Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-02-24

or no he decided some ones eternity.
In time of temptation he gave an affirm
alive or negative to some temptation
which another, hearing Of. was induced
to decide in the same way.
Clear on the other side of the next
million years may be the first you hear
of the long reaching influence of that
yes or no. but hear Of it yon will. vii
that father make path to shine aftei
him9 Will that mother make path to
shine after her? You will be walking
along these streets or along that country
road 200 yeazi from now in the character
of your descendants. They will be affect
ed by your courage or your cowardice,
your purity or your depravity, your Holt
pess or your sin. You viii make the path
TO shine after you or blacken after you.
Why should they point out to us on
some mountain two riyulets, one of
which passes down into the rivers which
pour out into the Pacific ocean. and the
other rivulet flowing down into the rivers
which pass out into the Atlantic ocean?
Every man, every woman, stands at
point where words uttered, or deeds
done, or prayers offered, decide opposite
destinies and opposite eternities. We see
a man planting Il tree, and treading sod
firmly on either side of it, and watering
it in dry weather, and taking great
care in its culture, and he never plucks
any fruits from its bough. But his chill
dren will. We are all planting trees
that will yield fruit hundreds of years
after we are dead-orehards of golden
fruit or groves of deadly upas.
am so fascinated with the phosphor-
escence in the track of ship that | have
sometimes watched for long while and
have seen nothing ON the face Of the deep
but blackness. The mouth of watery
chasms that looked like gaping jaws of
hell. Not a spark as big as the FREELY;
not white scroll of surf; not Il taper to
illuminate the mighty sepulchers of dead
ships; darkness ., 1000 feet deep, and more
thousands Of feet long and WIDE That
is the kind Of wake that bad man leaves
behind him as he plows through the
ocean of this life toward the vaster ocean
Of the great future.
THE GROWTH OF SIN.
Now suppose man seated in cor
ner grocery or business Office among
clerks gives himself to Jolly skepticism.
He laughs at the Bible, makes sport of
the miracles, speaks of perdition in
jokes and laughs at revivals as frolic,
and at the passage of funeral process
sion, which always solemniZes sensible
people, says, "Eoys, let's take drink"
There is in that group Young man who
is making great struggle against temp
tation and prays night and morning and
reads his Bible and is asking God for
help day by day. But that grtfaw
against Christianity makes him lose his
grip of sacred things, and he gives up
Sabbath and church and morals and
goes from bad to worse, till he falls I'M
der designations, dies in lazar house
and is buried in the potter's field.
Another young man who heard that
jolly skepticism made up his mind that
sit makes no difference what we do or
say, for we will all come out at last at the
right place, and began as consequence
to purloin. Some money that came into
his hands for others he applied to his
own uses, thinking perhaps he would
make it straight some other time, and
all would be well even if he did not
make it straight. He ends in the peni-
Tertiary. That scotfer who uttered the
jokes against Christianity never realized
what bad work he was doing. and he
passed on through life and out Of it and
into future that am not now going to
depict.
do not propose with q searchlight to
show the breakers of the awful coast on
which that ship is wrecked, for my bust
ness now is to watch the sea after the
keel has plowed it. No phosphorescence
in the wake Of that ship, but behind it
two souls struggling in the wave-two
young men destroyed by reckless sl;ep-
ticism, an unillumined ocean beneath
and on all sides Of them. Blackness of
darkness.
You know what gloriously good man
Rev. John Newton was the most of his
life, but before his conversion he vas
very wicked sailor. and on board the ship
Harwich iustilled infidelity and vice in
which destroyed him. Afterward the
two met, and Newton tried to undo his
bad work, but in vain. The young man
became worse and worse and died prof
igate, horrifying with his profanities
those WHO stood by HIM in his last mo-
ments.
Better look ont what bad influence
ct MT Io oh
stop it. 1t does not require very great
force to ruin others. Why was it that
many years ago II great food nearly de-
stroyed New Orleans? A crawiish had
burrowed into the banks of the river un-
Ill the ground was saturated and the
banks weakened until the food burst.
THE SHINING PATTI.
But find here a man who starts out
in life with the determination that be will
never see suffering but he will try to al
leviate it. and never see encouragement
but he will try to cheer it, and never
meet with anybody hut he will try to do
him good. Getting his strength from
God. he starts from home with high pur-
pose of doing all the good he can possibly
do in one day.
Whether standing behind the counter,
or talking in the business cffice with pen
behind his ear, or makinga largain with a
fellow trader, or ont in the feldsdiscuss-
ing with his next neighbor the wisest ro-
tation Of the crops. orin the shoemaker's
shop pounding sole leather, there is some
thing in his face and in his phrase
ology. ard IN his manner, that demon
strates the grace Of God in his heart lie
can talk on religion without awl5wardly
dragging it in blythe ears. Heloves God
and loves the souls Of all whom he meets
and is interested i'll their prcsen; and
eternal destiny.
For 80 Or GO years he lives that kid of
life and then gets through with Ii aud
goes into heaven ransuHcd soEl. But
am not going to describe the port into
which.that ship has entered.
am not going TO describe the Pilot
who net him outside at the 'lichtshiD."
| am not going to say anything about tie
crowds of friends who met him Ga the
crystal lme Wharves up which lee goes on