Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1893-12-02
vest, or to stop, or to start. If you had

vest, or to stop, or TO start If you had
missed that one chance, you would have
missed it forever. Now, just as precipi-
tate and quick and spontaneous will be
the ransom of your SOUL. Some morning
you were making calculation. Yougot
on the track of some financial or social
game. With your pen or pencil you
were pursuing it. That very morning
you were deyouring the prey, but that
very night you were in different mood.
You found that all heaven was offered
you. You wondered how you could get
it for yourself and for your family. You
wondered what resources it would give
you now and hereafter You are divid-
ing peace and comfort and satisfaction
and Christian reward in your soul. You
are dividing the spoil.
One Sabbath night at the close Of the
sermon | said to some persons, when
did you first become serious about your
soulP' And they told me, Tonight"
And / said to others, when did you
give your heart to GodY And they said,
"Tonight." And said to still others,
"When did you resolve to serve the
Lord all the days Of your lifef And
they said. Tonight. | saw by the
gayety of their apparel that when the
grace of God struck them they were de-
vouring the prey; but saw also in the
flood of joyful tears, and in the kindling
raptures on their brow, and in their ex-
hilarart and transporting utterances
that they were dividing the spoil.
! If you have been in this building when
the lights are struck at night, you know
that with one touch of electricity they
are all blazed. Oh, l would to Co. that
the darkness of your souls might be
broken up, and that by one quick, over
whelming, instantaneous fash of illumi-
nation you might be brought into the
light and the liberty of the sons of GodI
RELIGION DEFINED.
You see that religion is different
thing from what some of you people sup
posed. You thought it was decadence.
! You thought religion was maceration.
You thought it was highway robbery;
that it struck one down and left him
half dead; that it plucked out the eyes;
that it plucked out the plumes of the
soul; that it broke the wing and crushed
the beak as 1t came clawing with its
black ta1ons through the air. No, that
is not religion.
What is religion7 1t is dividing the
spoil 1t is taking a defenseless soul
and panoplying it for eternal conquest.
1t is the distribution Of prizes by the
kings hand-every medal stamped with
coronation. It. is an exhilaration, an
expansion. 1t is imparadisation. 1t is
enhancement. Religion makes man
master of earth, of death and hell. Itgoes
forth to gather the medals Of victory
won by Prince Emanuel, and the diadems
of heaven, and the glories of realms ter
restrial and celestial, and then, after
ranging all worlds for everything that is
resplendent, it divides the spoil.
What was it that James Turner, the
famous English evangelist was doing
when In his dying moments he said:
7"Christ is all! Christ is allp' Why, he
was entering into light. He was round
ing the Cape of Good Hope. He was di-
yiding the spoil. What was the aged
Christian Quakeress doing when at; 80
ygarg IF age sns arose II Erecting onei
day and said: 1.-THE time of my departure
is come My grave clothes are falling
off," She was dividing the spoil.
She longed with wings to fly away
And mix with that eternal day.
What is Daniel now doing, the lion
tanner? And Elijah, who was drawn by
the flaming coursers? And Paul, therat-
Ting of whose chains made kings quake?
And all the other victims of food and
fire and wreck and guillotine-where
are they7 Dividing the spoil.
Ten thousand times ten thousand,
In sparkling raiment bright,
| The armies of the ransomed saints
! Throng up the sleeps Of light
STis finished, all is finished,
/ Their fight with death and sin.
| Lift highyour golden gates
And let the yictors.
Oh, what grand thing it is to be a
Christianl We begin now to divide the
spoil, but the distribution will not be
completed to all eternity. There is a
poverty struck soul, there is a business
despoiled soul, there is sin struck soul,
there lisa bereaved soul-why do younot
come and get the spoil-of Christian
character, the comfort, the joy, the
peace, the salvation that l am sent to Of
fer to you in my Masters name?
| Though your knees knock together in
weakness, though your hands tremble
In fear, though your eyes rain tears of
uncomfortable weeping-come and get
the spoil. Rest for all the weary. Par
don for all the guilty. Rescue for all the
bestormed. Life for all the dead. /
verify believe that there are some who
have come in here downcast because the
1 world is against them, and because they
feel God is against them. who will go
away saying:
came to Jesus as was,
Weary and worn and sad;
found in him o resting place,
And he has made me glad.
Though you came in children Of the
world, you may go away heirs OF heaven.
Though this very autumnal morning you
were devouring the prey, now, all worlds
witnessing. you may divide the spoil.
Ants Bigger Than Foxes.
Pliny, that rare old gossiper, tells,
among his other extraordinary stor1es,-
that of the Bactrian method of obtaining
gold. The sandy deserts of Bactria in
the days of that historian were, SO the
old man says, literally swarming with
ants "slghtly bigger than foxes" These
gigantic representatives of the genus n.y.
menoptera burrowed deeply into the
sandy wastes, their tunnels and galleries
often being hundreds of feet In extent.