The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1890-05-14

Would you not Ike to live the SANE
quiet life, and the same peaceful
leath? I have letter sent me by
one who has rejected the Christian
religion. 1t says: Il am old enough
to know that the Joys and pleasures
of life are evanescent and to realize
the fact that it must be comfortable
in old age to believe in something
relative to the future, and to have q
faith IN some system that proposes
to save. I am free to confess that
would be happ cr if I could exercise
the simple and beautiful faith that IS
possessed by many whom I know. l
am not willingly out of the church or
out of the faith Ny state of uncer-
tainty is one of unrest Sometimes
I doubt my Immortality, and look up
on the death-bed as the closing scene,
after which there is nothing. What
shall DO that I have not done?
Alb. scepticism is dark, ,doleful land:
Let me say that this Bible is either
true or false. If it be false, we are
as well off as you; ifit be true, then
Which Of us is safer!
Let me also ask whether your
trouble has not been that you con-
founded Christianity with the neon
sistent character of some who pro-
fess it, You are lawyer. In your
profession there are mean and dshon-
est men. Is that anything against
the law7 You are u doctor. There
are unskiled and contemplate men
in your profession. Is that anything
against medicine? You are a mer-
chant. There are thieves and defraud-
ers in your business. Is that any
thing against merchandise? Behold,
then, the unfairness Of charging upon
Christianity the wickedness OF Its
disciples. We admit that some OF
the charges against those who pro
fess religion are true.Some of the most
gigantic swindles Of the present day
have been carried on by members OF
the church. There are men standing
in the font rank IL the churches who
would not be trusted with IS with
out GOOD collateral security. They
leave their business dishonestles II
the vestibule of the church as they
! 60 in and sis at the communion.
Having concluded the sacrament,
shey get up and wipe the WINE from
their lips, go out, and take up their
sins where they left of. To serve the
devil is their regular work; to serve
God. sort of play spell. With q
| Sunday sponge they expect to wipe
off from their business slate all the
past weeks inconsistencies. You
have no more right to take such S
mans life as specimen of religion
than YOU have to take the twisted
irons andsplit tilnbers that lie on the
beach at Coney Island as q specimen
of an American ship. 1t is time that
we draw line between religion and
the frailties of those who profess it
Do you not feel that the Bible
take it all in all, is about the best
book that the world has ever seen?
| Do you know any book that has as
much in it, Do you not think, upon
| the whole, that its influence has been
| benefcent! I come toyou with both
hands extended toward you. In one
hand have the Bible, and IN the
other I have nothing. This Bible in
one hand viii surrender for ever
ust as soon as in my other hand you
an put book that IS better. Today
7 invite you back into the good old
fashioned religion of your fathers
to the God whom they worshiped, tc
the Bible they read, to the promises
on which they leaned, to the Gross OF
.,zgnich they hung their eternal e1pec
tations. You have not been happy .
day since you swung of; you vii
not be happy 8 minute until you
swing back.
There is large class OF persons IL
mid-Gfe who have still in them appe-
tites that were aroused IN early man.
hood, at q time when they prided
themselves on being a little fast,
::high livers,n free and easy" ''hal
fellows well met" They are now pay
ing. in compound interest, for trou'
bles they collected twenty years ago:
Some of you are trying to escape, and
you will-yet very narrowly, las
with the skin of your teeth" God
| and your own soul only know what
the struggle is. Omnipotent grace
has pulled out many a soul that was
deeper in the mire than you are.
! They line the beach Of heaven-the
| multitude whom God has rescued
from the thrall Of suicidal habits II
you this day tsrn your back on
the wrong and start anew God help
you. Oh the weakness of human
| helpl Men viii sympathize for. a
while and then turn you off. If you
ask for their pardon, they viii give it,
and say they will try you again; but,
falling away again under the power
of temptation, they cast you off for
| ever. But God forgives seventy
times seven: yea seven hundred times;
yea, though this be the ten-thou-
| sandth time. He is moro earnest,
| more sympathetic, more helpful this
last time than when you took your
srst misstep.
#, with all the influences favorable
for a right life, men make SO many
mistakes, how much harder it is
when, for instance, some appetite
thrusts it's iron grapple into theroots
| of the tongue, and pulls man down
with hands of destruction! Thunder
| such circumstances, he breaks away,
there will be no sport In the under
taking, no holiday enjoyment, but a
struggle in which the wrestlers move
from side to side, and bend and twist,
and watch for an opportunity to get
in heavier strokes,until with one final
effort, in which the muscles are dis