Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-02-08

ROBERT, hODerb4 GoL16 M 'NO!' SAD
he, ''mother, shall never come in till l
hear you say you forgive me- Her answer
was: Robert, have forgiven you long
ago. There is nothing to forgive now ex-
cept that you stayed away so long" My
nearer, forgiveness has been ready for YOU
a good while. With more than a mothers
tenderness God will take you back. They
are waiting for you up in the palace. Neo-
uchadnezzar was the son Of Nabopolassar
who ruled before him. and you are the child
of KING
The next thought that presses into my
mind from the contemplation of this incl
dent is that conviction is not conversion.
Who is this monarch that makes the boast
about Babylona The very man who, under
the revelation of dreams that Daniel made
from heaven, deeply humbled himself,
while he confessed that GOO is q God of
Gods and Lord of Lords, yet behold that
that humbling and arousing which he be-
fore felt did not result in radical change.
There is no mistake more frequent than OF
supposing conviction synonym for con-
version. Conviction is merely a sight of
sin; conversion is view Of pardon. Con-
viction is merely alarm; conversion is con-
fidence. Conviction is dissatisfaction with
depravity; conversion is turning away
from 1t. Conviction is a sword wound;
conversion is the healing. Conviction Is
the fever of thirst; conversion is the slal-
ing of that thirst Conviction is the pain;
conversion is the medicine that cures it.
Thousands have experienced the former
and never experienced the latter.
There are multitudes who think that as
soon as man is serious he IS fit for profess
sion of religion. What if man should
only think seriously of being a merchant;
would that make him a merchants What if
a man should only think seriously of being
a lawyer; would that make him lawyer?
= oh nj.
of being Christian; would that make him
a Christian? Felix was convicted but not
converted. The jailer was convicted before
he got out of bed, but not converted until at
the advice Of Paul he believed in Christ.
Are you convicted but not converted? tell
you what you make me think of. sYou have
made up your mind for proper considera-
ton to deed away property. You have
drawn the deed. The seal is affixed oppo-
site where you are to write your name.
The commissioner of deeds is present to
witness. You have your pen in hand.
There is ink in the pen. There is only one
thing for you to do, and that IS to sign
your name. Suppose you stop now with
out signing your name, what does it all
amount tor Nothing. So you have re-
solved. TO give yourself up to God. You
propose TO sign OF to him your body, your
mind, your soul.
You have all things necessary for the
transfer. The angels Of God are here to
witness the eternal transfer. Why do you
not now with your will complete the work?
Halt where you are, and all goes for moth
ing. Sign your name to this spiritual
transfer. Professor Arago, the mathema-
tician, got wofully discouraged in his work
and was about to give up, when he saw
some, words on the paper which had been
used to stiffen the cover OF his book, and
the words being indistinct he dampened
,a +n1-ra o,,l
the words plainly and he found they were
words of advice given by D'Alembert to
student, and the words were, go on, sir;
go on" oh ye who are convicted 'Igo on"
You must take one more step, or all the
steps you have taken will amount to moth
ing. Go onl
Learn also from my subject that pride is
the precursor of overthrow. Pride is 4
commander well plumed and caparisoned,
but it leads forth a dark and frowning host.
pride goeth before destruction, and
naughty spirit before fall.'' The arrows
from the Almighty's culver are apt TO strike
q man when on the wing. Goliath shakes
his great spear in defiance, but the smooth
stones from the brook make him stagger
and fall like an OK under butchers blud-
geon. He who is down cannot fall. Vessels
Scudding under bare poles do not feel the
force of the storm. What are those three
sleds that have just gone into the yard of a
miserable hotel in Warsaw, Poland, on the
cold night of December the 10th. 1922
Who are they, who from these sleds have
entered, and the servant is trying to build
for them q fire with some green wood ?
Napoleon, with six attendants, on retreat
from Moscow. The fire amid the green
wood has gone out, and the emperor is
walking the floor to keep from freezing.
Then bounding into his sled, the Their
mometer twenty-six degrees below zero, he
in ha Ha who n
little before had an army under his COM
mand, together with troops offered by other
nations, in all l. ISL, coo men. now retreatinS
through that December night with three
sleds, and those OF his army not dead under
the snow, reduced for food TO handful of
rye-dough. seasoned with gunpowder for
lack OF salt, and mouthful OF horsehesh.
From what a height TO what depth
Nebuchadnezzar in the palace, Nebuchad
nezzar forsaken in the fields.
Again learn from the misfortune of the
king of Babylon what terrible thing is the
loss OF reason. There is no calamity that
can possibly befal US in this world so great
as the arrangement of intenect-to have the
body of q man and yet to fall even below
the instinct of 4 brute. In this world of sad
sights, the SaddeSt is the idiots stare. In
this world of awful sounds, the most awful
is the maniac's laugh. A vessel on the rocks,
when hundreds go down never to rise, and
Obhef nundreuS QraS their mangled and
shivering bodies up the wintry beach. is
nothing compared to the laundering of intel
lects full of vast hopes and attachments and
capabilities. Christ's heart went out to
those who were epileptic, falling into the
fire. or maniacS cutting themselves among
the tombS. We are accustomed to be more
grateful for physical health than for the
proper working of our mind.
We are apt to take it for granted that the
intellect which has served US so well will
always be faithful We forget that an en-
gine with such tremendous power when
the wheels have such vastness of circle and
such swiftness of motion and the least in
pediment might put it out of gear could
only be kept in proper balance by Divine
hand. No human power could engineer
this train of immortal faculties. How
strange 1t is that our memory, on whose
shoulders all the successes and misfortunes
and occurrences of a lifetime are placed,
should not oftener break down, and that
the scales of judgment, which have been
weighing so much and so long, should not
lose their adjustment, and that fancy,
which holds dangerous wand, should not
sometimes maliciously wave it, bringing
into the heart forebodings and hailucina-
tons the most appalling.
Is 1t not strange that the expectations of
this intellect should not be dashed to pieces
on its disappolntments? Though so deli
cately attuned, this instrument of untold
harmonies plays on, though fear shocks il. |
and vexations rack it. and sorrow and ioy
and loss and gain in quick succession heat
out OF 1t their dlrge, or draw from it their