The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1894-01-13


fee and all the ordinary prayers that
mothers make for their children and
all have failed. She is coming toward
the vivid and venturesome and terrific
prayer OF my text. She is going to
lift her own eternity and set it upon
that one 'if," by which she expects to
decide whether you will go up with
her or she down with you.
She may be this moment looking
heavenward, and saying: 80 Lord re-
claim him by Thy grace" and then
adding that heart-rending "If' of my
text: ''If not, blot me, ! pray Thee,
out of Thy book" After three years
of absence son wrote his mother in
one of the New England whaling viii
lagos that he was coming home in a
certain ship. Mother-like, she stood
watching, and the ship was in the off
ing, but fearful storm struck it and
dashed the ship on the rocks that
night. All that night the mother
prayed for the safety of the son, and
just at dawn there was a knock at the
cottage door, and the son entered, cry
ing: Mother, knew you would pray
me homer If ! would ask those in
this assemblage who have been prayed
home to God by pious mothers to stand
up, there would be scores that would
stand; and if / should ask them to give
testimony, it would be the testimony
of that New England son coming
ashore from the split timbers OF the
whaling ship: my mother prayed me
homer
Another Bible ''If' is the ar of in
credulity. Satan used it when Christ,
with his vitality depressed by forty
DAYS abstinence from food, the tempt
er pointed to some stones, in color and
shape like loaves of bread, and said:
eff Thou be the Son of God, command
that these stones be made bread" That
was appropriate, for Satan is the IA
Their of that ''if'' for incrdulity. Peter
used the same "If' when, standing on
the wet and slippery deck of a fishing
smack of Lake Galilee, he saw Christ
walking on the sea as though it were
as solid as pavement of basalt from
the adjoining volcanic hills, and Peter
cried ont: IF it be Thou, let me come
to Thee on the water" What a pre-
postcrous eff. What human foot was
ever so constructed as to walk on wa
ter? In what part of the earth did
law of gravitation make exception
to the rule that man will
sink to the elbows when he touches
the wave of the river or lake, and
will sink still further unless he can
swim? But here Peter looks out upon
the form in the shape of man defying
the highest law of the universe, the
law of gravitation, and standing erect
on the top of the liquid. Yet the in
credulous Peter cries out to the Lord:
'sIf it be Thou" Alas. for that in
credulous 'sIf." 1t is working as
powerfully as in the latter part of this
nineteenth Christian century as it did
in the early part of the first Christian
century Though small conjunction,
it is the biggest block to-day in the
way of the Gospel chariot. 'sIf.' ''1f!''
We have theological seminaries which
spend most of their time and employ
teeir learning and their genius in the
manufacturing of Ifs" With that
weaponry is assailed the Pentateuch
and the miracles and the divinity OF
Jesus Christ. Almost everybody il
chewing on an sIf." When mar
bows for prayer, he puts his knee or
an IF" The door through which PEG
pie pass into infidelity and atheism and
all immortalities has two door-posts
and the one is made up of the lette.
'.In and the other of the letter ST"
Any religion will do in time of pros
perity. Buddhism Wilde Confucian
ism win do. Theosophy will do. NJ
religion at all will do But when the
world gets after you and defames yonl
best deeds, when bankruptcy takes tn.
| place of large dividends, when yo,
| fold for the last sleep the still hand
over the still heart of your old fathel
who has been planning for your wei
fare all these years, or yet close tn
eyes of your mother who has lived il
| your life, ever since before you wer,
born, removing her spectacles becaus
she will have clear vision in the hom
to which she has gone, or you give
the last kiss to the child re
clining amid the flowers tina
pile the caslSet, and looking a
natural and life-like as she eve
did reclining in the cradle, then tn
only religion worth anything is tn
old-fashioned of the Gospel of Jesu
Christ. / would give more in such
crisis for one of the promises espresso
in half verse of the old Boo
than for a whole library containing
all the productions of all the other re
ligions of the ages The other rel
gions are sort of cocaine to benum
and deaden the soal while bereavement
and misfortune do their work, but on
religion is inspiration, illumination
emparadisation. 1t is mixture {
j sunlight and hallelujah. Do not adu
terate it with one drop of the tinctur
of incredulity.
/ Another Bible 'sif' is the s.if'' O
4 eternal significance. solomon gives u
that ''if'' twice in one sentence, who
he says: IF thou be wise, thou shal
| be wise for myself; but If tho
soonest, thou alone shalt bear it.
Christ gave us that eff when He say
"If thou hadst know in this thy day
the things which belong unto tn
peace, but now they are hidden frol
thine eyes" Paul gives us that I'll
when he says: 'If they shall entt
into nv rest All those ssifs