Connecticut western news., 1897-07-15
The Safe Course.

God asks of us one e-seyenth of our time in the way of Sabbath. Do you suppose We can get an hour of that time success. fully away from its true object? No, no. God has demanded one seventh of your time. If you take one hour of that time that is to be devoted to Gods service and instead of keeping his Sabbath use it for the purpose of writing up your accounts or making worldly gains, God will get that hour from you in some un- expected way. God says to Jonah, "You go to Nineveh." He says: 'No, l won't. I'll go to Tarshish. He starts for Tarshish. The sea raves, the winds blow and the ship rocks. Come, ye whales, and take this passenger for Tar shishl No man ever gets to Tarshish whom God tells to go to Nineveh. The sea would not carry him; it is Gods sea. The winds would not wait him; they are Gods winds. Let a man at tempt to do that which God forbids him to do or to go into place where God tells him not to go, the natural world as we'll as God is against him. The lightnings are ready to strike him, the fires to burn him, the sun to smite him, the waters to drown him, and the earth to swallow him. Those whose princely robes are woven out of heartstrings, those whose fine houses are built out of skulls, those whose springing fountains are the tears of oppressed nations, have they successfully cheated God?
 The last day will demonstrate. 1t will be found out on that day that God vindicated not only his goodness and his mercy. but his power to take care of his own rights and the rights of his church and the rights of his oppressed children. Come, ye martyred dead, awake and come up from the dungeons where folded darkness hearsed you and the chains like cankers peeled loose the skin and wore off the flesh and rattled on the marrowless bones. Come, ye mar tyred dead, from the stakes where you were burned, where the arm uplifted for mercy fell into the ashes and the cry of pain was drowned ill the snap ping of the flame and the bowling of the mob from valleys of Piedmont and Smithfield market and London Tower and the highlands of Scotland. Gather in great procession and together clap your bony hands, and together stamp your moldy feet and let the chains that bound you to dungeons all clank at once and gather all the flames that burned you ill one uplifted arm of fire and plead for a judgment. Gather all the tears ye ever wept into lake and gather all the sighs ye ever breathed into tempest until the heaven piercing chain clank and the tempest sigh and the thunder groan announce to earth and hell and heaven a judgment. Oh,
 on that day God will vindicate bis own cause and vindicate the cause of the troubled and the oppressedl It will be seen in that. day that though we may have robbed our fellows, we never have successfully robbed God.
 My Christian friends, as you go out into the world exhibit an open hearted Christian frankness. Do not be hypo- critical in anything. You are never safe if you are. At the most inopportune moment the sheep will bleat and the oxen below. Drive out the last Amale- kite of sin from your soul. Have no mercy on Agag. Down with your sins, down with your pride, down with your worldliness. I know you cannot achieve this work by your own arm, but al | mighty grace is sufficient-that which saved Joseph in the pit, that which de- i livered Daniel in the den, that which | shielded Shadrach in the fire, that which ! cheered Paul in the shipwreck