Connecticut western news., 1897-12-16


 to work with God gives us our hands and feet, with every knuckle and with every joint and with every muscle, say ing to us "I.ay hold and do something. '"
 But how often it is that men with strength do not serve Christ !! They are like ship full manned and full rigged, capable of vast tonnage, able to endure all stress of weather. yet swinging idly at the docks, when these men ought to be crossing and recrossing the great ocean of human suffering and sin with Gods supplies of mercy. How often it is that physical strength is used in doing positive damage or in luxurious ease, when, with sleeves rolled up and bronzed bosom, fearless of the shafts of it ought to be laying hold with all its might and tugging away to lift up this sunken wreck of world.
 It is most shameless fact that much of the business of the church and of the world must be done by those compara- lively invalid. Richard Baxter, by req son of his diseases, all his days sitting in the door of the tomb, yet writing more than 100 volumes and sending out an influence for God that will endure as long us the Saints Everlasting Rest" Edward Payson, never knowing a we'll day, yet how he preached and how he wrote, helping thousands of dy- ing souls like himself to "swim ill a sea of gloryr' And Robert M 'Cheyne, a walking skeleton, yet you know what he did ill Dundee and how he shook Scotland with zeal for God. Philip Dod- dridge, advised by his friends, because of his illness, not to enter the ministry, yet you know what he did for the "rise and progress of religion in the church and in the world.
 Wilberforce was told by his doctors that he could not live q fortnight, yet at that very time entering upon philan- thropic enterprises that demanded the greatest endurance and persistence. Robert Hall, suffering excruciations, SC that often ill his pulpit while preaching be would stop and lie down on a sofa, then getting up again to preach about heaven, until the glories of the celestial city dropped on the multitude, doing more work perhaps than almost any we'll man in his day.
 Oh, how often it is that men with great physical endurance are not so great in moral and spiritual stature. While there are achievements for those who are bent all their days with sick ness-achievementso of patience, achieve ments of Christian endurance-I call upon men of health today, men of mus cle, men of nerve, men of physical pow. CT, to devote themselves to the Lord. Giants in body, you ought to be giants in soul
 samson's Misguided Strength.
 Behold also ill ths story of my text illustration of the damage that strength can do if it be misguided. It seems tc me that this man spent great deal o1 his time in doing evil-this Samson o1 my text. To pay bet which he had lost by guessing of his riddle he robs and kills 80 people. He was not only gigantic ill strength, but gigantic 1T mischief, and type of those men in all ages of the world, who, powerful ir body or mind or any faculty of social pOSltIOl Wtd1lu, nave uScu bACll strength for iniquitous purposes.
 It is not the small, weak men of the day who do the damage. These small men who go swearing and loafing about your stores and shops and banking houses, assailing Christ and the Bible and the church-they do not do the damage. They have no influence. They fhot !, xusth foot. But it is the giants of the day, the misguided giants, giants in phys ical power, or giants in mental acu- men, or giants in social position, ol giants in wealth, who do the damage. The men with sharp pens that stab re ligion and throw their poison all through our literature, the men whc use the power of wealth to sanction in iquity and bribe justice and make truth and honor bow to their golden scepter. Misguided giants-look out for them. In the middle and latter part of the last century, no doubt, there were thousands of men in Paris and Edinburgh an6 London who hated God and blasphemeG the name of the Almighty, but they di6 but little mischief-they were small men, insignificant men. Yet there were giants in those days.
 Who can calculate the soul havoc of ( Rousseau, going on with very enthu siasm of iniquity, with fiery imagina tion seizing upon all the impulsive na lures of his day, or David Hume, who employed his life as spider employi it's summer, in spinning out silker webs to trap the unwary, or Voltaire the most learned man of his day, mar shaling a great host of skeptics and lead ing them out in the dark land of inf delity, or Gibbon, who showed an un ccntrollable grudge against religion il his history of one of the most fascinat ing periods of the worlds existence "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'-a book in which, with all the splendors of his genius, he magnifieC the errors of Christian disciples, while with sparseness of notice that never can be forgiven he treated of the Chris tian heroes of whom the world was no worthy?
 A Crown on Earth.
 Oh, men of stout physical health men of great mental stature, men o high social position, men of great power of any sort, want you to understand your power, and want you to know that that power devoted to God will b, crown on earth, to you typical of { crown in heaven, but misguided, be draggled in sin, administrative of evil God will thunder against you with hi condemnation in the day when million aire and pauper, master and slave, kinl and subject, shall stand side by side il the judgment, and money bags and ju dicial ermine and royal robe shall b, riven with the lightnings.
 Behold also how giant may be slain Delilah started the train of circum stances that pulled down the temple O Dagon about Samson's ears, and ten of thousands of giants have gone dowl to death and hell through the same i'm pure Vaccinations. It seems to me tha it is high time that pulpit and platform