Connecticut western news., 1896-08-20

The second witness call in this case is conscience. Who art thou, O con- science? What is your business? Where were you born? What are you doing here? "Oh, says conscience, ''I was born in heaven. came down to be- friend this man. I have lived with him. have instructed him. I have warned him. I showed him the right and the wrong. advising him to take the one and eschew the other. have kindled great light in his soul. With whip of scorpions have scourged his wicked ness, and I have tried to cheer him when doing right, and yet l am com pelled to testify on the stand today that he has sometimes rejected my mission. Oh, how many cups of life have l pressed to his lips that he dashed down, and how often has he stood with his hard heel on the bleeding heart of the Son of God! It pains me very much that I have to testify against this Chris tian man, and yet I must, in behalf of him who will in no wise clear the guilty, say that this Christian man has done wrong. He has been worldly. He has been neglectfuL He has done
 
 done and left undone thousand things he ought to have done" That will do. conscience You can sit down.
 Important Testimony.
 The third witness call in the case is an angel of God. Bright and shining one, what doest thou here? What hast thou to say against this man on trialp "Oh,n says the angel, 'I have been messenger to him. have guarded him. have watched him. With this wing have defended him, and oftentimes, when he knew it not, I led him into green pastures and beside the still wa ters. I snatched from him the poisoned chalices. When bad spirits came upon him to destroy him, fought them back with infinite fierceness, and yet I have to testify today that he had rejected my mission. He has not done as he ought to have done. Though came from the sky, he drove me back. Though with this wing I defended him and though with this voice I wooed him, I have to announce his multiplied imperfections. dare not keep back the testimony, for then 1 should not dare to appear again amongst the sinless ones before the great white throne
 There is only one more witness to be called on behalf of the prosecution, and | that is the great, the holy, the august, | the omnipotent Spirit of God. We bow down before him. Holy Spirit, knowest thou this man? "Oh, yes," says the | Holy One, "I know him. I have striven with him 0,000 times, and, though | l. l.. EoII back again as often from his first estate Ten thousand times 10, 900 has he ! grieved me, although the Bible warned | him, saying: 'Grieve not the Holy | Ghost. Quench not the Spirit. Yes, he has driven me back. Though I am the | third person of the Trinity he has tram | pied on my mission, and the blood of l the atonement that I brought with which to cleanse his soul he sometimes | despised. I came from the throne of | God to convert and comfort and sancti- | fy, and yet look at that man and see | what he is compared with what, unre- sisted, I would have made him"
 | The evidence on the part of the prose- cution has closed. Now let the defense bring on the rebuttal testimony. What | V | reply to this evidence of the world, of the conscience, of the angel and of the Holy Ghost? No evidence? Are all these things true? "Yes- Unclean, unclean," says every Christian soul Whatr Do you not begin to tremble at the thought | of condemnation?
 | Summing Up.
 | We have come now to the most inter- esting part of this great trial. The evil dence all in, the advocates speak, The profession of an advocate is full of re- sponsibility. In England and the United States there have arisen men VI ho in this calling have been honored by their race and thrown contempt upon those who in the profession have been guilty of a great many meannesses- That profes- sion will be honorable as long as it has attached to it such names as Mansfield and Marshall and Story and Kent and Southard and William Wirt. The court room has sometimes been the scene of very marvellous and thrilling things
 Some of you remember the famous Gi- rard will case, where one of our advo- cates pleaded the cause of the Bible and Christianity in masterly Anglo-Saxon, every paragraph thunderbolt
 Some of you have read of the famous trial in Westminster hall of Warren Hastings, the despoiler of India That great man had conquered India by splen- did talents, by courage, by bribes, by gigantic dishonesty. The whole world had rung with applause or condemna- tion. Gathered in Westminster hall, . place in which 80 kings had been in- augurated, was one of the most famous audiences ever gathered. Foreign min isters and princes sat there. Peers marched in, clad in ermine and gold.
 Mighty men and women from all lands looked down upon the scene. Amid all that pomp and splendor and amid an excitement such as has seldom been seen
 in any courtroom Edmund Burke ad-
 vanced in a speech which will last as
 long as the English language, conclud-
 ing with this burning charge, which
 made Warren Hastings cringe and cow
 CT: "I impeach him in the name of the
 commons house of parliament, whose
 trust he has betrayed. impeach him in
 the name of the English nation, whose
 ancient honor he has suIlied. I impeach
 him in the name of the people of India,
 whose country he has turned into des-
 ert. And, lastly, in the name of human
 nature, in the name of both sexes, in
 the name of every age and rank, I i'm
 peach him us the common enemy and
 oppressor of all.
 But I turn from the recital of these
 memorable occasions to grander trial,
 and I have to tell you that in this trial
 of the Christian, for the life of his soul,
 the advocates are mightier, wiser and
 more eloquent The evidence all being
 in, severe and stern Justice rises on be-
 half of the prosecution to make his plea.
 With the Bible open in his hand he
 reads the law, stern and inflexible, and
 the penalty, ''The soul that sinneth, i!