The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1890-08-23

- pHS AO0utlUOMt, AUOluIn6 Ulo. con-
Stunning, and damning thing that God
hates, that man will never yield q harvest
OF usefulness.
When ! was q boy / plowed q field with q
team OF spirited horses. / plowed 10 very
quickly. Once in q while I passed over some
% the sod without turning it, but / did noe
Jerk back the plow with its rafting ~clevises.
! thought it made no difference. Alter awhile
my father came along and said: why, this
will never do; this isn't plowed deep enough;
there You have missed this and you have
missed that" And he plowed it over again.
The difficulty with q great many people is
that they are only scratched with conviction
when the subsoil pillow Of Gods 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 il in your own personal ex-
perience you are apt to take o lenient 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
md glittering coulter will turn up your soul
to the deepest depths. II a man breaches to
you that you are only q little out Of order by
reason Of sin and thpt You need only o little
fixing up, he deceives. You have suffered
an appalling injury by reason of sin. There
are quick poisons md slow poisons, but the
druggist could give you one drop that would
kill the body. And sin is like that drug; 80
virulent, 80 poisonous, SO fatal that one
drop is enough to kill the soul. N.
Deep ploughing for a crop. Deep plough.
ing for a soul. Broken heart or no religion.
Broken soul or no harvest. Why was ii that
David and the jailcr and the publican and
Paul made such ado about their sins? Had
they lost their senses? No. The plough
share struck them. Conviction turned up @
great many things that were forgotten. Az
a farmer ploughing sometimes turns up the
skeleton Of q man or the anatomy of 9
monster long ago buried, so the plough
share OF conviction turns up the Ghastly
skeletons OF sin long ago entombed. Geolo
gists never brought up from the depths o
the mountain mightier ichthyosaurus o.
megatherium.
But what means all this crooked plough
ing, these crooked burrows, the repentance
that amounts to nothing? Men groan over
their sins, but get no better. They weep, but
victed, but not converted. What is the rea.
son? I remember that on the farm we set q
red flag ut 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 a crooked furrow. Keeping
our eyes on that we made q straight furrow.
Now, in this matter of conviction we must
have some standard to guide us. It is the
red standard that God has set on the other
end Of the field. 1t is the cross. Keeping
your eyeson that you will make O straight
1urrow Losing sight of it you make acrook-
ed furrow. Plough up to the cross. Aim not
ut 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 YOU sins and
made satisfaction. Crying and weeping will
exalted to be a Prince and a Savior to give
repentance" Oh, plough up to the crossl
Again, I remark, in grace as in the field
there must be q sowing. In the autumnal
weather you find the farmer going across
the field at q stride of about % inches, and
at every stride he puts his hand into the sack
OF grain and he sprinkles the seed-corn over
the field. 1t looks silly to a man who does
not know what he is doing. He is doing o
very important work.
He is scattering the winter grain, and
though the snow may come. the next year
there will be q great crop. Now this ia what
we are doing when We are preaching the
gospel We are scattering the seed, 1t is
the foolishness OF preaching. but it is the
worldliness may come down upon it, 1t will
yield after a while glorious harvest. Let us
be sure we SOW the right kind of seed. Sow
mullen stalk and mullen stalk will come up.
Sow Canada thistles and Canada thistles will
up. Sow wheat and wheat will come
up. Let us distinguish between truth and
error. Let US know the difference between
wheat and hellebore, oats and henbane.
The largest denomination in this country
is the denomination of N othingarians. Their
religion is q system of ~negations. You say
to one of them. What do you believer"
tsWsll, / don't believe in infant baptism"
What do you believer SWELL, ! don't be-
lieve in the perseverance, OF the saints"
t'Well, now tell me what you believes" "Well,
r 1npSk bu1souo in Tho otarnaI nnniahmnnf.
OF the wicked" So their religion is q
row of cyphers. Believe something and
teach, it; or, to resume the figure of my
text, scatter abroad the right kind ofseed.
A minister of New York preached q sermon
calculated to set the denominations of
ties. A minister in Boston advertised that
would preach q On the superior
ity OF transcendental ind organized forces.
What was he sowing? The Lord Jesus
Christ 10 centuries g planted the divine
seed Of doctrine. 1t sprang up. On one
side of the stalk are all the churches of
Chirstiandom On the other eide OF the
earth, and on the top there shall be q flow
ering millennium after awhile. All from the
gospel seed of doctrine. .
Every word that q parent or Sabbath
school teacher. or city missionary, or other
worker speaks for Christ comes up.
Yes, it comes mp with compound interest
you saving onesoul, that one saving ten, the
ten a hundred. the hundred q thousand, the
thousand ten thousand, the ten thousand
one hundred tbo~usand-on, on forever.
Again, / remark, in grace as in the farm
there must be a narrowing. ! refer now not
to q harrow that goes over the field In order
to prepare the ground for the seed, but q
harrow which goes over aeter the seed -
sown, lest the birds pick up the seed, sink
~ I,.urn int tho onrth an TINT III can In ko
There are new kinds of harrow, but
the harrow as l remember it wa made OF
bars of wood nailed across each other, and
the underside of each bar was furnished with
sharp teeth, and when the horses were hitched
to it, it went tearing and leaping across the
field. driving the seed down into the earth
until itsprung up in the harvest. Bereaye-
ment, sorrow, persecution are the Lords har-
to sink the gospel truth into your heart.
There were truths that you. heard SO years
age, that have not affected you until recently.
Some great trouble came over you, and the
truth was narrowed in, and it has come up.
What did God mean in this country in 1857?
For q century there was the gospel preached,
but o great deal Of it produced no result.
Then God harnessed a panic to q harrow Of
commercial disaster, n that harrow went
down Wall street and up Wall street, down
Third street and up Third street, down State
street and up State street, until the whole
land was torn to pieces as il had never been
before. What followed the harrowf Agreat
in which there wers 500, 1000
souls brought into the kingdom Of our
Lord. No harrow, no crop.
Clutched the Pully and Saved
Himself.
MI. Charles Griffin, while engaged
in adjusting one Of the large pulleys
the leather board mill. Milton, N.
III, came near losing his life. HeWas
inside the pulley, and, the gate not
shutting tight, his weight on the