Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-08-18

! pillow with an OK and an ass together. -
There were large amounts of property
! invested in cattle. The Moabites paid
| 100, 900 sheep as an annual tax. Job
had 1000 sheep, 5000 camels, 500 yoke of
oxen. The time of vintage was ushered
in with mirth ana music. The clusters
! of the vine were put into the winepress,
and then five men would get Into the
| press and trampIe out the juice from the
| grape until their garments were satu-
rated with the wine and had become en-
blems of slaughter. Christ Himself,
| wounded until covered with the blood of
crucifixion, made use of this allusion
| when the questson was asked: "Where-
fore art Thou red in Thine apparel and
Thy garments like one who treadeth the
| winevat?' He responded: al have
trodden the winepress alone.'
In all ages there has been great honor
paid to agriculture. Seven eighths of
the people in every country are disciples
of the pillow. A government is strong in
proportion as it is supported by an athIe-
tic and industrious yeomanry. So long
as before the fall of Carthage, Strabo
wrote twenty eight books on agriculture;
Hesiod wrote poem on the same sub
ject-''The Weeks and Days" Cato
was profounder of his work on husban-
dry chan all of his military conquests.
But l must not be tempted into a discus
sion of agricultural conquests Stand
ing amid tie harvests and orchards and
vineyards of the Bible, and standing
amid the harvests and orchards and
VINEYARDS OF OUR OWN COUNTRY
want to run out the analogy between
the production of crops and the growth
of grace in the soul-all these sacred
writer's making use of that analogy.
Iu the first place 1 remark, in grace as
In the fields there must be pillow. That
which theologians call conviction is only
the plowshare turning up the sins that
have been rooted and matted in the soul.
A farmer said to his indoleut son:
FThere are 500 buried deep in that
field The son went to work aud
plowed the field from fence to fence, and
he plOwed it very deep, and then COM
planned that he had not found the
money; but when the crop had been
gathered aud sold for 500
more than any previous year, then the
young man took the hint as to what his
father meant when he said there were
500 buried down in that field. Deep
blowing for crop. Deep blowing for
soul. He who makes light of sin will
never amount to anything in the church
or in the world. II man speaks of sin
as though it were an inaccuracy or
mistake, instead of the loathsome,
abominable, consuming, and damning
thing that God hates, that man will
never yield a harvest of usefulness.
When l was boy pIowed u field with
q team of spirited horses. l pIowed it
very quickly. Once in a while l passed
owe! some of the sod without turning it,
but did not jerk back the pillow with its
rafting clevises. l thought il made no
difference. After awhile my father came
along and said: "Why, this will never
Go; this ism t plowed deep enough; there
you have missed this and you have missed
that. -
AND HE FLOWED IT OVER AGAIN.
The difficulty with great many peo-
pie is that they are only scratched with
conviction when the subsoil pillow of
God truth ought to be put in up to the
beam.
My word is to all Sabbath school
teachers, to all parents, TO all Christian
workers. Plow deep! and if in your own
personal experience you are apt to take
lenent view of the sinful side of your
nature, put down into your soul the ten
commandments which reveal the holiness
of God, and that sharp and glittering
coulter will turn your soul TO the deepest
depths. If a man breaches to you that
you are only little out of order by rea-
son of sin and that you need only little
fiXinG-up he deceivesl You have suffered
an appalling injury by reason of sin.
There are quick poisons and slow poisons,
but the druggist could give you one drop
that would kill the body. And sin is like
that drug; so virulent, so poisonous, go
fatal that one drop is enough TO kill the
soul.
Deep ploughing for crop. Deep
ploughing for soul. Broken heart or
no religion. Broken soul or no harvest.
Why was 1t that David and the jailer
and the publican and Paul made such
ado about their sins? Had they lost
their senses? No. The ploughshare
struck them. Conviction turned up
great many things that were forgotten.
AS farmer ploughing sometimes turns
up the skeleton of man or the anatomy
of monster long ago buried, so the
ploughshare of conviction turns up the
CHASTITY skeletons of sin long ago en-
tombed. Biologists never brought up
from the depths of the mountain mightIer
ichthyosaurus or megatherium.
But what means all this crooked
ploughing, these crooked burrows, the
repentance that amounts TO nothing,
the repentance that ends in nothing
MEN GRoAN OVER THEIR SINS,
but get no better. They weep but their
tears are not counted. They get con-
victed. but not converted. What is the
reason? l remember that on the farm
we set a standard with a red flag at the
other end OF the field. We kept our eye
on that. We aimed at that. We
ploughed up to that. Losing sight of
that We made u crooked furrow. Keep
ing our eyes on that we made straight
furrow. Now in this ma tier of convio-
ton we must have some standard to
guide us. 1t is red standard that God
has set at the other end of the field. 1t
is the cross. Keeping your eye on that
you will make straight furrow. Losing
sight of it you will make crooked fur
row. Plough up to the cross. Aim not
at either end of the horizontal piece of
the cross but at the upright piece, at the
center of it, the heart of the Son of God
who bore your sins aud made satisfac-
ton. Crying and weeping will not
bring you through. ''Him hath God
exalted to be Prince and
Savior to give repent
anna oh plouph m 70 Tho orosst