The Monitor-register., 1897-08-27


then which of US is safer?
Let me also ask whether your trouble
has not been that you COMPOUNDED Chris
tianity with the inconsistent character
of some who profess it? You are a law
yer. In your profession there are mean
and dishonest men. Is that anything
| against the law? You are a doctor
| There are unskilled and contemplate
men in your profession. Is that any
thing against medicine? You are mer-
chant. There are thieves and defraud-
ers in your business Is that anything
against merchandise? Behold, then, the
unfairness of charging upon Christian
ity the wickedness of its disciples We
admit some of the charges against those
who profess religion. Some of the most
| gigantic swindles of the present day
have been carried on by members OF
the church
There are men standing in the front
rank in the churches who would not be
trusted for So without good collateral
security. They leave their business dis
honesties in the vestibule OF the church
as they go in and sit at the communion.
Having concluded the sacrament, they
get up, wipe the wine from their lips,
go out and take up their sins where they
left off. 10 serve the devil is their reg
ular work, to serve God sort of play
spell. With Sunday sponge they ex-
pect to wipe off from their business slate
all the past week Inconsistencies. You
have no more right to take such man s
life as specimen of religion than you
have to take the twisted irons and split
timbers that lie on the beach at Coney
Island as a specimen of an American
ship. 1t is time that we draw line be-
tween religion and the frailties of those
who profess it.
Do you not feel that the Bible, take
| it all i'll all, is about the best book that
the world has ever seen? Do you know
any book that has as much i'll it? do
you not think, upon the whole, that its
influence has been beneficent? come to
YOU with both hands extended toward
You. In one hand | have the Bible and
in the other hand l have nothing. This
Bible in one hand will surrender for
ever just as soon as in my other hand
you can put book that is better
| invite you back into the good old
fashioned religion of your fathers, to
the God whom they worshiped, to the
Bible they read, to the promises on
which they leaned, to the cross on
which they hung their eternal expecta-
tons You have not been happy day
since you swung off. You will not be
| happy minute until you swing back.
Great Hfndrances.
Again, there may be some who in the
attempt after a Christian life will have
to run against powerful passions and
appetites. Perhaps it is a disposition to
anger that you have to contend against,
| and perhaps, while in a very serious
mood, you hear of something that makes
| you feel that you must swear or die. l
| know Christian man who was once SO
exasperated that he said to mean GUS
| toner, 81 cannot swear at you myself,
| for am a member of the church, but if
you will go down stairs my partner In
business will swear at you" All your
good resolutions heretofore have been
torn to tatters by explosion of temper.
Now, there is no harm in getting mad
if you only get mad at sin. You need
to bride and saddle those hot breathed
passions and with them ride down in
Justice and wrong. There are thou
sand things in the world we ought to
be mad at There is no harm in getting
redhot if you only bring to the forge
that which needs hammering A man
who has no power of righteous indig-
nation is an imbecile. But be sure it is
a righteous Indignation and not a petu-
lancy that blurs and unrayels and de-
pletes the soul.
There is Il large class of persons in
midlife who have still in them appetites
that were aroused in early manhood, at
time when they prided themselves on
being little FAST "high livers,"
"free and easy" hail fellows well
met" They are now paying in COM
| pound interest for troubles they collect
ed 90 years ago. Some of you are trying
to escape, and you will, yet very mar
rowly, "as with the skin of your teeth.
God and your own soul only know hat
the struggle is. Omnipotent grace has
pulled out many a soul that was deeper
in the mire than you are. They line the
beach of heaven-the multitude whom
| God has rescued from the thraIl of sui
| cidal habits If you this day turn back
on the wrong and start anew, God will
help you. Oh, the weakness of human
helpt Men will sympathize for awhile
and then turn you off. If you ask for
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 God
forgives seventy times seven; yea, sew
ell 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, for
instance, some appetite thrusts its iron
grapple into the roots of the tongue and
pulls a 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 a struggle in which the
wrestlers move from side to side and
bend and twist and watch for an oppor-
tunity to get in a 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
| of 10 OF L..
| his teeth.
Near Watery Grave.
| The ship Emma, bound from Gotten
| burg to Harwioh, was sailing on when
the man on the lookout saw something
that he pronounced vessel bottom up
There was something on it that looked
| like 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 a capsized
/ vessel, and that three men had been
digging their way cut 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 well 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.