The Penn's Grove record., 1893-12-22

The skirmiSher sat one night by the HBnI
OF fagots in the swamp, writing q letter
home, when a s~harpshooter's bullet ended
the letter which was never folded, never
posted and never read. Those children same
up un Ter great disadvantages. No father to
fight their way for them. Perhaps there was
in the old family Bible an old yellow letter
pasted fast, which told the story Of that
tather's long march and how he suffered in
the hospital. But they looked still farther
on in the Bible, and they came to the story
OF how God is the Father OF the fatherless
and the widows portion, and they soon took
their fathers place In that household.
! They battled the way fortheir mother. They
came on up. and many of them have already,
in the years since the war, taken posftionsln
1hurch and State, North and South. While
J fnany of those who suffered nothing during
! nose times have had sons 60 out into lives
Of Incidence and vagabondage, these VINE
Started underso many disadvantages because
they were so early bere.t these are the lame
who took the prey.
A step farther: There are those who
would like to do good. They say, "0h. II I
only had wealth, or IL I had e~loquence, or IL
/ nae high social position, how much |
would accomplish for God and the church p
1 stand here to-day to tell you that you have
great opportunities for usefulness.
Who built the pyramids? The king who
ordered them buili2 No ;the plain workmen
who added stone after stone and stone after
: stone. Who built the bikes ef Hoiland2
The government that ordered the enterprise?
No; the plain workmen whe carried the
earth and rang their trowels on the wall.
\ Who are those that built these vast cities?
The capitalists? No the carpenters, the
masons, the plumbers, the plasterers, the
timers. the roofers. dependent on q days
wages Tor a livelihood. And so in the great
work of aesuaging human suffering and en-.
IL tightening human ignorance and hating
4 INUaD ininuity In that Oraaf Unrk fhe
chief part is to be done by ordinary men,
with ordinary speech, in an ordinary man
ner. and by ordinary means.
The trouble is that in the army OF Christ
we all want to be captains and colonies and
h~rigadier generals. We are not willing to
march with the rank and file and do duty
with the private soldier. We want to belong
10 the reserve corps and read about the bats
tie while warming ourselves at the campfres
or on furlough Mt home, our feet Upon an
ottoman, We sa3ging back into an armchair.
As you go down the street you see an ex-
csvation, and four or five men are working
and perhaps twenty or thirty leaning on the
rail looking over at them. That is the way
it is in the church of God to-day. Where
You find one Christian hard at work, there
are fifty men watching the job.
Oh my friends, why do you not go to
have no pulpit" You have. 1t may be the
carpenters bench, 1t may be the mason's
wall. Tit robe in which you are to proclaim
this gospel may be a shoemakers apron.
But woe unto you If You preach not this Cos
pei somewhere. somehow If this world is
ever brought to Christ 1t will be through the
unanimous and long-continued efforts of
men who, waiting for no special endowment,
consecrats TO God what they have. Among
the most useless people in the world are men
with ten talents, while many q one with only
two talents, or NJ talents at all, is doing a
a ornot rrArI- and GO sonia Iapna gnt-a Tho ~ u
There are thousands of ministers Of whom
you have never heard in log cabins at the
West, in mission cbapels at the East-who are
/ warning against the legions of darkness, sue
cessfuly warning. Tract distributors, month
by month undermining the citRde!s of sin.
You do not know their going or their com-
ing, but the footballs of their ministry are
4 heard in the palaces of heaven. Who arethe
workers In our Sabbath schso,s throughout
this land to-day? Men celebrated, men bril-
liant, men of vast estate? Forthe most part,
not that at all.
have noticed that the chief characteristic
OF the most of those who resuccessful in the
work is that they knowtheir Bibles, are earn
est in prayer, are anxious for the salvation
of the young, and Sabbath by Sabbath are
willing to sit down unobserved and tell of
Christ and the resurrection. These are the
humble workers who are recruiting the great
army Of Christian youth-not by night, not
by power, not by profound argument, not by
brilliant antithesis. but by the blessing OF
God on plain talk, and humble story, and s-
lent tear, and anxious look, ''the lame take
the prey"
Oh this work of saving the youth of our
country-how few appreciate what it isl
This generation tramping on to the grave
We will soon all be gone. What OF the next?
An engineer on a locomotive going across
the Western prairies day after day saw n little
child come out in front of a cabin and wave
70 him Go ha not in fha habit ~ u-artnr
back to the little child, and 1t was the days
joy to him to see this little one com out in
front OF the cabin door and wave to him
while he back.
One day the train was belated and it CANE
on to the dusk of the evening. AS the engt.
neer stood at his post he saw by the head
light that little girl on the track, wondering
why the train did not come, looking for tia
train. knowing nothing of her peril. Aft al
horror seized upon the engineer. He re-
versed the engine. He gave it in charge of ths
other man on board, and then he climbed over
the engine, and he came down on the cow
catcher. He said I cough he had reversed the
engine. it seemed a. though 1t were going at
lightning speed, faster and faster, though 1t
was really slowing up, and with almost SUI
psrnatural clutch he caught that child by
the hair and lifted it up, and when the
stopped and the passengers gathered around
to see what was the matter, there tho old en-
gineer lay, tainted dead away, the little
child alive and in his swarthy arms.
"oh," you say, ''that was well done" But
/ want you to exercise some kindness and
' some appreciation toward those In the COM
munity who arc snatching the little ones
from under the wheels of temptation and sin
-snatching them from under laundering
rail trains of eternal disaster, bringing them
up into responsibility in this world and into
glory for the world to come. You appreciate
what the engineer did. Why can you not
appreciate the grander work done by every
Sabbath school teacher AMI by every Chris
tian worker?
oh, start on the road to heaven to-day.
You are not happy. The thirst of your soul
will never be slaked by the fountains Of sin.
You turn everywhere but to God for help.
Right where you are, call on Him. He
knows you He knows all about you. He
knows all the odds against which you have
been ~contending in lie. Do not go to Him
with a long rigmarole of prayer, but Just
look up and say, ''Help! Help!n
Yet you say my hand trembles SO from
my designations, 1 cannot even take hold OF
a hymn book to sing" Do not worry abous
that, my brother, 1 will give out a hymn at
the close so familiar you can sing 1t without
a book. But you say, ~ have such terrible
habits on me, | a get rid OF them" My
answer is, Almighty grace can break up that
habit and will break II. But you say, ''The
wrong l did was to one dead and in heaven
now, and / can't correct that wrong" You
can correct it. By the grace of God, go into
the presence of that one, and the apologies
you ought to have made on earth make in
heaven.
"oh," say some men, ''f I should try to
do right, If l should turn away from my evil.
doing unto the Lord, l would be iostled, /
would ha driven back, nobody would hays
any sympathy for me-" You are mistaken,
Here, in the presence Of the church on eaxts
and i'll heaven, l give o to-day the rigid
hand of Christian fellowship. God sent ms
here te-day to preach this, and he sent you
here TO hear this: 'Let the wicked forsake
HE way, and the unrighteous man his
thought, and let him return unto the Lord,
who will have mercy, and unto our Gae, who
will abundantly pardon"
Though you may have been the worst sin.
aer you may become tho best saint, and In
the great day OF Judgment 1t will be found
that 'iwhere sin abounded grace does much
more abound. ; and while the spoils OF an
Everlasting kingdom are being awarded for
Your pursuit it will be found that the lame
look the prey" Blessed be God that we are
this Sabbath one week nearer the obliteration