Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1893-12-08

| are mere III your nOuSeI One, TWO OF uOuoI
| How many in vast assemblage like thiss
Only here and there gray head, like the
patches of snow here and there in the fields
on late April day. The fact IS that the
| tides of the years are so strong that men GO
| down under them before they gett be sixty,
| before they get to be fifty. before they get TO
be forty, before they get to be thirty and II
| YOU, my young brother, resolve now that you
III spend the morning of your days in de-
v,uring the prey the probability is that you
/ will never divide the spols in the evening
hour. lie who postpones until old age the
| religion of Jesus Christ postpones it forever.
Where are the men who, thirty years ago,
resolved to become Christians In old age,
| putting IL off certain number of years?
| They never got to be old. The railroad co.,
lision, or the steamboat explosion, or the
slip on the ice, or the falling ladder, or the
sudden cold put an end to their opportuni-
ties. They have never had an opportunity
since, and never will have an opportunity
again. They locked the door of heaven
against their soul, and they threw away the
keys. They chased the world, and they died
in the chase. The wounded tiger turned on
them. They failed to take the game they
pursued. Mounted on a swift courser, they
leaped the hedge, but the courser fell on
them and crushed them. Proposing to bar
ter their soul for the world, they lost both
and got neither.
While this is IN encouragement to old peo-
ple who are still uupar loned, it IS no en-
couragement to the young who are putting
off the day of grace. This doctrine that the
old may be repentant is to be taken cau-
tiously. 1t is medicine that kills or cures.
The same medicine given TO different patients,
In one case it saves life and in the other it
DESTROYS il. This possibility OF repentance
at tho close OF life may cure the old man
while it kills the young. Be cautious In tax
ing it.
Again. nv subject Is descriptive of those
who come to sudden and radical change.
You have noticed how short a time 1t is
from morning to night-only seven or eight
hours. You know that the day has very
brief life. It's heart beats twenty-four times,
and then it is dead. How quick this transi-
ton in the character Of these Benjamites
Gin the morning they shall devour the prey,
and at night they shah divide the spoils." Is
it possible that there shall be such trans
formation in any of our characters? Yes.
man may be at o'clock in the morning an
all devouring wording, and at Z O'Clock at
night he may be a peaceful distributlve
Christian
Conversion is instantaneous. A man passes
into the kingdom of God quicker than down
the sky runs zigzag lightning. man may
Il
years that does not make him Christian.
A man may pray great while that does not
make him a Christian. 4 man may resolve
on the reformation of his character and have
that resolution going on q great while; that
does not make him a Christian. But the
very instant when he filings his soul on the
mercy of Jesus Christ, that instant is lustra-
ton, emancipation, resurrection. UP to
that point heis going in the wrong d1rec-
ton latter that point he is going in the right
direction. Before that moment he is a child
of sin after that moment he is a child Of
God. Before that moment devour!ng the
prey after that moment dividing the spoil.
Five minutes is as good as five years.
My nearer, you know very we'll that the
best things you have done you have done in
a fash. You made up your mind in an in
slant to buy. or to sell, or to invest, or to
stop. or to start. If you had missed that one
chance, you would have missed 1t forever,
Now, Just as precpitate and quick and spon-
taneous will be the ransom OF your soul.
Some morning you were making calcula-
ton. You got on the track Of some financial
or social game. With your pen or pencil you
were pursuing it. That very morning you
were devouring the prey, but that very night
you were in different mood. You found
that all heaven was offered you. You won
dered how you could get it for yourself and
for Your family. You wondered what re-
sources it would give you now and hereafter.
You are dividing peace and comforts and sat-
isfaction and Christian reward in your soul.
You are dividing the spoil.
One Sabbath night at the close of the SER
vice l said to some persons, when did you
first become serious about your soul| And
they told me, Tonight And | said to
others, "When did you give your heart to
God?" And they said. "To-night." And L
said to still others, "Wnen did you resolveto
serve the Lord all the days OF your life?'
And thew said. Tonight" l saw by the
gayety of their apparel that when the grace
of God struck them they were devouring the
prey, but / saw also in the flood OF joyful
tears, and in the kindling raptures on their
brow. and in their exhilarant and transport
ing utterances, that they were dividing the
spoil.
If you hive been in this building when the
lights are struck at night, you know that
with one touch of electricity they are all
blazed. Oh, would to God that the dark
ness of YOUR soul might be broken up, and
that by one quick. overwhelming, instanta-
neous flash of illumination you might be
brought into the light and the liberty Of the
sons Of God
You see that religion is different thing
from what some of you people suppose. You
thought it was decadenee. 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 p!ucked out the plumes
of the soul that it broke the wing and
crushed the beak 20 it came clawiny with its
black talous through the air. No, that is not
religion.
What is religionY 1t is dividing the spoil.
1t is taking a defenseless soul and panopy-
ing it for eternal conquest It sthe distribu
tion of prizes by the kings hand, every medal
stamped with coronation. 1t is an exhilar
alton, expansion. 1t is imparadisation. 1t
is enforcement. Religion makes q man
master Of earth, of death and hell. 1t goes
forth to gather the medals of victory won by
Prince Emanuel, and the diadems Of heaven,
and the glory OF realms terrestrial and celes-
tial, and them after ranging all worlds for
everything that is resplendent, it divides the
spolis.
What was it that James Turner, the fa-
nous English evangelist, was doing when in
his dying moments he said "Christ is all
Christ is alp" Why, he was entering into
light. He was rounding the Cape OF Good
Hope. He was dividing the spoil. What
was the aged Christian Quakeress doing
when at eighty years of age she arose in the
meeting one day and said "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 m X with that eternal day.
What is Daniel now doing, the lion tanner,
and Elijah. VINO was drawn by the flaming
coursers, and Paul, the rafting OF whose
chains made kings quake, and all the other
victims of flood and fire and wreck and gull
- has ,nn