Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-04-21

began to make excuse
After the invitations to levee are
sent out, the regrets come in. One man
apologies for non-attendance on one
ground, another on another ground.
The most of the regrets are founded on
prior engagements. SO in my text II
great banquet was spread, the invita-
tions were circulated, and now the re-
grets come in. The one gives an agri-
cultural reason, the other a stock-deal-
er's reason, the other n domestic rea-
son. All poor reasons. The agricult-
ural reason being that the man had
bought a farm and wanted to see it.
Could he not see it the next day? The
stoclS-dealer' reason being that he had
bought five yoke of oxen and he
wanted to go and prove them. He
had no business to buy them until he
knew what they were. Besides
that, man who can own
five yoke of oxen can command his
own time. Besides that, he might
have yoked two of them together and
driven them on the way to the BAN
quet, for locomotion was not as rapid
then as now. The man who gave the
domestic reason said lie had got mar
ried. lie ought to have taken his wife
with him. The fact was, they did not
want to go. ''And they all with one
consent began to make excuse" SO
now God spreads n great banquet; it is
the Gospel feast, and the table reaches
across the hemispheres: and the invita-
tions go out and multitudes come and
sit down and drink out of the chalices
of Gods love, while other multitudes
decline Coming--the one giving this
apology and the other giving that
apology; land they all with one con-
sent begin to make excuse" | pro-
pose this morning, so far as God may
help me, to examine the apologies
which men make for not entering the
Christian life.
Apology the first: | am not sure
there is anything valuable i'm the Chris
tian religion. 1t is pleaded that there
are so many impositions in this day, so
many things that seem To be real are
sham. A gilded outside may have a
hollow inside; there is so much
quackery in physics, in ethics, in poll
tics, that men come to the habit of in
credulity, and after while they allow
that incredulity to collide with our
holy religion.
But, my friends, think religion has
made pretty good record in the
world. How many wounds il has
salved, how many pillars of fire it has
lifted in the midnight wilderness, how
many simoon-struck Saharas it hath
turned into the gardens of the Lord;
how it hath stillel the chopped sea;
what rosy light it hath sent streaming
through the rift of the storm-cloud
wrack; what pools of cool water it
hath gathered for thirsty Hagar and
Ishmael; what mamma whittier than
coriander seed il hath dropped all
around the camp of hardly bestead pill
grims; what promises it hath sent out
like holy watchers to keep the lamps
burning around death beds: through
the darkness that lowers into the
sepulchre, what flashes of resurrection
morn!
Besides that, this religion has made
so many heroes. 1t brought Summer
| field, the Methodist, across the Allan
| tic Ocean with his silver trumpet to
/ blow the acceptable year of the Lord,
until it seemed as if all our American
cities would take the kingdom of
heaven by violence. 1t Sent Jehudi Ash
man into Africa alone, in a continent
of naked barbarians, to lift the stand
ard of civilization and Christ auity. 1t
made John Milton among poets,
Raphael among painters, Christopher
| Wren among architects, Thorwaldsen
among sculptors, Handel among mu-
sicians, Dupont among military COM
manders; and to give new wings to the
| imagination, and better balance to the
| judgment, and more determination to
the will, and greater usefulness to the
life, and grander nobility TO the soul,
there is nothing in all the earth like
our Christian religion.
| Nothing in religion! Why, then, all
those Christians were deceived, when
in their dying moment they thought
they saw the castles of the blessed;
and your child, that with unutterable
agony you put away into the grave,
you will never see him again, nor hear
his sweet voice, nor feel the throb of
his young heart? There is nothing in
religion Sickness will come upon
you. Roll and turn on your pillow.
No relief. The medicine may be Bit
ter, the night may be dark, the pain
may be sharp. No relief. Christ never
comes to the sick room. Let the pain
stab. Let the fever burn. Curse it
and die. There is nothing in religion!
After awhile, death will come. You
will hear the paving of the pale horse
on the threshold. The spirit will be
breaking away from the body, and it
will take flight-whither? whittier?
| There is no God, no ministering angels
to conduct, no Christ, no heaven, no
home. Nothing in religion! Oh! you
are not willing to adopt such dismal
theory. And yet the world is full of
sceptics. And let me say there is no
class of people for whom l have a
warmer sympathy than for sceptics.
We do not know how TO treat
them. We deride them, we car
feature them. We, instead of taking
them by the soft hand of Christian
love, clutch them with the iron pinch
ers OF ecclesiasticism. Oh! if you knew
how those men had fallen away from
Christianity and become skeptics, you
would not be so rough on them. Some
were brought up in homes where re-
ligion was overdone. The most
wretched day in the week was Sunday.
Religion was driven into them with a
trip-hammer. They had a surfeit of
prayer meetings. They were stuffed
and cholSed with catechisms. They
were told by their parents that they
were the worst children that ever
lived, because they liked TO ride down
hill better than TO read Pilgrims
FNsa