The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1897-07-16

you call it; without holiness no man
shall see the Lord" l know men who
are living with their soul in perpetual
communion with Christ, and day by
day are walking within sight of
Heaven. How do l know? They tell
me so. l believe them. They would
not lie about it Why cannot we all have
this conservation? Why STAY some of
the sins in our soul, and leave others
to bleat and below for our exposure
and condemnation? Christ will not
stay in the same house with Agag.
You must give up Agag, or give up
Christ. Jesus says, "All of that heart
or none" Saul slew the poorest of the
sheep and the meanest of the oxen,
and kept some of the latest. and there
are Christians who have slain the most
unpopular of their transgressions, and
saved those which are most respect
able. 1t will not do. Eternal war
against all the Amalekites; no mercy
for Agag.
learn further from this subject that
it is vain to try to defraud God Here
Saul thought he had cheated God out
of those sheep and oxen; but he lost
his crown, he lost his empire. You
cannot cheat God out of a single cent.
Here is man who has made $4,000 in
fraud. Before he dies every dollar of
it will be gone, or it will give him
violent unrest. Here is a Christian
who has been largely prospered. He
has not given to God the pro-
portion that is due, in charities
and benevolences. God comes to the
reckoning, and He takes it all away
from you. How often it has been that
Christian men have had large estate,
and it is gone. The Lord God came
into the counting room and said: 81
have allowed you to have all this prop
erty for 10, Is or 20 years, and you have
not done justice to my poor children.
When the beggar called upon you, you
bounded him off your steps; when my
suffering children appealed to you for
help, you had no mercy. / only asked
for so much, or so much, but you did
not give it to me, and now will take
it ALL"
God asks of us one seventh of our
time in the way of Sabbath. Do you
suppose we can get an hour OF that
time successfully 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 de-
voted 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 unex-
pected way. God says to Jonah,
''You go to Nineveh." He says,
mo, l won't, I'll go to Tarshish."
He starts for Tarshish. The sea
raves, the winds blow, and the ship
rocks. Come, We whales, an take this
passenger for Tarshish! 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 watt him; they are Gods winds.
Let man attempt 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 well as God is
against him. The ightnings are ready
to strike, 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 hearts strings; 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-it will be found
out on that day that God indicated
ii
but His power to take care of His own
rights and the rights of His oppressed
children. Come, We martyred dead,
awake and come up from the dun
geOns where folded darkness hearsed
you, and the chains like cankers peeled
loose the skin, and wore off the flesh,
and ratified on the marrOwless bones.
Come, We martyred 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 in the snappings of the flame
and the bowling of the mob; from
valleys of Piedmont and Smithfeld
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 in one uplifted arm of fire,
and plead for Judgment. Gather all
the tears We ever wept into lake, and
gather all the signs We ever breathed
into tempest, until the Heaven-pierc-
| ing 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 the
cause of the troubled and the OPP
pressed! 1t 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 OpeE-hearted
| Christian frankness. Do not he hypO-
critical in anything; you are never safe
if you are. At the most inopportune
moment the sheep will bleat and the