Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-25

Proverbs: ftBecause I have called and
We have refused; l have stretched out my
hand and no man regarded. also will
laugh at your calamity; l will nook when
your fear cometh.
"Sonas one has said that If we had
eyes to see and ears to hear, the calls of
God would multiply about us every day.
Every hour of the day, and every season
of the year, and every object on which
we look and every avocation of life calls
us to a better life, If we had ears to hear
and eyes to see. When we 20 to break
fast in the morning and help
our children to their food,
you might hear the Lord say:
MY children, come to me, for am bet
ter able to provide for you than you are
for your children And when you go
forth in the morning the sun shining
down on you says: Man, my path is
upward and onward, broader and
broader. How is it with you?' And at
midday you look up at the sun again,
and He says: Man, have reached my
meridian, and am at the height of my
power; how is it with yon?' And when
you go home at night and light your can
die you observe the little insects fitting
around the flame, and you say: Fool
ish thing, to endanger yourself in that
way But you might hear God say:
Man, you are doing the very same
thing. You have been dissolute with the
pleasures of this world and have played
around the fire of eternal destruction.
Oh, man, escape the fires that will never
be quenched. -
The evangelist pursued this theme of
speaking nature till he had included
nearly every familiar object in the cat
egory of conversationIsJs. The hours,
the days, the months, the seasons, the
years, the crops were said to hear a mes
sage from God of the danger in the path
of man and the necessity for him to fee
from it. Many different branches of in
dustry were named to point out lessons
taught TO those who followed them-the
merchant, the mechanic, the lawyer, the
school teacher, the blacksmith and the
saloon keeper-all were shown how God
calls to them in the course of the pursuit
of their calling, the conclusion being
that to any one who had ears to hear or
eyes to see the calls of God multiplied
infinitely.
"And not only does God call us by the
hours of the day and the seasons and the
objects of nature, continued the
preacher, 'but He also calls us by His
holy spirit. l thank God that we
live under the dispensation of the third
person of the Trinity! l thank God that
the holy spirit is in all places and in all
things and in all persons, and is brood
ing over this meeting tonight. That
blessed spirit is with us in all places and
at all times and it is even in Fort Worth.
There Is no reason why any man in this
place should not throw open his heart
and welcome the coming of this spirit.
The Lord is in earnest. He will surely
come if you will admit Him. He will
comply with all His promises.
"And God also calls with this blessed
book l hold in my hand-the Bible. This
book is just full of calls from God
Each sentence in it IS a call, and some
pages of 1t contain dozens of calls When
you come to the Bible you find the calls
multiply a thousandfold. This is the
book of all books. There are some of
you here who pretend to scout and de-
spise the Bible, but if there were IA -
900, 200 ofsuch people in the audience L
would clasp the Bible to my heart and
declare it the greatest of all books.
Thank God for this book!
"But God not only calls by the objects
Of nature and by His spirit and by His
word, but He also speaks loudly to US
through His living ministry. You may
talk about preachers as you like, but [
have seen just about all the different kinds
and while it may be true that some of
them don t amount to much, yet in all
the past [ have never yet listened to a
sermon that didn't have truth enough in
it to save dozen such men as 1 am.
And the ministry through which God
calls has grown until 1t is now a
mighty body, and to-day in your
city the preachers are so numerous that
on Sunday when the churches are all
open they can hear each others voice;
and if you took all the preachers in the
world in row you could girdle the earth
with them and every man in the world
could hear their voice. And we
have never properly estimated
their value in our community. The
work of the evangelist would be useless |
without the quiet, faithful, patient SOW
ing Of the regular ministers. l might as
well go to China to convert the natives
as to come to Fort Worth if It were not
for the work already done here by the
regular preachers. I bless God for every
friend l have among the ministry in this
world.
"But God also comes still closer to us
and calls us by His providences. L be- |
Iieve in the providence OF God. He takes |
care of me, and when l am away from |
home he takes care of my family and my |
loved ones. Brethren, sometimes Gods |
providences are sore and apparently cruel |
in their application; but l am ready to |
say, taking heaven and hell out |
of the question for the moment, l am |
afraid to do wrong and not to do right |
because of what might result to me here |
on this earth. Sometimes 1 have gone |
home for rest for q while, determined to |
stay there month or so to thoroughly re- |
cuperate, but after being there few days |
messages would begin TO come in re- |
questing me to go somewhere to preach, |
but would declare 1 would not go. 1 /
wanted rest. But by and by message |
would come that seemed to have a cur
rent from another world, and something |
would whisper to me: Come. If you
go laying around here first thing |