Connecticut western news., 1897-02-25


 affection of his heart accepts Christ Is saved, and the man who does not accept him is lost
 One Central Fact.
 I believe in both the Heidelberg and Westminster catechislns, and wish you
 all did, but you may believe in nothing they contain except the one idea, that Christ came to save sinners, and that you are one of them, and you are in- stantly rescued. If you can come in on the grand old ship, I would rather have
 you get aboard, but if you can only find
 piece of wood as long as the human body, or a piece as wide as the out spread human arms, and either of them is piece of the cross, come in on that piece. Tens of thousands of people are
 today kept out of the kingdom of God because they cannot believe everything I am talking with man thoughtful about his soul who has lately travelled
 through New England and passed the night at Andover. He says to me, "I cannot believe that in this life the des- I tiny is irrevocably fixed; I think there will be another opportunity of repent ance after death" say to him: My brother, what has that to do with you? | Don't you realize that the man who | waits for another chance after death | when he has good chance before death is stark fool? Had not you better take | the plank that is thrown to you now and head for shore rather than wait for | plank that may by invisible hands be | thrown to you after you are dead? Do as you please, but as for myself, with | pardon for all my sins offered me now, and all the joys of time and eternity offered me now, instantly take them, rather than run the risk of such other chance as wise men think they can peel | off or twist out of 8 Scripture passage | that has for all the Christian centuries been interpreted another way" You say, II do not like Princeton theology, l or New Haven theology, or Andover the | ology." do not ask you on board either | of these great men, -of-war, their port holes filled with the great siege guns of ecclesiastical battle, but I do ask you
 to take the one plank of the gospel that | you do believe in and strike out for the l pearl strung beach of heaven.
 Says some other man, "I would at tend to religion if I was quite sure | about the doctrine of election and free agency, but that mixes me all up. !" | Those things used to bother me, but I have no more perplexity about them, | for say to myself, If I love Christ and live a good, honest, useful life, I am elected to be saved, and if do not l--s. IoxJ C. r be damned, and all the theological sem- inaries of the universe cannot make it any different. " I floundered long while | in the sea of sin and doubt, and it was as rough as the Mediterranean on the fourteenth night, when they threw the | grain overheard, but I saw there was mercy for a sinner, and that plank took, and have been warming myself by the bright fire on the shore ever since.
 Doubt Overruled.
 While am talking to another man about his soul he tells me, I do not be- come Christian because I do not be- lieve there is any he'll at all." An, don't you? Do all the people of all be- liefs and no belief at all, of good morals
 and bad morals, go straight to happy heaven2 Do the holy and the debauched | have the same destination? At mid night, in hallway, the owner of a
 house and burglar meet. They both I fire, and both are wounded, but the
 burglar dies in five minutes, and the
 owner of the house lives a week after. Will the burglar be at the gate of heav- en, waiting, when the house owner comes in? Will the debauchee and the | libertine go right in among the families | of heaven? I wonder if Herod is playing
 on the banks of the river of life with | the children he massacred. wonder if | Charles Guiteau and John Wilkes Booth are up there shootiong at mark. do | not now controvert it, although 1 must say that for such miserable heaven have no admiration. But the Bible does 1 not say, Believe in perdition and be saved" Because all are saved, accord ing to your theory, that ought not to
 keep you from loving and serving | Christ. Do not refuse to come ashore because all the others, according to your theory, are going to get ashore. You may have different theory about chem istry, about astronomy, about the at i mosphere from that which others adopt, | but you are not therefore hindered | from action. ... Because your theory of light is differ ent from others do not refuse to open | your eyes. Because your theory of air | is different you do not refuse to breathe.
 Because your theory about the stellar | system is different you do not refuse l to acknowledge the north star. Why should the fact that your theological
 theories are different hinder you from
 acting upon what you know? If you
 have not whole ship fastened in the theological drydocks to bring you to wharfage, you have at least plank.
 "Some on broken pieces of the ship" | "But I don't believe in revivalsr'
 Then go to your room, and all alone,
 with your door locked, give your heart
 to God, and join some church where
 the thermometer never gets higher than
 50 in the shade.
 | ''But I do not believe in baptismt" Come in without it and settle that mat
 ter afterward. But there are so many inconsistent Christiansp' Then come
 in and show them by a good example
 how professors should act. 'But don't
 believe in the Old Testamentp' Then
 come in on the New. "But don't like
 the book of Romans" Then come in on Matthew or Luke. Refusing to come
 to Christ, whom you admit to be the
 Saviour of the lost, because you cannot
 admit other things, you are like man
 out there in that Mediterranean tempest
 and tossed in the Melita breakers, re-
 fusing to come ashore until he can mend
 the pieces of the broken ship. I hear
 him say: II won't go in on any of these
 blanks until know in what part of the
 ship they belong When I can get the
 windlass in the right place, and the sails