The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1897-02-26

way to a pictured mansion. And i tell
you II you will come and enlist under
the banner of our Victor Emmanuel,
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
a jungle OF thorny scepticisms into a
garden all aDIoom with luxuriant joy
that you have never dreamt of. From
a tangled Caprera of sadness into a
paradise OF God.
do not know how your theological
system went to pieces. 1t may be that
your parents started you with only
one plank, aid you believe little or
nothing. Or they may have been too
rigid and severe in religious discipline,
and cracked you over the head with
a psalm book. 1t may be that some
partner in business who was a member
of an evangelical church played on you
trick that Disguised you with re-
ligion. 1t may be that you have asso-
ciates who have talked against Chris
tianity in your presence until you are
"all at sea-" and you dwell more on
things that you do not believe than on
things you do believe. You are in one
respect like Lord Nelson, when a sig
nal was lifted that he wished to dis
regard, and he put his sea-glass to his
blind eye and said: II really do not
see the signal" Oh. my hearer, put
this field-glass 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 suffer-
ing, for you Sc II almost every day in
some shape. The steamship Knicker-
booker, OF the Cromwell line, running
between New Orleans and New York,
was in great storms. and the captain
and crew saw the schooner Mary ID.
.Cranmer, of Philadelphia, in distress.
The weather cold, the waves mountain
high, the first officer of the steam
ship and four men put out in a life
boat to save the crew of the schooner,
and reached the vessel and towed 1t
out OF danger. the wind shifting 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 a
line thrown the poor fellows, but their
hands were frozen so they could not
grasp 1t, and a 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 a more
biting colo and into a more overwhelm-
ing surge, to bring us out of infinite
peril into everlasting safety? The
wave of human hate rolled over him
from one side and the wave of hellish
fury rolled over him on the other side
oh, the thickness of the night and the
| thunder OF he tempest into which
Christ plunged for our rescue!
You admit you are all broken up, one
! decade of your life gone by, two de.
| cades, three decades, four decades, 9
half-century. perhaps three-quarters
of century gone. The hour hand anC
the minute hand of your clock of life
are almost parallel, and soon it will
be twelve and your day ended. Clear
discouraged are you? l admit 1t Is &
sad thing to give all our lives thai
are worth anything to sin and the
devil, and then at last make God 9
present Of first-rate corpse. But the
past you cannot recover. Get on board
that old ship you never will. Have
you only one more year left, one NOR,
month, one more week, one more day
one more hour-come in on that. Per
haps IL you get to heaven God may le
you go out on some great mission t
some other world, where you can some
what atone for your lack of service il
this.
From many a deathbed have seer
the hands thrown up in deploratior
something like this: my life has beer
wasted. l had good mental facultie!
and fine social position and great op
portunity, but through worldliness anC
neglect all has gone to waste save thes,
few remaining hours. now accept O
Christ and shall enter heaven through
his mercy; but alas, alas! that when
might have entered the haven of eter
nal rest with a full cargo, and beer
greeted by the waving hands of a null
titude in whose salvation / had born,
blessed part, l must confess l nov
enter the hartor of heaven on broker