Connecticut western news., 1897-02-25

taken the place of thornv thickets, gar dens tho place of harrenness, and the
 old rookery in which he once lived had given way to pictured mansion. And tell you if you will come and enlist under the banner of our Victor Emman- uel and follow him through thick and thin and fight his battles and endure his sacrifices you will find after awhile that he has changed your heart from 8 jungle of thorny skepticism into gar den all abloom with luxuriant joy that you have never dreamed of-from 8 tangled Caprera of sadness into para disc of God
 do not know how your theological system went to pieces. It may be that your parents started you with only one plank, and you believe little or noth- ing. Or they may have been too rigid and severe in religious discipline and cracked you over the head with psalm book. It may be that some partner in business who was member of an evan gelical church played on you a trick that disgusted you with religion. It may be that you have associates who have talked against Christianity in your presence until you are "all at sea, ," and you dwell more on things that you do lieve. You are in one respect like Lord
 Nelson, when a signal was lifted that he wished to disregard and he put his
 sea glass to his blind eye and said, II
 really do not see the signal" Oh, my nearer. put this feldglass of the gospel no longer to your blind eye, and say, cannot see, but put it to your other eye, the eye of faith, and you will see Christ. and he is all you need to see.
 If you can believe nothing else, you
 certainly believe in vicarious suffering, for you see it almost every day in some shape. The steamship Knickerbocker of the Cromwell line, running between New Orleans and New York, was in great storms, and the captain and crew saw the schooner Mary D. Cranmer of Philadelphia in distress. The weather cold, the waves mountain high, the first officer of the steamship and four men put out in lifeboat to save the crew of the schooner, and reached the vessel and lowed it out of danger, the wind shift ing so that the schooner was saved. But the five men of the steamship coming back, their boat capsiZed, yet righted again and came on, the sailors coated with ice. The boat capsized again, and three times upset and was righted, and line was thrown the poor fellows, but their hands were frozen so they could
 not grasp it, and great wave rolled over them, and they went down, never to rise again till the sea gives up its dead. Appreciate that heroism and self sacrifice of the brave fellows all who can, and can we not appreciate the Christ who put out into more biting cold and into more overwhelming
 surge to bring us out of infinite peril into everlasting safety? The wave of hu-
 man hate rolled over him from one side
 and the wave of hellish fury rolled over him on the other side. Oh, the thick
 ness of the night and the thunder of the tempest into which Christ plunged for our rescuel
 Come In on one narrow peam oI pnu cross. Let all else go and cling to that; put that under you, and with the ear nestness of swimmer struggling for his life put out for shore. There is great warm fire of welcome already built,
 and already many, who were as far out
 as you are, are standing in its genial and heavenly glow. The angels of God 8
 rescue are wading out into the surf to
 clutch your hand, and they know how
 exhausted you are, and all the redeemed prodigals of heaven are on the beach with new white robes to clothe all those
 who come in on broken pieces of the ship
 My sympathies are for such all the
 more because I was naturally skeptical,
 disposed to question everything about this life and the next, and was in dan ger of being farther out to sea than any
 of the 276 in the Mediterranean break CTS, and I was sometimes the annoyance
 of my theological professor because I
 asked so many questions. But I came in on plank. I knew Christ was the Saviour of sinners and that I was sin
 ner, and got ashore, and do not pro-
 pose to go out on that sea again. have
 not for 80 minutes discussed the contro-
 verted points of theology in 80 years, \
 propose to discuss them for 80 seconds, would rather in mud scow try to
 weather the worst cyclone that ever swept up from the Caribbean, than
 risk my immortal soul in useless and perilous discussions in which some of my brethren in the ministry are indulg-
 ing. They remind me of a company of sailors standing on the Ramsgate pier | head, from which the lifeboats are
 usually launched, and coolly discussing i the different styles of oarlocks and how
 deep boat ought to set in the water | while a hurricane is in full blast and there are three steamers crowded with passengers going to pieces in the offing | An old tar, the muscles of his face work | ing with nervous excitement, cries out: ''This is no time to discuss such things | Man the liteboatl Who will volunteer? 1 Out with her into the surfl Pull, my lads; pull for the wrecki Ha, hal Now l we have them. Lift them in and lay | them down on the bottom of the boat. l Jack, you try to bring them to. Put | these fiannels around their heads and
 feet, and will pull for the shore God
 help me! Therel Landedl Huzzap' When there are so many struggling in the waves of sin and sorrow and wretch
 edness, let all else go but salvation for | time and salvation forever.
 I bethink myself that there are some
 here whose opportunity or whose life is
 mere wreck, and they have only a
 small piece left. You started in youth | with all sails set, and everything prom
 ised grand voyage, but you have
 sailed in the wrong direction or have | foundered on rock. You have only a | fragment of time left. Then come in on
 that one plank "Some on broken pieces l of the ship.''
 You admit you are all broken up,
 one decade of your life gone by, two