Connecticut western news., 1895-03-07

trustees and directors of that oil com pany professed Of course their rejeo- tion of religion on such grounds was un- philosophical and unwise. I am told that many of the United States army desert every year, and there are thou sands of court martials every year. Is that anything against the United States government that swore them in? And if soldier of Jesus Christ desert, is that anything against the Christianity which he swore to support and defend? How do you judge of the currency of Q country? By counterfeit bill? Oh, you must have patience with those who have been swindled by religious pretenders. Live in the presence of others frank, honest, earnest Christian life, that they may be attracted to the same Saviour upon whom your hopes depend.
 Questions Unanswered.
 Remember skepticism always has some reason, good or bad, for existing. | Goethe's irreligion started when the news came to Germany of the earth quake at Lisbon, Nov. 1, 177J. That | 60, 900 people should have perished in | that earthquake and ill the after rising of the Tagus so stirred his sympathies that he threw up his belief in the good- ness of God.
 Others have gone into skepticism from natural persistence in asking the reason why. They have been fearfully stabbed of the interrogation point There are so many things they cannot get ex- plained. They cannot understand tho Trinity or how God can be sovereign and yet man free agent. Neither can I. They say, "I don't understand why | good God should have let sin come into the world" Neither do l. You say, "Why was that child started in life l with such disadvantages, while others | have all physical and mental equip ment?" cannot tell. They go out of | church on Easter morning and say, ''That doctrine of the resurrection con founded me" So it ito me mystery beyond unravelment. understand all the processes by which men get into the dark. I know them all. I have travelled with burning feet that blistered way. The first word which most children learn to utter is, "Papa, or Mamma" but think the first word ever uttered was, Why" 1 know what it is to have hundred midnights pour their | darkness into one hour. Such men are not to be scoffed, but helped Turn your back upon drowning man when you l have the rope with which to pull him ashore, and let that woman in the third story of O house perish in the flames l when you have ladder with which to help her out and help her down, rather than turn your back scofingly on a skeptic whose soul is in more peril than | the bodies of those other endangered cnes possibly can be. Oh, skepticism is dark land. There are men in this house who would give thousand worlds if they possessed them to get back to the placid faith of their fathers and moth ers aud 1t is our place to help them, and we may help them, never through their heads, but always through their hearts. Those skeptics, when brought to Jesus, will be nightly effective, far more so than those who never examined the evidences of Christianity.
 Thomas Chalmers was once skeptic, Robert Hall a skeptic, Robert Newton a skeptic, Christmas Evans skeptic. But when once with strong hand they took hold of the chariot of the gospel they rolled it on with what momentum! !! | If I address such men and women to- day, 1 throw cut no scoff. 1 implead them by tho memory of the good old days, when at their mothers knee they said, "Now I lay me down to sleep" and by those days and nights of scarlet | fever in which she watched you, giving you the medicine at just the right time and turning your pillow when it was hot, and with hands that many years ago turned to dust soothed away your l pain, and with voice that you will never hear again, unless you join her in the better country, told you to never mind, for you would feel better by and by, and by that dying couch, where she looked so pale and talked so slowly, catching her breath between the words, and you felt an awful loneliness com ing over your soul-by all that I beg you to come back and take the same re- ligion. It was good enough for her. It is good enough for you. Nay, have a better plea than that. I plead by all the wounds and tears and blood and groans and agonies and death throes of the Son of God, who approaches you this mo- ment with torn brow, and lacerated hand, and whipped back, and saying, "Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest"
 l. Life Savers.
 Again, there is field of usefulness but little touched occupied by those who are astray in their habits. All northern nations, like those of North America and England and Scotland-that is, in the colder climates-are devastated by alcoholism. They take the fire to keep up the warmth. In southern countries. like Arabia and Spain, the blood is so warm they are not tempted to fiery liq- uids. The great Roman armies never drank anything stronger than water tinged with vinegar, but under our northern climate the temptation to heat ing stimulants is most mighty, and mil lions succumb. When man s habits go wrong, the church drops him; the social circle drops him; good influence drops him; we all drop him. Of all the men who get off track, but few ever get on again. Near my summer residence there is life saving station on the beach. There are all the ropes and rockets, the
 boats, the machinery for getting people off shipwrecks. One summer saw there
 15 or 20 men who were breakfasting after having just escaped with their lives and nothing more. Up and down our coasts are built these useful struo- lures, and the mariners know it, and they feel that if they are driven into the breakers there will be apt from shore to come rescue. The churches of God ought to be so many life saving stations,
 not so much to help those who are in smooth waters, but those who have been shipwrecked. Come, let us run out the