The Forrest City times., 1892-04-01


 Elijah used it when he advised the Baalites, as they could not make their god respond; telling them to call louder as their god might be sound asleep or gone hunt ing. Job used it when he said to his self-conceited comforters, Wisdom will die with you" Chaist not only used it in the text, but when he iron ically complimented the purified Phar- isees, saying, ''1'he whole need not a physician" and when by one worf' -e described the cunning of Herod, saying: Go ye, and tell that fox. :" Matthew Henry's Commentaries from the first page to the last cor uscated with humor as summer clouds with heat lightning. John Bunyan s writings are as full of humor as they are of saving truth, and there is not an aged man here who has ever read Pilgrims Progress who does not re- member that while reading it he smiled as often as he wept Cbrysostom, George Herbert, Robert South, John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jeremy Taylor, Rowland Hi,l, Nettleton, George c. Finney, and all the men of the past who greatly advanced the kingdom of God consecrated their wit and their humor to the cause of Christ. So it has been in all tho ages, and I say to these young theologf cal students, who cluster in these serv. ices sabbath by Sabbath, sharpen your wits as keen as scimitars, and then take them into this holy war. It is a very short bridge between smile and a tear, suspension bridge from eye to lip, and it is soon crossed over, and q smile is sometimes just as sacred as a tear. There is as much religion, and think little more, in spring morn ing than in a starless midnight. Re ligious work without any humor or wit in it is banquet with Il side of beef and that raw, and no con ailments and no dessert succeeding. People will not sit down at such a ban quet. By all means remove all frivolity and all bathos and all lightness and all vulgarity-strain them out through the sieve of holy discrimina tion; but, on the other hand. beware of that monster which overshadows the Chris tian church to-day, conventionality, coming up from the Great Sahara Desert of Ecclesiasticism, having on it's back hump of sanctimonious gloom-and vehemently refused to swallow that camel.
 
 people are about the intinitesimals while they are quite reckless about the magnitudes. What did Christ say? Did he not excoriate the people in his time who were so careful to wash their hands before a meal, but did not wash their hearts? It is a bad thing to have unclean hands; it is worse thing to have an unclean heart How many people there are in our time who are very anxious that after their death they shall be buried with their feet toward the easet and not at all anxious that during their whole life they should face in the right direction so that they shall come up in the resurrection of the just whichever way they are buried How many there are chiefly anxious that minister of the Gospel shall come in the line of apostolic sue cession, not caring so much whether he comes from Apostle Paul or Apostle Judas. They have way of measur' ing gnat until it is larger than a camel
 Again: My subject photographs all those who are abhorrent of small sins while they are reckless in regard te magnificent thefts. You will find many a merchant who, while he is so careful that he would not take a yard of cloth or spool of cotton from the coun ter without paying for it, and who if bank cashier should make a mis dollars too much would dispatch 2 messenger in hot haste to return
 the surplus, yet who will go into a stock company in which aftera while ht gets control of the stock. add then wa
 ters the stock and make Sl00, GOO ap
 pear like S2o0, 900. He only stole sio0,
 900 by the operation. Many of the mer of fortune made their wealth in tha'
 way. One of those men, engaged 1T
 such unrighteous acts, that evening
 the evening of the very day when h'
 watered the stock, will find a wharf-ra
 stealing an evening newspaper iron
 the basement doorway, and will go on
 and catch the urchin by the collar, ans twist the collar so tightly the poor fel low cannot say that it was thirst fol
 knowledge that led him to the dishon est act, but grip the collar tighter ant tighter, saying, 'I have been look ing for you long while; yo' stole my paper fcur or fiv' times, haven't you? you mis erable wretch" And then the ol' stock gambler, with voice they car hear three blocks, will cry out: "Po lice, police." That same man, the even ing of the day in which ne watered tn
 stock, will kneel with hIs family il prayer and thank God for the prosper ity of the day, then kiss his children goodnight with an air which seems t say, 'I hope you will all grow mp to b as good as your father9' Prisons fo sins insectile in size, but palaces flo crimes dromedarian. No mercy fo
 sins animalcule in proportion, but grea leniency for mastodon iniquity.
 | Dassipat.On of the Wind.
 Il know a literary man, says philosophic friend. who works fror twelve to eighteen hours a day. H
 complains when he has time, that h hasn't half time enough to do what h