The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-04-21

seemingly to that household-she takes
the cancer and dies" The skeptic says,
II can't explain that" Neither can I.
Oh, l can see how men reason them
selves into skepticism. 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 thou
sands 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 Christ
than those who never examined the evi.
dences of Christianity. Thomas Chalmers
once a skeptic; Robert Hall once skep-
tic; Christmas Evans once skeptic, but
when they did lay hold of the gospel
chariot, how they made it speed aheadl
II therefore stand this morning be-
fore men and women who have drifted
away into skepticism throw out no
scott. rather implead you by the men,
DRY Of those good old times when you
knelt at your mothers knee and said
your evening prayer 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 soothed your pains, and
with that voice you will never hear again
unless you join her in the better couns
try told you never mind-you would be
better by and by, and by that dying
couch, where she talked so slowly, catch
ing 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 morn
ing with torn brow and lacerated hands
and whipped back crying, Come unto
me all We who are weary and heavy lad
en-, and l will give You rest"
CHRlsT's REMEDY FOR BAD TEMPER.
Other persons apologize for not enter
ing the Christian life because of the in
eorrigibility of their temper. Now, we
admit 1t is harder for some people to be-
come Christians than for others, but the
grace of God never came to mountain
that it could not climb, or TO an abyss
that it could not fathom, or to a bondage
that it could not break. The widest
horse that ever trod Arabian sands has
been broken to bit and trace. The mad
est torrent tunbling from mountain
shelving has been harnessed to the mill
wheel and the factory band, setting a
thousand shuttles all a-buzz and a-clat-
ter, and the widest, the haughtiest, 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 to water
the wild flowers down in the grass.
Good resolution, reformatory effort,
will not effect the change. 1t takes a
mightier arm and a mightier hand to
bend evil habits than the hand that bent
the bow of Ulysses, and it takes a strong
er lasso than ever held the buffalo on the
prairie. A man cannot go forth with
any human weapons and contend sue
cessfully 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 dis
position 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 converted, he asked
the Lord to teach him how to bear him
self toward that business antagonist, and
he was impressed with the fact that it
was his duty when customer asked for
a certain kind of goods which he had
not, but which he knew his opponent
had, to recommend him to go to that
store. I suppose that is about the hard
est thing the man could do. but being
thoroughly converted to God he re-
solved 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 it." After
awhile merchant No. found these Gus
toners coming so sent, and he found also
that merchant No. had been brought
to God, and he sought the same religion.
Now they are good friends and good
neighbors, the grace of God entirely
changing their disposition.
THOSE RUGGED CHRISTIANS.
"Oh," says some one, II have rough,
jagged, impetuous nature, and religion
can't do anything for me-" Doyou know
that Martin Luther and Robert Newton
and Richard Baxter were impetuous, all
consuming natures, yet the grace Of God
turned them into the mightiest useful
ness? Oh, how many who have been pug
nacious and hard to please and irascible
and more bothered about the mote in
their neighbours eye than about the beam
like ship timber in their own eye have
been entirely changed by the grace of
God and have found out that "godli-
ness is profitable for the life that now is
as well as for the life which is to Gomez
Peter, with nature tempestuous as the
sea that he once tried to walk, at one
look of Christ went out and wept bitter
ly. Rich harvests of grace may grow on
the tiptop of the jagged steep, and focks
Of Christian graces may find pasturage
in fields of bramble and rock. Though
your disposition may be all a-bristle with
fretfulness, though you have a temper
a-gleam with quick lightnings, though
your avarice be like that of the horse.
leech, crying, "Give!' though damnable
impurities have wrapped you in all con-
Stunning fire, God can drive that devil
out Of your soul, and over the chaos and
the darkness he can say, "Let there be
light"
Converting grace has lifted the drunk.
ard from the ditch and snatched the knife
from the hand of the assassin and the false
keys from the burglar, and in the pestif-
erous lanes of the city met the daughter
of sin under the dim lamphght and scat
tered her sorrow and her guilt with the
words, "'Thy sins are forgiven-go and
sin no more" For scarlet sin scarlet
atonement.
Other persons apologize for not enter
ing the Christian life because of the in