Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1895-03-08

and by those days anG 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
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 l beg
You to come back and take the same re
ligion. 1t was good enough for her. 1t
is good enougS for you. Nay, l have a
better plea than that 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 Iacerated
hand, and whipped back, and saying,
Come unto me, all ye who are weary
and heavy laden, and will give you
rest. "
Life Savers.
Again, there is a 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 arc 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 90
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 a life saving station on the beach.
There are all the ropes and rockets, the
boats, the machinery for getting people
of shipwrecks. One summer saw there
10 or 20 men who were breakfasting
after having just escaped with their
lives aud nothing more. Up and down
our coasts are built these useful struc-
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 a rescue. The churches of God
ought to be so many life saving stations,
not so much to help those who are III
smooth waters, but those who have been
shipwrecked. Come, let us run out the
lifeboats! And who will man them: We
do not preach enough to such men. We
have not enough faith i'll their release.
Alas, if when they come to hear US we
are laboriously trying to show the diff
ference between sublapsarianism and
supralapsarianism, while they have a
thousand vipers Of remorse and despair
coiling around their immortal spirits
The church is not chiefly for goodish
sort Of men whose proclivities are all
right and who could get to heaven pray
ing and singing in their own homes 1t
is on the beach to help the drowning.
Those bad cases are the cases that God
likes to take hold of. He can save big
sinner as well as a small sinner, and
when a man calls earnestly to God for
help he will 90 out to deliver such a
one. If it were necessary, God would
come down from the sky, followed by
all the artillery Of heaven and million
angels with drawn swords. Get 100
such redeemed men in each Of your
churches, and nothing could stand be-
fore them, for such men are generally
warm hearted and enthusiastic.
Great Mission.
Furthermore. the destitute children
of the streets offer field of work COM
paratively unoccupied. The uncared for
children are in the majority in most Of
our cities. Their condition was well IL
lustrated by what boy in this city said
when he was found under a cart gnaw-
ing a bone and some one said to him,
"Where do you live?" and he answered,
Don't live nowhere, SIR Seventy
thousand of the children Of New York
city can neither read nor write When
they grow up, if unreformed, they will
outvote your children, and they will
govern your children. The whisky ring
will hatch out other whisky rings, and
grogshops will kill with their horrid
stencil public sobriety, unless the church
of God rises up with outstretched arms
and infolds this dying population in her
bosom. Public schools cannot do it. Art
galleries cannot do it. Blackwell's is
land cannot do it. Almshouses cannot
do it. New York Tombs cannot do it,
Sing Sing cannot do it. People Of God,
wake up to your magnificent mission!
You can do it. Get somewhere, some
how, to work!
The Prussian cavalry mount by put
ting their right foot into the stirrup,
while the American cavalry mount by
putting their left foot into the stirrup
l don't care how you mount your war
charger if you only get into this battle
for God, and get there soon, right stir
rup, or left stirrup, or no stirrup at all
The unoccupied fields are all around us,
and why should we build on another
mans foundation?
/ have heard Of what was called the
"thundering legion" 1t was in l79,
part Of the Roman army to which some
Christians belonged, and their prayers
it was said, were answered by thunder
and lightning and hail and tempest
which overthrow an invading army and
saved the empire. And l would to God
that you could be so mighty in prayer
and work that you would become
laundering legion before which the
forces Of sin might be routed and the
gates of hell made to tremble All
aboard now on the gospel shipl If you
cannot be q captain or a first mate, be
a stoker or a deckhand, or ready at
command to climb the ratlines. Heave
away now, lads! Shake out the reefs
in the foretopsaill Come, o heavenly
wind, and fill the canvasl Jesus aboard
mill accura our safety Jpsus IN thp sea