men who have been capsized of
| evil passions, and capsZed mid-ocean and
! they are a thousand miles away from any
shore of help. They have for years been try
ing to dig their way out They have been
digging away and digging away, but they
can never be delivered unless they will hoist
some signal of distress. However weak and fee
| bic it may be, Christ will sea it, and bear down
| upon the helpless craft, and take them on
board, and will be known in earth and in
/ heaven how narrowly they escaped ''es-
capped as with the skin of taeir teeth"
There are Others who in attempting to
come to God must run between a great
many business psrplexities Ii man go
! over to business at 10 O'Clock in the morn
ing, and comes away at O'Clock in the af-
| ternooH he has some time for religion but
/ how shall you find tina for religious con-
temptation when you are driven from sun
rise to SUNSET aud have been for five years
going behind in business, and are frequent
| " dunned by creditors whom you cannot
pay, and when, from Monday morning I'M
| til Saturday night, you ara do1ging 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 less business troubles chan you have
/ gone crazy. The clerk has heard noise in
/ tne back counting-room, and gone In, and
/ found the chief man of the firm raving
maniac; or the wife has heard the bang OF
pistol in the back parlor, and gone in
: stumbling over the dead body of her hus-
/ banda suicide. There are in this house
| to-day three hundred men pursued, har-
raised, trodden down and scalped of bust
| ness perplexities, 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 a Christian
and your first effort in the right direction
| He will crown with success. Do not let
I.oia nIh
heads and couhters and stocks of unstable
| goods block up your way to heaven. Gather
| up all your energies. Tighten the girdie
| about your loins Take an agonizing look
into the face Of God, and then say: Here
goes one grand effort for life eternal" and
then bound away for heaven, escaping as
with the skin of your teeth"
In the last day it will be found that Hugh
| Latimer and john Knox and Huss and Rid
ley were not the greatest martyrs but Chris
4 tlan men who went up lncorrupt from the
contaminations and perplexities of Wall
/ street, Water street. Pearl street, Broad
street, State street and Third street. On earth
/ they were called brokers, or stock iob5ers, or
! retailers. or Importers but III heaven, Chris
| tian heroes. No fagot5 were heaDed about
| their feet; no inqulsition demaL from
! their recantation: no soldier aimed pike at
! their heart, but they had mental fortunes,
compared with which all physical consuming
/ is as the breath of a spring morning.
| find iii the community a large class or
/ nan who have been so cheated, so het
/ aoout so outrageously wronged, that they
/ have lost their faith in everything. In
world where everything seems SO topsy
/ turvy they do not see how there can be
any God. They are confounded and fren-
zied and misanthropic Elaborate argu-
ments to prove to them the truth of Chris
tianity, or the truth of anything else, touch
them nowhere. Hear me all such men. /
to- ,IaJ. .iAIc
mental discourse; but put my hand on
your shoulder, and invite you into the
1 peace of the Gospel. Here is rock on which
/ you may stand firm, though the waves
dash against it harder than the Atlantic
/ pitching its surf clear above Eddystone
! Lighthouse. Do not charge upon God all
these troubles Of the world As long as the
world stuck to God, God stuck to the world;
| but the earth seed d from his government,
an hence all these outrages and all thess
woes. God is good For many hundreds of
/ years He had been coaxing the world to come
back to Him. but the more He has coaxed the
more violent have men been in their resist
anee, and they have stepped bacx aud stepped
back until they have dropped into ruin.
Try this God, We who have hal the blood
hounds after you, and who have thought
that God had forgotten yon, Try Him,
and see if He will not help. Try Him, and
see if He will not pardon Try Him, and
! see if He will not save. The flowers OF
spring have no bloom so sweet as the
/ Towering of Christs affections. The sun
/ hath no warmth compared with the glow
I of His heart. The waters have no refresh.
ment like the fountain that will slase the
/ thirst of thy soul At the moment the
reindeer stands with his lips and nostril
thrust in the cool mountain torrent the
I hunter may be coming through the thicket.
/ Without cracking stick under his foot
| he comes close by the stag, aims his gun,
/ draws the trigger and the poor thing rears
in its death agoay and falls backward, its
antlers crashing on the rocks, but the pant
/ ing hart that drinks from the water brooks
/ of Gods promise shall never be fatally
/ wounded and shall never die.
This world is poor portion for your soul,
| oh business mani An eastern King had
I craven on his tomb two fingers, represented
as SCUM ling upon each other with snap, and
under them the motto 'All is not worth
/ that Apicius Coelius hanged himself be-
cause his steward informed him that he had
only eighty thousand pounds sterling left.
All Of this worlds riches make but a small
inheritance for soul. Robespierre attempted
to win the applause Of the world; but when
he was dying, woman came rushing through
the crowd, crying to him: Murderer of my
kindred descend to hell covered with the
curses of every mother in France" Many
who have expected the plaudits of the world
have died unde. its Anathema Maranatha.
On, find your peace in God. Make one
strong pull for heaven No half way work
will do it. Taere sometimes comes a time on
shipboard when everything must be saeri-
feed to save the passengers. The cargo is
nothing, the rigging nothing. The captain
puts the trumpet to his lips and shouts, Cut