Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1895-02-22

allegory There are fifty things that pc
lieye that you do not believe. And yet you
are an accommodating man. Everybody
that knows you says that Of you. Ill should
ask YOU to do a kindness for me, or If any
one else should ask OF you kindness, you
would do it. Now. have kindness TO ask
of YOU to-day. 1t is something that Will cost
you nothing and will give me great dengnt:
/ want you by experiment to try the poWero Oh
Christ's religion. II should come to you,
and you were very sick, and doctors mao
given you up and said there was no Gnanc9
for you, and should take out bottle and
say: "Here is a medicine that will cure you.
It has cured fifty people, and it WILL cure
in it," I would say, 'Wont you take 1t to
oblige meY' "Well," you would say, III us
any accommodation to you, I'll take IT,. MY
friend, will you be Just as ACCOMMODATING III
matters of religion2 There are some OF you
whohave found out that this world cannot
satisfy your soul. You are like the man VINO
told me one Sabbath after the service was
over: ~ have tried this world and found 1t
an insufficient portion. Tell me OF some
thing better" You have come to that. You
are sick for the need of divine medicament.
Now 1 come and tell you OF physician
who will cure YOU who has cured hundreds
and hundreds who were as sick as you are.
ooh" you say, II have no confidence IN
Him" But will you not try Him? Accom-
modate me In this matter; oblige me in this
matter; just try Him. I am very certain He
will cure YOU You reply, II have no es.
pecial confidence in Him, but If you ask me
as e matter of accommodation introduce
Him." SO I introduce Him-Christ, the
Physician who has cured more blind eyes and
healed more CHASTITY wounds and bound up
more broken hearts than all the doctors
since the time of Esculapius. That Divine
Physician is here. Are you uot ready to try
him? Will you not, as pure matter OF ex-
pertinent, try Him and state your case be-
fore Him this hour? Hold nothing back
from Him. If you cannot pray, if you do
not know how to pray any other way, say :
20 Lord Jesus Chist, this is q strange thing
for me to do. I know nothing about the
formulas of religion. These Christian peo-
pie have been talking so long about what
Thou canst do for me l am ready TODD what
ever Thou commanded me to do. am
ready to take whatever Thou commandost me
TO take. If there be any power in religion as
these people say, let me have the advantage
It," Will you try that experiment now? do
not at this point OF my discourse say that
there is anything in religion, but l simply
say try it, try it. Do not take my counsel or
the counsel Of any clergyman, If you despise
clergymen. Perhaps we may be talking pro-
fessiOnally; perhaps we may be preJudlced IN
the matter; perhaps we may be hypocrtlcal
In our utterances; perhaps cur advice IS not
worth taking. Then take the counsel OF some
very respectable laymen, as John Milton, the
poet; as William Wherefore, the statesman;
as Isaac Newton, the astronomer; as Robert
Boyle, the philosopher; as Locke, the meta
physician. They never preached or pretended
to preach, and yet putting down, one his
telescope, and another his parliamentary
scroll, and another his electrician S wire they
all declare the adaptedness OF Christs re-
ligion to the wants and troubles Of the world
If you will not take the recommendation OF
ministers of the gospel, then take toe recon-
mendation of highly respectable laymen.
o men, skeptical and struck through with
unrest, would you not like to have some OF
the peace which broods over our souls today
know ell about your doubts. have been
through them all. I have gone through all
the curriculum. I have doubted whether
there is God, whether Christ is God, l have
doubted whether the Bible YVES true, have
doubted The Immortality Of the soul,
have doubted my own existence. have
doubted everything, and yet out Of that hot
desert of doubt have come into The broad,
luxuriant, sunshiny land of gospel hope and
peace and comfort, and so l have confidence
in preaching to you and asking you to come
in. However often you may have spoken
against The Bible, or however much you may
have caricetured religion, step ashore from
tina: rocking and tumultuous sea. L you go
home to-day adhering to your infidsl!ties,
you will not sleep one wink. You CO not
want your cEilGren to come up with your
skepticism. You cannot afford to die IL that
midnight darkness, can you2 If you do not
believe in anything else, you believe in Love
"a fathers love, a mothers love, wife's
love, a chilG's love. Then LET me tell you
that God loves you more than them al. Oh,
you must come in. You will come il The
great heart of Christ eches to have you come
in. and Jesus this very moment-whether
YOU sit or stand-lcCks into your eyes a1d
saws, "Other sheep Lave which are not of
this fold" r..
Again remark SEat the Heavenly Shep-
herd is going to find great many sheep
among those who have been flung OF evil
habits. It makes re sad to see Christian
people give up prodigal as lost. There are
chose who talk as though the grace OF God
we're a chain of forty or fifty links, and after
they had run out there was nothing to touch
the depth of very baG case. If they were
hunting and co. of TIE track of the deer,
they would look longer among the brakes
and bushes for the lost game than they have
been looking for that lest soul. People tell
us that If man have delirium tremens twice
he cannot be reclaimed; that after woman
has sacrificed her integrity she cannot be re-
stored. The Bible has distinctly intimated
that the Lord Almighty is ready to pardon
400 times-that is seventy times seven. There
are men before the throne of God who have
wallowed in every kind of sin, but saved by
the grace of Jesus and washed in His blood
they stand there radiant now. There are
those who MINCED into the very lowest OF
all the bells in New York who have for the
zenith time been lifted up, and finally, by the
grace of God, they stand in heaven glor-
lousy rescued by the grace promised to the
chief of sinners. want to tell you that God
loves to take hold of very bad case. When
the church casts you off, and when the club
room casts you off, and when society casts
you off, and when business associates casts
you off, and when father casts you off, and
when mother casts you off, and when every
body casts you off, your first cry for help will
bend the eternal God clear down into the
ditch of your suffering and shame.
The Good Templars cannot save you, al
though they are a grand institution. The
Sons of Temperance cannot save you, al
though they are mighty for good. Signing
the temperance pledge cannot save you,
although believe in it. Nothing but the
grace of the eternal God can save you, and
that will If you will throw yourself on 1t.
There is a man in this house who said to me-
"Unless God helps me cannot be delivered.
have tried everything, sir, but now | have
got in the habit of prayer, and when l come
to drinking saloon pray that God will take
me safe past, and pray until am past. He
does help me-" For every man given to
strong drink there are scores of traps set.and
when he goes out on business tomorrow he