The Russellville Democrat., 1890-06-26

| you may nave ontcfbafueut Dub yOu hEt
 ready to acknowledge, if your heart has
 not been changed by tho grace of God,
 that you are great way off-aye, so
 far that you can not get back of your- | selves. You would like to come back. l Aye, this moment you would start, if 1t were not for this sin, and that habit, and this disadvantage. But I am to | tell you of the Fathers eye. sight "He saw him great way
 of. !" He has seen all your frail- ties, all your struggles, all
 your disadvantages. He has been
 longing for your coming. He has not
 been looking at you with critics eye
 nor A bailiff's eye, but with fathers
 eye; and if a parent ever pitied child,
 God pities you. You say: ''Oh, had
 so many evil surroundings when l start ed life" Your Father sees it. You say: T have so many bad surroundings
 now, and it is very difficult for mo to
 break away from evil associations. !"
 Your Father sees it, and if you should
 start heavenward -as pray you may
 your Father would not sit idly down
 and allow you to struggle on up toward
 Him. Oh, mol Seeing you a great way of, He would fly to the rescue. How long does it take father to leap into
 the middle of the highway if his child
 be there, and swift vehicle is coming and may destroy him? Five hundred
 times longer than it takes our heavenly
 Father to spring to the deliverance of lost child. ''When he was great | nM hfo fn fba- xv bf,,,
 | And this brings mo to notice the
 fathers haste. The Biblo says he ran.
 No wonder! He did not know but that
 the young man would change his mind and go back. He did not know but that
 he would drop down from exhaustion. | He did not know but that something fatal might overtake him before he got l up to the doorsill; and so the father ran. l The Bible, for the most part, speaks of
 God as walking. 'In the fourth watch
 of the night" 1t says, Jesus came unto
 them walking on the sea. :" 'He walk
 eth upon the wings of the wind" Our ! first parents heard the voice of the | Lord, walking in the garden in the | cool of the day; but when a sinner starts for God, the Father runs to meet | him. Oh! if man ever wants help, | it is when he tries to become a | Christian. The world says to him: Back with you. Have more spirit | Don't be hampered with religion.
 Time enough yct Wait until you get
 sick. Wait until you get old" Satan
 says: Back with you; you arc so bad
 that God will have nothing to do with | you" or. "You are good enough, and
 need no Redeemer. Take thine ease | eat, drink and be merry" Ten thou
 sand voices say: Back with you. God | is hard Master. The church is a col lection of hypocrites Back into your sins; back to your evil indulgences;
 back to your prayerless pillows The silliest thing that young man ever does is to come home after he has been wandering" Oh, how much help man | does want when he tries to become a | Christianl Indeed, the prodigal can not | find his way home to his Fathers house alone. Unless some one comes to meet | him he had better have stayed by the swine troughs.
 When the tide comes in, you might
 more easily with your broom sweep back l tho surges than you could drive back
 the ocean of your unforgiven transgres- sions. What are we to do? Are we to 1 fight the battle alone, and trudge on
 with no one to aid us, and no rock to shelter us, and no word of encourage
 ment to cheer us? Glory be to God, we have in the text the announcement: When He was yet great way off, His Father ran" Whom the sinner starts
 for God, God starts for the sinner. God
 does not come out with a slow and hesitating pace. The infinite spaces slip beneath His feet, and He takes
 worlds at bound "The Father ran 5 l Oh, wonderful meeting, when God and the soul come together. 'The Father ran" You start for God and God starts for you, and you meet; and, while the angels rejoice over the meeting, your long injured Father falls upon your neck with attestations of compassion
 and pardon. Your poor, wandering, sinful, polluted soul, and the loving, the eternal Father, have met.
 remark upon the fathers kiss. He fell on his neck" my text says, "and kissed him" It is not every father
 that would have done that way, Some would have scolded him, and said Here, you went of with beautiful clothes, but now you arc in tatters. You
 went of healthy, and come back sick
 and wasted with your dissipations. !" He did not say that The son, all hag- gard, and ragged, and filthy, and wretched, stood before his father. The father charged him with mono of his
 wanderings. He just received him. He
 just kissed him. His wretchedness was a recommendation to that fathers love. Oh, that fathers kiss, How shall de- scribe the love of God?-the ardor with which He receives a sinner back again? Give me plummet with which l may fathom this sea. Give mo a ladder with which l can scale this height. Give me words with which I can de- scribe this love The apostle says in
 one place, ''unsearchable;n in another,
 ''past finding out" Height overlapping
 all height; depth plunging beneath all
 depth; breadth composing all immens- ity.
 Oh, this lovel God so loved the world. He loves you. Don't you believe it?
 Has He not done every thing to make
 you think so? He has given you life. health, friends, home-the use of your hand, the sight of your eye, the hear ing of your ear. He has strewn your path with mercies. He has fed you,
 clothed you, sheltered you, defended you, loved you, importuned you all your
 life long. Don't you believe He loves
 you? Why, if now you should start up from the wilderness of your sin, He
 would throw both arms around you.
 To make you believe that He
 loves you, He stopped to manager and
 cross and sepulchre. With all the pas
 sions of His holy nature reused, He stands
 before you to-day, and would coax you
 to happiness and Heaven. Oh, this
 Fathers kissl There is so much mean ing. and love, and compassion in it; so
 much pardon in it; so much Heaven in it. proclaim Him the Lord God, mer- F..I