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

sand dollars, and don't want any OF
that religion"
There are others who got into scepti-
cism by natural persistence in asking
questions, why? or how? How can
God be one Being in three persons?
They cannot understand il. Neither
can /. How can God be a complete
sovereign, and yet man a free agent?
They cannot understand it. Neither
can |. They cannot understand why
q holy God let's sin come into the world.
Neither can |. They say, "Here is n
great mystery; here is a disciple of
fashion, frivolous and goddess all her
days-she lives on 10 he an octogenar-
ian. Here is Christian mother train
ing her children for God and for Heaven,
self-sacrifcing, Christ-lilSe, indispensa-
bic, seemingly, TO that household-she
takes the cancer and dies" The sceptic
says, Il can't explain that" Neither
can |.
O! can see how men reason them
selves into scepticism. With burning
feet have trod that blistering way.
/ know what it is to have hundred
nights poured into one hour. There
are men in this audience who would
give their thousands of dollars if they
could get back to the old religion of
their fathers. Such men are not to be
caricatured, but helped, and not
through their heads, but through their
hearts. When these men really do
come into the kingdom of God, they
will be worth far more to the cause of
J Christ than those who never examined
the evidences of Christianity. Thomas
Chalmers once n sceptic, Robert Hall
once a sceptic, Christmas Evans once Il
sceptic; but when they did lay hold of
the gospel chariot, how they made it
speed ahead.
If, therefore, | stand this morning,
before men and women who have
! drifted away into scepticism, | tn 'ow
out no scott; / rather implead you by
the memory of those good old times
when you llnelt at your mother knee
and said your evening payer, and
those other days OF sickness when she
watched all night and gave you the
medicines at just the right time, and
turned the pillow when it was hot,
and, with hand long ago turned to
dust, soothtd your pains, and with that
voice YOU will never hear again unless
you join her in the better country told
you never mind-yDI would be better
by and by and by that dying couch
where she talked so slowly, catching
her breath between the words-by all
those memories | ask you to come and
take the same religion. 1t was good
enough for her-it is good enough for
you.
Aye, make a better plea; by the
wounds and the death throe of the Son
of God, who approaches you this
morning with torn brow and LAGER
ated hands and whipped back, crying:
Come unto me, all We who are w, airy
and heavy laden, and | will give you
rest"
Other persons apologize for no.
entering the Christian life because Of
the incorrigiblity of their temper.
Now, we admit-it is harder for some
people to become Christians than for
others; but the grace of God never
came to IA mountain that 1t could not
climb, or to any abyss that it could not
fathom, or TO bondage that IL could
not break The widest horse that
ever trod Arabian sands has been
broken to bit and trace. The maddest
torrent umbling from mountain shelv-
ing has been harneSsed TO the mill
wheel and the ia tory band, setting n
thousand shuttles all a-buZz and "a
clatter; and the widest, the haughti-
| est, the most ungovernable man ever
created, by the grace of God may be
subdued and sent out on ministry of
kindness, as God sends an August
thunderstorm u water the wild flow
ers down in the grass.
Good resolution, retormatory effort,
will not effect the change. 1t takes n
mightieT arm and a IN ghtier hand to
bend evil habits than the hand that
bent the bow of Ulysses, and it takes
stronger lasso than ever held the buff
falo on the prairie. a man cannot go
forth with any human weapons and
contend successfully against these
Titans armed with uptorn mountain.
But you have known men into whose
spirit the influence of the Gospel of
Christ came, until their disposition
was entirely changed. So it was with
two merchants in New York. They
were very antagonistic. They had
done all they could to injure each
other. They were in the same line of
business. One of the merchants was
converted TO God. Having been con-
verified he asked the Lord to teach him
how to bear himself toward that bust
ness antagonist, and he was impressed
with the fact that it was his duty
when a customer asked for certain
kind of goods which he had not,
but which he knew his opponent had,
to recommend him to go to that
store. / suppose that Is about the
hardest thing the man could do; but
being thoroughly converted to God, he
resolved TO do that very thing, and
being asked for certain kind of goods
which he had not, he said: "You go
to such and such store and you will
get 1T" After n while, merchant num-
Der two found these customers coming,
so sent, and he found also that mer-
chant number one had been brought
to God, and he sought the same reli-
gion. Now they are good friends and
good neighbors, the grace of God en-
| tirely changing their disposition.
"O!' says some one, 81 have a rough,
| jagged, impetuous nature, and religion
can do anything for me-" Do you
know that Martin Luther and Robert
| Newton and Richard Baxter were inn
petuous, all-consuming natures, yet
| the grace of God turned them into the
mightiest usefulness? o.! how many
who have been pugnacious, and hard
! to please, and irascible, and more
| bothered about the mote in their
I 4.