Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1896-03-07

became an atheist. You said, Where is
| God that honest men 20 down and
thieves prosperg' You were logged Of
creditors, you were logged of the banks.
you We're logged of worldly disaster,
and sorne of you went into misaxthropy
and some Of you took TO strong drink and
others Of you fed out of Christian asso-
citation, and you got astray. Oh, man,
that was the last time when you ought
to have forsaken God. Standing amid
tho laundering of your early failures,
how conld You get along without a God
tocomfort you and God to deliver you
and a God to help you aud a God to save
you: You tell me you have been through
enough business trouble almost to kill
you. / know it. / cannot understand
/ how the boat could live one hour in that
chopped sea- But / do not know by
what process you got astray; some in
one way and some in another, and if
You could really see the position some of
you occupy before God your soul would
burst into an agony of tears and you
would pelt the heavens with the cry.
God have mercyw Sinai's batteries
have been unlimbered above your soul,
and at times you have heard it thunder,
The wages of sin is death. "All have
sinned and come short of the glory of
God. F" By one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin, and so
/ death passed upon all men, for that all
have sinned. The soul that sinneth,
it shall die. +" When Sevastopol was be-
Z ing bombarded, two Russian frigates
burned all night in the harbor, throw
ing glare upon the trembling fortress,
and some of you, from what you have
told me yourselves some of you are
standing in the night of your souls
1 trouble, the cannonade, and the confla-
grafton, and the multiplication, and the
multitude Of your sorrows and troubles
/ think must make the wings of Gods
lowering angles shiver to the tip.
Melody From Heaven.
But the last cart Of my text opens
door wide enough TO let us all out and
to let all heaven in. Sound it ON the
organ with all the stops out Thrum it on
1 the harps with all the strings atune.
With all the melody possible let the
heavens sound it to the earth and let
the earth tell it to the heavens. 1.-THE
Lord hath laid on him the iniquiiy of
us all. - am glad that the prophet did
not stop to explain whom he meant by
him. /" Him of the manager, him of the
bloody sweat. him of the resurrection
throne, him of the crucifxion agony.
con him the Lord bath laid the iniquity
of us all. y sob % says some man, that
isn't generous; that It fair. Let ev-
cry man carry his own burden and pay
his own debts. - That sounds reason
able. If have an obligation, and have
the means to meet it, and come to you
and ask you to settle that obligation.
You rightly say, Pay your own debts +"
If you and l. walking down the street
both hale, hearty and well-I ask
you to carry me, you say rightly, walk
on your own feet!p But suppose you
and were in regiment, and / was
wounded in the battle, and fell nncon-
scious at your feet with gunshot frac-
lures and dislocations, what would you
do? You would call to your comrades,
saying: Come and help; this man is
helpless. Bring the ambulance Let us
take him to the hospital, and / would
be a dead lift in your arms, and you
would lift me from the ground where I
had fallen, and put me in the ambu-
lance, and take me TO the hospital, and
have all kindness shown me. Would
there be anything bemeaning in my ac-
cepting that kindness? Oh, no. You
would be mean not to do it, That is
what Christ does. If we could pay our
debts, then it would be better to go up
and pay them, saying: Here, Lord,
here is my obligation. Here are the
means with which / mean to settle that
obligation. Now give me a receipt.
Cross it all out. The debt is paid.
But the fact is we have fallen in the
battle, we have gone down under the
hot fire of our transgressions, we have
been wounded by the sabers of sin, we
are helpless, we are undone. Christ
comes. The loud clang heard in the
sky on that Christmas night was only
the bell, the resounding bell of the am
bulance. Clear the way for the Son of
God. He comes down to bind up the
wounds, and to scatter the darkness,
and to save the lost. Clear the way for
the Son Of God! Christ comes down to
us, and we are dead lift. He does not
lift rs with the tips of his fingers. He
does not lift US with one arm. He comes
down upon his knee, and then with a
dead lift he raises us to honor and glory
and immortality. "The Lord hath laid
Oh him the iniquity Of us all" Why,
then, will man carry his sins? You
cannot carry successfully the smallest
sin you ever committed You might as
we'll put the Apennines on one shout
der and the Alps on the other. How
much less can you carry all the sins of
your lifetime? Christ comes and looks
down in your face and says: 81 have
come through all the decorations of these
days, and through all the tempests of
these nights. have come to bear your
burdens, and to pardon your sins, and to
pay your debts. Put them ON my shout
der, put them on my heart. I" son him
the Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all. !"
Sin has almost pestered the life out Of
some of you. At times it has made you
cross and unreasonable, and it has
epoiled the brightness of your days and
the peace Of your nights. There are men
who have been riddled of sin. The
world gives them no solace. Gossamery
and volatile the world, while eternity,
MS they look forward to it, is black as
midnight They writhe under the stings
of conscience which proposes to give
no rest here and no rest hereafter, and
yet they do not repent, they do not
pray, they do not weep. They do not
realize that just the position they oc-
cupy is the position occupied by scores,
hundreds and thousands of men who
never found any hope.
Take God to Your Heart.
Ifthis meeting should be thrown open
and the people who are here could give