The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-08-27

pulled out many soul that was deepe
} in the mire than you are They line thu
: beach of heaven-the multitude whom
, God has rescued from the thrall of sui
, cidal habits. If you this day turn bacl
on the wrong and start anew, GOD viii
help you. Oh, the weakness of human
| help! Men will sympathize for awhile
and then turn you off. If you ask fol
: their pardon, they will give it and say
they will try you again; but, falling
: away again under the power of tempta
ton, they cast you off forever. But Goo
forgives seventy times seven; yea, sew
en- hundred times; yea, though this be
the ten thousandth time. he is more
earnest, more sympathetic, more help
full this last time than when you TOOK
your first misstep.
If with all the influences favorable
for right life men make so many mis-.
takes, how much harder is it when, fol
instance, some appetite thrusts it's iron
grapple into the roots of the tongue and
pulls man down with hands of de-
struction? If, under such circumstances
he break away, there will be no sport
in the undertaking, no holiday enjoy
ment, but struggle in which the
wrestlers move from side to side and
bend and twist and watch for an oppor-
tunity to get in heavier stroke, until
with one final effort, in which the mus
Giles are distended and the veins stand
out and the blood starts, the swarthy
habit falls under the knee of the victor
escaped at last as with the skin of
his teeth"
Near a Watery Grave.
The ship Emma, bound from Gotten
burg to Harwich, was sailing on when
the man on the lookout saw something
that he pronounced a vessel bottom up.
There was something OH it that looked
like a sea gull, but was afterward found
to be a waving handkerchief. In the
small boat the crew pushed out to the
wreck and found that it was capsized
vessel, and that three men had been
digging their way out through the bot
tom of the ship. When the vessel cap
sized, they had no means of escape. The
captain took his penknife and dug away
through the planks until his knife broke.
Then an old nail was found, with which
they attempted to scrape their way up
out of the darkness, each one working
until his hand was we'll nigh paralyzed,
and he sank back faint and sick After
long and tedious work the light broke
through the bottom of the ship. A hand
kerchief was hoisted. Help came. They
were taken on board the vessel and
saved. Did ever men come so near a
watery grave without dropping into it?
How narrowly they escaped-escaped
only with the skin of their teeth. "
There are men who have been capsized
of evil passions and capsized midocean,
and they are a thousand miles away
from any shore of help. They have for
years been trying to dig their way out.
They have been digging away and dig
ging away, but they can never be deliy-
cred unless now they will hoist some sig
nal of distress. However weak and feeble
it may be, Christ will see it and bear
down upon the helpless craft and take
them Oh board, and it will be known on
earth and i'll heaven how narrowly tbsy
escaped" escaped as with the skin of
their teeth. -
There are others who in attempting
to come to God must run between a
great many business perplexities. If
man go over to business at 10 clock in
the morning and come away at O'Clock
in the afternoon, he has some time for
religion, but how shall you find time
for religious contemplation when you
are driven from sunrise TO sunset and
have been for five years going behind
i'll business and are frequently dunned
by creditors whom you cannot pay, and
when from Monday morning until Sat
urday night you are lodging bills that /
you cannot meet? You walk day by |
day in uncertainties that have kept |
your brain on fire for the past three
years. Some with less business troubles
than you have gone crazy. The clerk
has heard a noise in the back counting
room and gone in and found the chief
man of the firm raving maniac, or the
wife has heard the bang of a pistol in
the back parlor ana gone in, stumbling
over the dead body of her husband-a
suicide. There are men pursued, har-
assed, trodden down and scalped of
business perplexities, and which way
to turn next they do not know. Now
God will not be hard OIL you. He knows
what obstacles are in the way of your
being a Christian, and your first effort
in the right direction he will crown
with success. Do not let satan, with
cotton bales, and kegs, and hogsheads,
and counters, AMI stocks of unstable
goods, block up your way to heaven.
Gather up all your energies. Tighten
the girdle about your loins Take an
agonizing look into the face of God,
and then say, Here goes one grand
effort for life eternal" and then bound
away for heaven, escaping "as with
he skin of your teeth"
In the last day it will be found that
Hugh Latimer, and John Knox, and
1uss, and Ridley were not the greatest
martyrs. but Christian men who went
Up incorrupt from the contaminations
md perplexities of Pennsylvania ave-
rue, Broad street. State street and
Third street On earth they were called
,rokers, or stock jobbers, or retailers,
# importers, but in heaven Christian