Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1897-07-23
CLEANSING
ONES WAY.
Sermon In the EpiscopaI
Church last Sunday,
by DR.. BittIe.

TEXT.-Wherewithal shall a young man
cleanse his way? BY taking heed there
to according to thy word. Ps. 119: O..
Bible writer's, who represent God
IN his teachings always appear to be
especially solicitous about the young.
They seem TO take it for granted, and
reasonably, that the walk and eonver
sation to which the young man hab
ituates himself will follow him
through life, that as the twig is bent
the tree will be inclined; that if hu
man life has it's harvest season it
must have an antecedent blowing,
sowing, cultivating period; in a
word, that man must grOW iuto
what he becomes. God does not
95ce man office, he shows him as a
youth the way to esponsibility; he
does not elect man to position, He
calls him to the assumption of duty.
God does not take a man to Heaven
and happiness, he promotes him to
that field OF service for which he has
fitted himself How shall young
man cleanse his ways A young
man cleanses his own wayl Most
men think or assume that if GOD
does his duty, the young mans
way will be cleansed before him
They look upon God as a sort of
watchful attendant or nurse who
goes before one and removes obstruc
tions from his pathway, keeps him
from stumbling, points out to him
nutritious frnits and prevents him
in some miraculous way from pluck
ing and eating what is poisonous or
hurtful, holds him like child in
leading strings. Now, whilst such
an idea Of God Is very comfortable
and convenient, it will not work out
In practice. 1 do not mean that
God, our Father, is not solicitous
about his children, or that He would
omit any essential thing that would
guard them from evil, but, with all
his klndness-or. as | should say,
with fatherly kindness in the truest
sense-He demands of us that we
become selfresponsible, that we
g'tN', like saplings into sturdy oaks,
not like tendrils into parasitic vines.
As He is self lfsupporting in his own
infinite rectitude, He demands of us
that We become like him-his chill
dren, self supporting in the dignity
of our elationship to him. God
never intended this world TO be Il,
hospital for sickly weaklings or milk
nurtured babes, to whom he admin
listers a sort of medicinal regime of
Christian nurture and indulgent cod
ding; on the contrary He sets US in
the way and demands of us that we
cleanse it; He puts us amidst sur
roundings over which ace are to have
control. We are to blame no one
but ourselves if, in the thoughtless
ness Of youth we drink henIlock
igstead of wine, if, in headlessness
of his claims, we soil our fingers and
clothes and souls in the mire of pol
luton which it is our duty to remove
from or pathway and that of others
The fact that we are to be i,a the
world but not Of it, is proof of the
farther fact that we are TO regard it
ASA gymnasium for the training of
manhood, not as nursery in which
we are TO find everything ready to
minister to our morbid and childish
wants. We are not to have aoal,ts,
we are to conceive and cultivate
aims. A man says, II hope my sur
roundings lSay be such that / can
escape the temptations under which
/ see other men falling; | want infu
ence among my fellow men, 1 want Il
prosperous life. an easy old age. and
a happy, peaceful death. L pray
God in his mercy to grant me health
the means of success, situation of
independece in my environment, a
seat at his right hand when the end
comes. His aoOyd, and the expe
rience of christianity for it, God new
er listens to such prayers though we
wear out our knees in groveling
before him. Are you needing the
laws, Gods laws of physical we'll.
being, restraining and correcting
those animal appetites which grow
like weeds unless pruned and cut
BACK; are you assidiously gathering
up those fragments of time which
dkv after dav fall Of vOnr faef fro,,,