The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1896-03-11
forsaken sGod! Standing amid the

| J
how could you get along without
God to comfort you. and a God to dc
liver you, and God to help, you, AM
God to save you2 You tell me yo'
have been through enough buslnes
trouble almost to kill you. L know 1t
II cannot understand how the boa
could live one hour in that chopped
sea. But I do not know by what pr<'
cess you got astry, some IN one wa!
and some in another, and II you coult
really see the position some OF you oc
cupy before God your soul Woult
burst into an agony of tears, and you
would pelt the heavens with the cry
"God have mercy" Slnals batterie!
| have been unlimbered above your SOU
and times you have heard it thunder
THE wages of sin is death" AL
have sinned and come short of the
glory of God" "By one man sin en-
tered into the world, and death by sin,
and so death passed upon all men, fol
that all have sinned." ''The soul thai
sinneth, it shall die" When Sevasto
pol was being bombarded, two Russian
frigates burned all night In the mar
bor, throwing glare upon the trembl
ing fortress, and some of you, from
what you have told me yourselves,
some of you are standing in the night
of your souls trouble, the cannonade,
and the confagration, and the multi
plication, and the multitude of your
sorrows and troubles, I think, must
make the wings of Gods lowering an
gels shiver to the tip.
But the last part of my text opens a
door wide enough to let all out and to
let all heaven in. Sound it on the or
gan with all the stops out. Thrum it
on 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. "The
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of
US ALL" I am glad that the prophet
did not stop to explain whom he meant
by "him." Him of the manager, him
of the blood sweat, him of the resurrec-
ton throne, him of the cruciGxion
agony. "On him the Lord hath laid
the iniquity Of us all" "Oh," says
some man, "that isn't generous, that
isn't fair; let every man carry his own
burden and pay his own debts" That
sounds reasonable. If I have an OBJ
legation, and ] have the means to meet
it, and I come to you and ask you to
settle that obligation. you rightly says,
"Pay your own debts" If you and I
are walking down the street, both
hale, hearty and wei, and 7 ask you to
carry me, you say rightly, walk on
your own feet" Butsuppose you and
I were in a regiment, and I was wound
ed in the battle and I fell unconscious
at your feet with a gunshot fractures
and dislocations, what would you do?
You would call to your comrades, say
ing: "Come and help This man is
helpless. Bring the ambulance. Let
us take him to the hospital" And I
be a dead lift in your arms, and you
would lift me from the ground where
I had fallen and put me in the ambul-
ance and take me to the hospital and
have all kindness shown me. Would
there bemeaning in my accepting that
kindness3 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 I 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
ambulance. Clear the way for the
Son of God. He comes down to bind
up the wounds and to scatter the dark
ness and to save the lost, Clear the
way TOR the Son of God. Christ comes
down to us, and we are a dead lift.
He does not lift us with the tips of bis
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 on him the ini.
quity of us ALL" Why. then, will a
man carry his sins2 You cannot car
ry successfully the smallest sin you
ever committed. You might as well
put the Apennies on one shoulder 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 tenn
pests of these nights; I have come to
bear your burdens and to pardon your
sins and to pay your debts. Put them
on my shoulder, put them on my
heart" "On 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 spoiled 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. Cos
samery and volatile the world, while
eternity, as they look forward to it, is
black as midnight. They writhe un-
der the stings of a conscience which
proposes to give no rest here and no
rest hereafter, and yet they do not re-
pent; they do not pray; they do not
weep. They do not realize that just
the position they occupy is the posi-
ton occupied by scores, hundreds and
thousands of men who never found
any hope,