The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1895-10-11


splashing Of water between Baptis
and Pedo-Baptists never results
anything but the blurring Of Il
spiritual eyesight. In other word
you can never capture mans soul
the point at which he Is especially Il
trenched.@ But there Is In every man
heart bolt that can DO easily shovel
| A little child four years old may touc
that bolt. and it will spring back, an
the door will swing open, and Chris
will come In.
think that the finest of all the fin
arts is the art of doing good. and ye
this art is the least cultured. w
have in the kingdom of God to-da
enough troops to conquer the Who'll
earth for Christ il we only had skillfu
maneuvering. would rather hav
the three hundred lamps and pitcher
Of Christian stratagem than one hun
dred thousand drawn swords OF liter
airy and ecclesiastical combat
learn from this subject. also, thai
small part of the army OF God will
have to do all the hard fighting. Gid
cons army was originally composed
Of thirty-two tn ousand men. but
they went off until there were
only ten thousand left. and
that was subtracted from until
there were only three hundred. 1t is
the same in all ages of the Christian
church; few men have to do the hard
fighting. Take membership of a
thousand, and you generally find that
fifty people do the work. Take men,
bership of five hundred, and you gen.
orally find that ten people do the
work. There are scores of churches
where two or three people do the
work.
We mourn that there is so much USE
less lumber in the mountains of Leb-
anon. I think, of the ten million
membership Of the Christian church
to-day, if five millions Of the names
were off the books the church would
be stronger. You know that the more
and drones there are in any
army the weaker it is. would rather
have the three hundred picked men of
Gideon than the thirty-two thousand
unsifted host. How many Christians are
standing in the way of all progress!
think it is the duty of .he church of
God to ride over them, and the quicker
It does it, the quicker it does its duty.
Do not worry. oh Christian, if you
rave to do more than your share of
,he work. You had better thank God
hat He has called you to be one of the
picked men. rather than to belong to
he host of stragglers. Would not you
'ather be one of the three hundred
hat fight than the twenty-five thou
and that run? I suppose those cow
.rdly Gideonites who went off con-
,ratulated themselves. They said,
We got rid of all that fighting, did not |
We? How lucky we have been; that |
'attle costs us nothing at all" But |
hey got none of the spoils of the |
ictory. After the battle the 900 men
vent down and took the wealth of the
and out of the cups and |
latters of their enemies they feasted
md the time will come, my dear
when the hosts of darkness
ill be routed, and Christ will say to
Lis troops. ''Well done, my brave
len, go up and take the spoilsl Be
lore than conquerors forever!" and in
nat day all deserters will be shot!
Again, learn from this subject that
DDS way is different from mans. but
always the best way. If we had the
tanning of that battle, we would
ave taken those thirty-two thousand
len that originally belonged to the
rmy, and we would have drilled
lem, and marched them up and
own by the day and week, and
Ionth, and we would have had
hem equipped with swords or spears,
to the way of arming in
lose times; and then we would have
arched them down in solid column
pom the foe. But that is not the
ay. God depletes the army. and takes
way all their weapons. and gives
lem lamp, and pitcher, and trum-
It. and tells them to go down and
i've out the Midianites. l suppose
'me wiseacres were there who said:
That is not military tactics. The
ca Of three hundred men, uuhrmed,
such great host of Mid.
nitesl' 1t was the best way, What
vord, spear or cannon ever accom-
ished such a victory as the lamp,
tcher and trumpet?
Gods way is different from mans
ay. but 1t is always besti Take, for
stance, the composition of the Bible.
we had had the writing of the Bible
3 would have said: Let one man
rite it II you have twenty or thir-
men to write poem or make a
atue or write history, or make
! argument there will be flaws
i'd contradictions" But God says:
let not one man do 1t, but