Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1892-06-18
CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS.
DR.. Talmage Discourses on Militant
Christianity.
Followers of tho Saviour Urged to 80
Ready for Aggressive Warfare
Tho Popular Preacher Co
Ing to Europe.


sail on Wednesday for Europe and
might be able to be present ut the dis
tribution in the famine stricken dis
tricts of Russia of the Christian Herald
relief cargo, consisting of 5000, 900
pounds of -four and other supplies which
goes out this week on the steamship
Leo, chartered for the purpose. He
congratulated the American people on
the generous spirit evinced by this
magnificent gift to the starving people
His sermon was from the text, Ephe-
slams vi IL. PUT on the Whole Armor
of God"
There is in this text great rattle of
shields and helmets and swords. Sol
diers are ready for battle. We have
had recently in this church new enlist
mcnts and l shall address myself to
those in this and other churches who
are putting on the armor of God, and
who may feel themselves to be as yet
only raw recruits. Mastery retreat"
is term often used in military circles,
but in religion there is no such thing.
1t is called glorious advance or dis
graceful and ignominious falling back.
1t would be Il strange thing If all our
anxiety about men ceased the moment
! they were converted. You would A.
most doubt the sanity of that farmer
who having planted the corn and seen
it just sprout above ground, should say:
"My work is all done. have no more
anxiety for the field" No. There is
work for the pillow and the hoe. and
there must be a careful keeping up of
the fences and there must be fright
ening away of the birds that would pill
lage the field And say the entrance
upon Christian life is only the implant-
alton of grace in the heart. There is
earnest, hard work yet to be done, and
perhaps many years of anxiety before
there shall be heard the glorious shout
of Harvest home.' The beginning to
be Christian is only putting down the
foundation; but after that there are
years of hammering, polishing, carv-
ing, lifting, before the structure is
completed 1t takes five years to make
a Christian character, it takes twenty
years, it takes forty years. it takes
seventy years if man shall live so long.
In other words, man dying after half
n century of Christian experience feels
that he has only learned the "a b
Cs" of glorious alphabet The next
year will decide great deal in
your history, young Christian man.
1t will decide whether you are to
be burning and shining light of the
church, or n spark of grace covered up
in a barrel of ashes. 1t will decide
whether you are to be strong man in
Christ Jesus, with gigantic blows strik-
ing the iron mail of darkness, or a be-
dwarfed. whining, grumbling soldier.
that ought to be drummed out of the
Lords camp with the ''Rogues' March. "
You have only just been launched; the
voyage is to be made. Earth and
Heaven and hell are watching to see
how fast you will sail, how well you
will weather the tempest, and whether
at last amid the shouting of the angels
you shall come into the right harbor.
MAY God help me this morning to give
Won three or four words of Christian
counsel, rs l address myself more espe-
cially to those who have just now en-
tered the Christian life.
My first word of counsel is, Hold be-
fore your soul very high model Do
not say, II wish could pray like that
man, or have the conservation of this
one" Say: 'lere is the Lord Jesus
Christ, perfect pattern. by that
mean, with Gods grace to shape all my
life" In other words, you will never
be any more Christian than you strive
to be. If you build foundation twenty
by thirty feet, you will only have
small house. If you build foundation
one hundred by one hundred feet, you
will have large house. If you resolve
to be only q .middling Christian, You
will be only middling Christian. If
you have no high aspiration in a world
" direction, you will never succeed in
business. If you have no high aspira-
ton in religious things you will never
succeed in religion. You have n right
to aspire to the very highest
style of Christian character From
your feet there reaches out
a path of Christian attainment which
you may take and deliberately say
that you may be better man than was
Paul, or David, or Summerfield, or bod
dridge-a better woman than Hannah
Moore or Charlotte Elizabeth. Why
not? Did they have a monopoly OF
Christian grace? Did they have pri-
vate key to the storehouse OF Gods
mercy? Does God shut you out from
the gladness and goodness to which
they were introduced. O, no. You have
Just the same promises, just the same
Christ, just the same Holy Ghost, just
the same offers of present and everlast-
ing love, and if you fall short of what
they were-aye. If you do not come
up to the point which they reached and
20 beyond tit is not because Christ