Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1890-03-08
Amaz.nc grace. how sweet The sound
Tha. rave,l wretch like me!
oncc Was losi. but HOW am found;
IVus Hind hut nuw seq

Was blind. bat now ! SET.
What. many of you Christians most need
is To get your grave clothes of. rejoice
that yom have been brought from the death
of sin IA the life OF the Gospel, but you need
To ret your haMl loose and your feet loose
and vour tongue loose aud your soul loose.
There isno sin that the Bible SO arraigns and
urincturcS and 6agellates us the sin OF unbe-
lief, and that is what is the matter with you.
oh Won say. ''if you knew what once
was and how many times have gr1evously
strayed, you would understand why
/ do not come out brighter" Then | think
you would call yourself the chief OF sinners
| am glad Won hit upon that term, for have
a promise that fits into your case as the coss
of one wheel between the cogS Of another
wheel or rs the key fits into the laoyrinths OF
a lock \ man who was once called Saul
but afterwarl Paul declared: "This is u
faithful saying and worthy OF all acceptation
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners, of whom, ! am chief" Mark tina.
-.'of whom AM chief" Put down your
overcoats and hats and will take cars
of them while you kill Stephen
so Saul said to the stoners of the first
martyr-"I do not caro- to exert myself
much. but will guard your surplus apparel
while You do the murder" The New Testa-
ment account says: 1.-THE witnesses laid down
their clothes at a young mans feet whose
name was Saul" No wonder he said: Sin
ners, of whom am the chief" Christ is
used to climbing. He climbed to thetop o.
the temple. He climbed to the top of,Mount
Olivet. He climbed to the top Of the
cliffs about Nazareth. He climbed
to the. top of Golgotha And to the
top of the hills and the mountains of your
transgression He is ready to climb with par
con for every one Of you. The groan Of Cal
vary is mightier than the thunder of Sinai.
Full receipt is. offered for all your indebted
ness. If one throw stone at midnight into
bush where the hedgebird roosts. it i'm
mediately begins to sing; and into the mid
night hedges of your dependency these words
J. hurl, hoping to awaken you to anthem.
Drop the tunes in the minor key and take
the major. Do you thinkit pleases' the Lord
for you to be carrying around with you the
You make me think of some ship that has
had tempestuous time at sea, and now that
it proposes another voyage, keeps on its
davits the damaged life-boats, and the splin>
ters of O shivered mast, and the broken
glass of a smashed skylight. My advice is:
clear the decks, overheard with all the DAM
aged rigging, brighten up the salted smoke
stacks, open new book, haul in
the planks, lay out new course and set sail
for heaven You have bad the spiritual
dumps long enough. You will please the
Lord more by being happy than by being
miserable. Have you not sometimes started
out in the rain with your umbrella and you
were busy thinking and you did not no
tice that the rain had stopped, and though it
had cleared OFF you still had your umbrella
I'D, and when you discovered what you
were doing you felt silly enough? That is
what some of you are doing in religious
things. You have got so used to sadness
that though the rain has stopped you still
have your umbrella up. Come out of the
shadow. Ascend the stairs of your
sepulcher Step out into the broad light of
monday. We come around you to help re-
move your grave clothes, and voice from
the heavens, tremulous but omnipotent,
commands: Loose him. and let him CO."
Again my text has good advice concern
ing any Christian hampered and bothered
and bound by fear of his own dissolution. To
such the book refers when it speaks Of these
who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage. The most OF Us,
even if we have the Christian hope, are
towards about death. If a plank falls from
scafrolding and Just grezes our hat how pale
we look If the Atlantic Ocean plays with
the steamship, pitching it toward the
heavens aid letting it suddenly drop, how
even the Christian passengers poster the stew
ard OF s.ewardess as to whether there is any
danger, and the captain, who has been all
night on the bridge and chilled through,
coming in for cup of coffee, is assailed with
whole battery of questions as to what he
thinks of the weather. And many of the
bestpeople are, as Paul says, throughout their
lifetime in bondage by fear of death. Ny
brothers and sisters, if we made full use Of our
religion we would soon get over this. Backed
up by the teachings of your Bible, just look
through the telescope some bright night and
see how many worlds there are and re-
dect that all you have seen compared
with the number of worlds in existence are
less than the fingers Of your right hand
as compared with all the fingers of the hui
man race How foolish then for US to think
that ours is the only world ft for us 60 stay
ill., think that all the stars ara inhabited
and by beings like the human race in feelings
and sentiments and the difference is in lung