Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1893-04-15
Do not 20 from your well filled tables

or to warm stockingless feet. Take bread,
take raiment. take medicine as well as
take prayer There is great deal Of
common sense in what the poor woman
said to the city missionary when he was
telling her how she ought to love God
and serve him. "Oh' said she, ''if you
were as poor and cold as I am, and as
hungry. you could think of nothing
else"
A great deal of what is called Chris
tan work goes for nothing for the sim
pie reason it is not practical, as after
the battle of Antietam man got out of
an ambulance with a bag of tracts, and
he went distributing the tracts, and
George Stuart, one of the best Christian
men in this country, said to him: "What
are. you distributing tracts for now?
There are 5000 men bleeding to death.
Bind up their wounds, and then distrib-
ute the tracts"
PRACTICAL SENSE NEEDED.
We want more common sense in Chris
tian work. taxing the bread of this life
in one hand. and the bread of the next
life in the other hand. No such inapt
work as that done by the Christian man
who, during the war, went into hos
pital with tracts, and coming to the bed
of man whose legs had been amputated,
gave him tract on the sin Of dancing!
rejoice before God that never are SYM
pathetic words uttered, never prayer
offered, never Christian almsgiving in
dulged in but it is blessed.
There is place in Switzerland, 1 have
been told, where the utterance of one
word will bring buck score of echoes,
and have to tell you this morning that
O sympathetic word, a kind word, a gen.
erous word, helpful word uttered in
the dark places of the town will bring
back ten thousand echoes from all the
thrones of heaven.
Are there in this assemblage this
morning those who know by experience
the tragedies of midnight in town. am
not here to thrust you back with one
hard word. Take the bandage from
your bruised soul and put on it the
soothing salve of Christ's gospel and of
Gods compassion. Many have come. I
see others coming to God this morning,
tired of sinful life. Cry up the news to
heaven. Set all the bells ringing. Spread
the banquet under the arches. Let the
crowned heads come down and sit at the
jubilee.
1 tell you there is more delight in
heaven over one man that gets reformed
By ne grace of God than over ninety
arc nine that never got off the track. I
could give you the history in a minute
of one of the best friends ever had.
Outside of my own family I never had
better friend. He welcomed me to my
home at the west. He was of splendid
personal appearance, and he had an ar
dor of soul and warmth of affection
that made me love him like brother.
saw men coming out of the saloons
and gambling hells, and they surrounded
my friend, and they took him at the
weak point. his social nature, and saw
him going down, and I had fair talk
with him, for never yet saw man you
could not talk with on the subject of his
habits, if you talked with him in the
right way. said to him, why don't
you give up your bad habits and become
a Christian! I renc1lib or .aoyr jjnst.h how
he looked, leaning over his counter, as
he replied: ~ wish could. Oh, sir, /
should like to be Christian, but have
gone so far astray can't get back.
SICKNESS AND REPENTANCE.
So the time went on. After awhile
the day of sickness came. was sum-
moned to his sickbed. 1 fastened. 1t
took me but very few moments to get
there. was surprised as went i'll. l
saw him in his ordinary clothes, fully
dressed, lying on the top of the bed. 1
gave him my hand, and he seized it con-
yulsively and said: "Oh, how glad am
to see you! Sit down there" sat down,
and he said: "Mr. Talmage, just where
you sit now my mother sat last night.
She has been dead 20 years. Now,
don't want you to think am out of
lay mind, or that am superstitious;
but, sir, she sat there last night just as
certainly as you sit there now-the same
cap and apron and spectacles 1t was
my old mother-she sat there"
+ Then he turned to his wife and said:
~ wish you would take these strings off
the bed. Somebody is wrapping strings
around me all the time. l wish you
would stop that annoyance. She said
aThere is nothing here" Then saw it
was delirium. He said: "Just where you
sit now my mother sat, and she said,
Roswell, wish you would do better|
wish you would do better I said,
Mother, I wish could do better. I try
to do better, but I can't. Mother, you
used to help me. Why can't you help
me nowT And, sir, got out of bed, for
it was reality, and I went to her and
threw my arms around her neck, and
said Mother, I will do better, but you
must help. I can't do t:.i; alone!"
knelt down and prayed. That night his
soul went to the Lord that made it.
Arrangements were made for the OBJ
sequies. The question was raised wheth-
er they should bring him to church.
Somebody said, "You can't bring such a
dissolute man as that into the church. b
I said: "You will bring him in the
church? He stood by me when he was
alive. and will stand by him when he
is dead. Bring him." As I stood in the
pulpit and saw them carrying the body
up the aisle, I felt as if I could weep tears
of blood.
On one side of the pulpit sat his little
child of s years, a sweet, beautiful little
girl that l had seen him hug convulsively
in his better moments. He put on her all
jewels, all diamonds, and gave her all
pictures and toys, and then he would go
away as if bounded by an evil spirit to
his cups and house of shame, fool to
the correction of the stocks. She looked
up wonderingly. She knew not what it
all meant. She was not old enough to