Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-09-02

whose foot paralysis hath shriveled,
or machinery hath crushed, or sur
geon's knife hath amputated. The
Bible honors it. Especial care, "Lest
thou dash thy foot against a stone;" che
will not suffer thy foot to be moved;"
''thy feet shall not stumble" Especial
charge, "Keep thy foot when thou
goest to the house of God" Especial
peril, "Their feet shall slide in due
time" Connected with the worlds dis.
solution, "He shall set one foot on. the
sea and the other on the EARTH"
Give me the history of your foot and
| will give you the history of your life
time. Tell me up what steps it hath
gone, down what d%eclivities, and in
what roads and in what directions, and
I will know more about you than I
want to know. None of us could endure
the scrutiny. Our feet not always in
paths Of God. Sometimes in paths of
'worldliness. Our feet, a divine and
glorious machinery for usefulness and
work, so often making missteps, so often
going in the wrong direction. God
knowing every step, the patriarch say
ing, "Thou settest print on the heels of
my feet" Crimes of the hand, crimes
of the tongue, crimes of the eye, crimes
Of the ear not worse than the crimes Of
the foot. Oh, we want the wings Of
humility to cover the feet. Ought we
not to 60 into self abegnation before the
all searching, all scrutinizing, all try
ing eye of God? The seraphs do. How
much more we. with twain he COW
cred the feet"
THE BONDAGE OF SIN.
All this talk about the dignity of hu-
man nature is braggadocio and a sin.
Our nature started at the hand of God
regal, but it has been pauperized. There
is a we'll in Belgium which once had
very pure water, and it was stoutly
masoned with stone and brick; but that
we'll aftorward became the center of the
battle of Waterloo. At the opening of
the battle the soldiers with their sabers
compelled the gardener, William Won
Kylsom, to draw water out of the we'll
for them, and it was very pure water.
But the battle ragged, and three hun
dred dead and half dead were flung into
the we'll for quick and easy burial, so
that the we'll of refreshment became the
we'll of death, and long after people
looked down into the we'll, and they saw
the bleached skulls, but no water. So
the human soul was a we'll of good, but
the armies of sin have fought around it,
and fought across it and been slain, and
it has become a we'll of skeletons. Dead
hopes, dead resolutions, dead opportuni-
ties, dead ambitions. An abandoned
we'll unless Christ shall reopen and pu
rify and fill it as the we'll Of Belgium
never a Unclean, unclean!
Another seraphic posture in the text,
"With twain he covered the face" That
means reverence Godward. Never so
much irreverence abroad in the world
as today. You see it in the defaced
s%tatuary, in the cutting out of figures
from fine paintings, in the chipping of
monuments for a memento, in the fact
that a military guard must stand at the
graves of Grant and Garfield, and that
old shade trees must be cut down for
frewood, though fifty George P. Morrises
beg the woodmen to spare the tree, and
that calls a corpse a cadaver, and that
speaks of death as going over to the ma
jority, and substitutes for the reverent
terms, father and mother, ''the old
man" and "the old woman" and finds
nothing impressive in the ruins of Baal-
bee or the columns of Karnac, and sees
no difference in the Sabbath from any
other days except it allows more dis
sipation, and reads the Bible in what
is called higher criticism, making it
not the Word Of God, but a good book
with some fine things in it. Irreverence
never so much abroad. How many take
the name Of God in vain, how many
trivial things said about the Almighty.
Not willing to have God in the world,
they roll up an idea of sentimentality
and humanitarianism and impudence
and imbecility and call it God. No
wings of reverence over the face, no
taking off of shoes on holy You
can tell from the way they talk they
could have made a better world than
this, and that the God of the Bible
shocks every sense of propriety. They
talk of the love of God in a way that
shows you they believe it does not make
any difference how bad q man is here,
he will come in at the shining gate.
They talk Of the love of God in such a
way which shows you they think it is a
general Jail delivery for all the aban-
doned and the scoundrelism of the uni
verse. Nopunishment hereafter for any
wrong done here.
'- THE LOVE OF GOD.
The Bible gives us two descriptions of
God, and they are just opposite, and
they are both true. In one place the
Bible says God is love. In another
place the Bible says God is a consuming
fire. The explanation is plain as plain
can be. God through Christ is love.
God out of Christ is fire. To win the
and to escape the other we have
only to throw ourselves body, mind and
soul into Christ's keeping. "No," says
Irreverence, II want no atonement, I
want no pardon, I want no Intervention;
I will go up and face God. and I will
challenge him, and I will defy him, and
I will ask him what he wants to do with
me-" So the finite co%nfronts the inf
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