Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-12

| with one end Of the swoI d, the other end O
| the sword wounded him. When he tool
hold of the sword, the sword took hold 0
| cannot be conquered by rose-water and sof
| speeches. II must be sharp stroke ant
| straight thrust. There is intemperance, anC
| there is fraud, and there is gambling anC
there is lust and there are ten Thousand
| battalions of iniquity, armed Philistine ini
| quitv How are they to be captured and
| overthrown? Soft sermons in morocco cases
laid down in front of an exquisite audience
| will not do it. You have got to call things
by their right name.
We hnve got to expel from our churches
] Christians who eat the sacrament on Sunday
| and devour widows houses all the week
| We have got to stop our Indignation against
| the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Ger
gishites, and let those poor wretches go, and
| apply our indignation to the modern trans
| gressions which need to be dragged out and
| slain. Ahabs here. Herods there. JeZebels
here. The massacre of the infants here.
Strike for God so hard that while You Slay
| the sin the sword will adhere TO your own
| hand.
Women saved by the grace of God and on
! glorious mission sent, detained from Sab
| bath classes because their new hat is not
done. Churches that shook our cities with
| great revivals sending around to ask some
! demonstrHtive worshiper If he viii not
please to saw 'tamen" and "hallelujah" a lit
lie softer. 1t seems as if in our churches we
wanted baptism of cologne and balm OF a
thousand flowers when we actually need a
baptism OF fire from the Lord God of Pente-
cost But we are so afraid somebody Will
criticise our sermons, or criticise our
prayers, or criticise our religious work, that
our anxiety for the worlds redemption IS
lost in the fear that we will get our ha nd
hurt, while E!eaZar went into the conflict
'and his hand clave unto the sword"
MODERN WORKERS FOR CHRIST.
But see in the next place what hard
thing it was for Eleazar to get his hand and
hic npd tod ha n
ews had been so long grasped around the
sword he could not drop il when he proposed
to drop it, and his three comrades sup
pose, came up and tried to help him, and
they bathed the back part of the hand, hop
ing the sinews and muscles would relax.
But no His hand clave to the sword"
Then they tried TO pull open the fingers and
to pull back the thumb; but no sooner were
they pulled back than they closed again,
ttand his hand clave unto the sword"
You and have seen it many time. There
are in the United States to-day many aged
ministers of the Gospel. They are too
the word opposite their name is emeritus"
or the words are, "a minister without
charge" They were a heroic race. They
had small salaries, and tut few books, and
they swan spring freShets to meet their ap-
pointments. You put that old minister of
the Gospel now into q prayer meeting, or oc-
casional pulpit, or a sick-room where there
is some one to be comforted, and it is the
same old ring to his voice and the same old
story of pardon and peace and Christ and
heaven. His hand has so long clutched the
sword in Christian conflict he cannot drop
it. "lIis hand clave unto the sword"
had in my parish in Philadelphia a very
aged man who in his early life had been the
companion and adviser of the early PreSi-
dents, Madison and Monroe He had welded
vast influence, but L only knew him ms
very aged man. The most remarkable thing
about him was his ardor for Christ. When
he could not stand up in the meetings with
ont propping. he would throw his arm
around a pillar of the church, and though
his mind was partially gone, his love for
Christ was so great that all were in deep
respect and profound admiration, and were
moved when he spoke. l was called to sec
him die. entered the room, and he said:
s'Mr. Talmage, cannot speak to you now"
He was in very pleasant deliriun, as he
imagined he had an audience before him.
He said: 81 must tell these people to come
TO Christ and prepare for heaven" And
then in this pleasant delirium, both arms
lifted, this octoEenarian preached Christ
and told of the glorieS of the world to come.
There, lying on his dying pillow, his dying
hand clave to his sword.
HE HAD FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT
There is the beadless body of Paul on the
read to Ostea. His great brain and his great
heart have been severed. The elmwood
rods had stung him feartully. When tho
corn ship broke up he SWAN ashore, coming
up drenched with the brine. Every day
since that day when the horse reared un-
der him in the suburbs of Damascus, as the
supernatural light fell, down to this day
when he is 6S years of age and old and de-
crepit from the prison cell of the Manner
tine, he has been outrageouslY treated, and
he is waiting TO die How does he spend
his last hours? Telling the world how badly
he feels, and describing the rheumatism
that he had got in prison. the rheumatism
affecting his limbs, orthe neuralgia piercing
his temples, or the thirst that fevers his
Ia
battle-shout for Christendom: 81 am now
ready to be offered, and the time of my de-
parture is at hand; have fought the good
fight" And so his dying hand clave unto
the sword.
1t was in the front room on the second
floor that my father lay a-dying. 1t was
Saturday morning, 4 clock. just three
years before that day, my mother had left
him for the skies, and he had been home
sick to join her company. Ministers of the
Gospel came in to comfort him, but he COM
forted them. How wonderfully the words
sounded out from his dying pillow: 81 have
been young and now am old, yet have l
never seen the righteous forSaken, or his
seed begging bread" They bathed his brow
and they bathed his hands, and they bathed
his feet, and they succeeded in strai2hten-
ing out the feet: but they did not succeed in
bathing open the hand so it would STAY
open. They bathcd the hand open, but it
came shut. They bathed it open again, but
it came shut. What was the matter with
the thumb and the fingers of that old hand?
y
Christian conflict that ''his hand clave unto
the sword"
l preach this sermon as tonic. want
you to hold the truth with ineradicable grip,
and l want you to strike SO hard for God
that it will react, and while you take the
sword, the sword will take You.
SHOWING THE SCARS OF BATTLE
You noticed that the officers of the North
ern army n few days ago assembled at Den
vcr and you noticed that the officers OF the
Southern army assembled at Lexington.
Soldiers coming together arc very apt to
recount their experiences and to show their
sears. Here is q soldier who pulls up his
sleeve and says: There, l was wounded in
that ARM and shows the scar. And an
ether soldier pulls down his collar and says:
There, was wounded in the neck" And
another soldier says: 81 have had no use
of that limb since the gunshot fracture"
o, my friends when the battle of lie is over
and the resurrection has come and our bod
les rise from the dead, will we have on US
any scars OF bravery for God? Christ will be
there all covered with scars. Scars on the
brow, scars on the hand. scars on the feet,
scars all over the heart won in the battle of
Ignatius will be there, and he will point
out the place where the tooth and the paw
OF the lion seized him IN the Coliseum, and
john lIuss will be there, and he will show
where the coal first Scorched the foot on
that day when his spirit took wing OF flame |
from Constance. M'Millan. and Campbell,
and Freeman, American missionaries i'll
India. Will he there-the men who with their |
wives and children went down i'll the awful |
massacre at Cawnpore, and they will show !
where the dassgerS of the SepOvs struck |
them. The Waldenses will be there, and |
they Will show where their bones were |
broken on that day when the Piedmontese /
soidieTy pitched them over the rocks. And |
there will be those there who took care of |
the sick and who looked after the poor. and |
they Will have evidences OF earthly exhaus-
ton. And Christ, with his Scared hand !
waving over the Scared multitude, will say, |
" You suffered with me IN aartlf. now ba