The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-04-19


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 ex-
amined the evidences of Christianity.
Thomas Chalmers, once a skeptic; Robert
Hall, once a skeptic; Christmas Evans, once
a skeptic-but when they did lay hold of
the gospel chariot, how they made it speed
aheadl
II therefore stand this morning before
men and women who have drifted away
into skepticism, throw out no scott;
rather implead you by the memory of those
good old times when you knelt at your
mothers knee and said your evening pray
er and those other days of Kckness 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 bed your pains,
and with that voice you will never hear
again, unless you join her in the better
country, told you never mind-you 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 l ask you TO come and take the
same religion 1t was good enough for her,
it is good enough for you.
Aye, | make better plea; by the wounds
and the death throe of the Son of God, who
approaches you this morning with torn
brow and lacerated hands and whipped
back, crying, Come unto me, all ye who
are weary and heavy laden, and will give
you rest"
THE VICE OF ILL TEMPER.
Other persons apologize for not entertain
ing the Christian life because of the incor-
rigibility of their temper. Now, we adm
it is harder for some people to become
Christians than for others, but the grace of
God never came to a 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 maddest torrent tumbling from noun
tain shelving has been harnessed to the
millwheel and the factory band, setting a
thousand shuttles all a-buzz and a-clatter,
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 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 mightier
arm and mightier hand to bend evil hab-
its than the hand that bent the bow of
Ulysses, and it takes stronger lasso than
ever held the buffalo 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
had done all they could to injure each
other. They were in the same line of bust
ness. One of the merchants was converted
to God Having been converted, he asked
the Lord to teach him how to bear himself
toward that business antagonist, and he
was impressed with the fact that it was his
duty when a customer asked for a certain
kind of goods which he had not, but which
he knew his opponent had, to recommend
him to 20 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 a certain
kind of goods which he had not, he said.
"You go to such and such a store and you
will get it." After awhile merchant No. 3
found these customers 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.
oh" says some one, II have rough,
jagged, impetuous nature, and religion
can't do any thing for me-" Do you know
that Martin Luther and Robert Newton
and Richard Baxter were impetuous, all.
consuming natures, yet the grace of God
-
Oh, how many who have been pugnacious
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 ''godliness is profitable for the life that
now is as well as for the life which is to
come"
THE DIPETUoUs APOSTLE.
Peter, with nature as tempestuous as the
sea that he once tried to walk at one look
of Christ went out and wept bitterly. Rich
harvests of grace may grow on the tiptop
of the jagged steep, and flocks of Christian
graces may find pasturage in fields of BRAN
BILE and rock. Though your disposition
may be all a-bristle with fretfulness, though
you have a temper a-gleam with quick
hghtnings, though your avarice be like
tAab VI INC HOISc lctCu, Crying, OlVe.'
though damnable impurities have wrapped
you in all consuming 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 drunkard
from the ditch, and snatched the knife
from the hand of the assassin, and the
false keys from the burglar and in the pes
tiferous lanes of the city met the daughter
of sin under the dim lamplight and scat
tered her sorrow and her guilt with the
words, Thy sins are forgiven-go and sin
no more" For scarlet sin a scarlet atone
ment.
Other persons apologize for not entering
the Christian life because of the inconsistent
cies of those who profess religion. There
are thousands of poor farmers. They do
not know the nature Of soil nor the proper
rotation of crops. Their corn is shorter in
the stalk and smaller in the ear. They
have 10 less bushels to the acre than their
neighbors. But who declines being farm
er because there are so many poor tarmersi
There are thousands of incompetent mer-
chants. They buy at the wrong time. They
get cheated in the sale of their goods Every
bale of goods is to them bale OF disaster
They fail after awhile and 90 out Of bust
ness. But who declines TO be a merchant
because there are so many incompetent
merchants2 There are thousands Of Door
idWyefS 1ney cannot Draw DECLARATION
that will stand the test. They cannot re-
cover just damages. They cannot help a
defendant eScaDe from the iniuStica of his