The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1894-06-20

week upon yCur Ame, ard Ycur patience,
and vCur money, and while | an entreat.
ipg you abcus ycur soul and the danger
of prccras!inati0n you say: Go thy
wa7 tor this time. When | have S con-
yenIent season, l will call for thee" 0
Felix, why be bothered about the affairs
Of this world so much more than about
the affairs ofeterrit? oYonuot know
that when Ceath comes yea will have 10
stop business, though it be in the most
exacting period ofit-between The pay
ment Cf the money and the taking OF the
rsceip'? The moment he comes J0u
will have TO 90. Death waits tyr 40
man, however high, however low. Will
YOU put YOUR office, will you pat your
shop in comparison With the sfairs Ct an
eternal woIld, affairs that involves
thrones, palaces, 6ominions eternal:
Will you put 200 scres cf ground against
immepsjty? Will you put 40 or so
years of your life against millions OF
ages?
Felix, you might better postpone
everything else! Fur DO you not know
that the uphols!eriDg Of Tyrian pur'
pie in your palace will tade, and The
marble blocks Of C@sarea will crumble,
and the breaKWater at the beach, made
of great blocks of stone 90 fest long
must give way before the perpetual wash
oftle sea, but the redemption that Paul
offers you will be forever? And yet and
vet and yet you wave him back to the
guardroom, saying: go thy way for
this time. When I have q convenient
season, l will call for thee"
Again, Felix adjourned this subject OF
religion and put off Pau.'s argument be:
cause he could not give up the honors OF
the world. He was afraid somehow he
would be COMPROMISED himself in this
matter. Remarks he made afterTard
showed him to be intensely ambitious.
Oh. how he hugged the favor of men!
never saw the honors CT this world
in tneir hoJlowness and hypocrisy so
much as in the life and death Of that
wonderful man, Charles Sumner. As he
went towards The place cf burial even
Irdspenderce hall n Philadelphia asked
that his remains stop there on their way
to Boston, The flags were at half mast
and the minute guns on Boston COM
mon throbbed after his heart had ceased
10 beat, Was 1t always sc? While he
lived, how cersured Of legislative reso-
lutions, how caricatured ofthe pict0rials
how charged with every motive mean
and Ridiculous; hoW all the urns Of scorn
and hatred and billingsgate emptled up
on his head; how, when struck down in
senate chamber, there were hundreds Of
thousands of people who said, "Good
for him; serves him right" how he had
put the ocean between him aud his ma
ligpers, that he might have little peace
and how, when he went eff sick, they
SAID he was broken hearted because he
could not get TO be president or sec:eta-
ry of state.
0 commonwealth Of Massachusetts,
who is that man that sleeps 10 your pub
lie hall, covered with garlands and
wrapped IN the stars and stripes? Is
that the man who, only few months
before, you denounced as the foe otre-
publican and democratic institutions? Is
that the same mau? Ye American peo-
pie. We could not, b. one week OF fun.
eral eulogium and newspaper leaders,
which the dead senator could neitner
read nor hear, atone for 25 years ct NAL
treatment and carcature. When [ see
man ike that, pursued by all the
hounds of the political kennel so long as
he lives and then buried under great
pile of garlands and amid the lamenta-
| tons of q whole nation, I say to myself:
What an uuutterably hypocrltical thing
is all human applause and human favor!
You took 25 years in trying to pull down
his fame and then take Is years IN try"
| inc to build his monument.
NV frleEds, was there eVera better
commentary On tie ho!loWness of all
esrthly favol? Itthers are young men
who read this who ere postponing re-
liglon in order that they may have the
favors of this world, let me persuade
them Of their complete folly. If you
| looking forward to gubernatorisl, sena-
torial or presidential chair, let me show
you your great mistake. Can it be that
| there is now any young man saying:
LET me have political Office. let me
have some Of the high positions of trust
and power, and then will attend.to
religion, bat not now. Go thy way ior
this time. When I have q convenient
! season, will call for thee!' "
And now my subject takes a deeper
tone, and it shows what a dangerous
thing is this deferring ofreligion. When
Paul's chain ratified down The marble
stairs OF Felix that was Felix's last
chance for heaven. Judging from bis
character afterward, he was reprobate
and abandoned. And so was Drusilla.
One day in southern Italy there was a
trembling of the earth, and the air got
black with smoke intershot with liquid
rocks, and VesuVius ralned upon Dru.
silla and upon her son a horrible temp
est OF ashes and fire, They did not re-
ject religion; they only put it off. They
did not understand that that day that
that hour when Paul stood before them,
was the pivotal hour upon which every
thing was poised, and that it tipped the
wrong way. Their convenient season
came when Paul and his guardsman
entered the palace-it went away when
Paul and his guardsman left. Have you
never seen men waitinc: for convenient
season? There is such great faclnation
about it that, though you may have
great respect to the truth Of Christ, yet
| somehow there ia your soul the thought:
mot quite yet. 1t is not time for me tC
| become q Christian" l say to boy,
"See3 Christ" He saws, mo; wait
nutl lam young man." l say to The
young man, "Seak Christ" He says,
WYATT uutil I come to mi6life." I meet
the same person in midlif9 and say,
"Ssek Christ" He says, "Wait unit!
| 1 get DID," meet the same person ID
old age and say to him, Seek Christi
| He Gays, "Wait uatil I am on my dying
| bed" am called to his dying couch
/ His last moments have come. / bend
| over the couch and listen for his las,
words. l have partially TO guess what
they are by the motion OF his lips, be is
so feeble, but raDYing himself, he whis-
L. { II