The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-08-31

small boat the crew pushed out to the
wreck and found that IL was q capsiz-
ed vessel, and that three men had been
digging their way out through the hot
tom Of the ship. When the vessel cap
sized, they had n 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 dark
ness, each n working until his hand
vas 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 handker-
chief was hoisted. Help came. They
were taken on board the vessel and
saved. Did ever men come SO near a
waterygrave without dropping into it?
How narrowly they escaped-scaped
only with the skin OF their teeth
There are men who have beer capsized
Of evil passions and capsized mid
ocean, 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 digging away, but they can
never be delivered unless now they
hoist some signal OF distress. However
weak and feeble it may be, Christ will
see it and bear down upon the help
less craft and take them on board,
and it will be known on earth n in
heaven how narrowly they 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 a
man go yer to business at 10 o'clock
in the morning and come away at 3
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 in business and are fire.
Quently dunned by creditors whom you
cannot pay, and when from Monday
morning until Saturday 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 roubles 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
a raving maniac, or the wife has heard
the bang of a pistol in the back parlor
and gone in, stumbling over the dead
body of her husband-a suicide. There
are men pursued, harassed, trodden
Down and scalped of business perplexi-
ties, and which way to turn next they
do lot know. Now God will not be
hard on you. He knows what obsta-
cles are in the way of your being a
christian, and your first effort in the
right direction he will crown with sue
cess. Do not let satan, with cotton
bales, and kegs, n hogsheads, and
counters, and stocks Of unstable
goods, block up your way to heaven.
Gather up all your energies. Tighten
the girdle about your loins. Take an
agonizing loo 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
the skin of your teeth"
In the last day it will be found that
Hugh Latimer, and John Knox, and
Huss, and Ridley were not the great
est martyrs, but christian men who
went up incorrupt from the cOntamina-
lions and perplexities of Pennsylvania
avenue, Broad street, State street and
Third street. On earth they were call
ed brokers, or stock jobbers, or retail
ers, or importers, but in heaven chris
tan heroes. No fagots were heaped
about their feet; no inquisition deman-
ded from then recantation; no'soldier
aimed a pike at their heart, but they
had mental tOrtures compared with
which all physical consuming is as the
breath of a spring morning.
SHAKEN FAITH.
I find in the community a large class
of men who have been so cheated, so
lied about, sc outrageously wronged,
that they have lost their faith in every
thing. In a world were everything
seems so topsy turvy they do not see
how there can be any God. They are
COMPOUNDED and frenzied and misan-
thrOpic. Elaborate arguments to prove
to them the truth of christianity or the
truth Of anything else touch them
nowhere. Hear me, all such men. I
preach to O no rounded periods, no
ornamental discourse, but put my
hand on your shoulder and invite you
into the peace Of the gospel. Here is
a rock on which you may stand firm,
though the waves dash against it hard
er than the Atlantic, pitching it's surf
clear above Eddystone lighthouse. Do
not charge upon God all these troubles
of the world. AS long as the world
stuck to God God stuck to the world,
but the earth seeded from his govern
ment, and hence all these outrages
and all these woes. God is good. For
many hundreds of years he has been
coaxing the world to come back to him,
but the more he a coaxed the more
violent have men been in their resist
ance, and they have stepped back and
stepped back until they nave dropped
into ruin.
Try this God, We who have had the
~bloodhounds after you, and who have
thought that God had forgotten you.
Try him and see If he will not help.
Try him and see il he will not pardon.
Try him and see if he will not save.
The flowers of spring have no bloom so
sweet as the flowers Of Christ's affec-
tons. The sun hath no warmth COM
pared with the glow of his heart. The
waters have no refreshment like the
fountain that will slack the thirst Of
thy soul. At the moment the reindeer
stands with his lip and nostril thrust
in the cool mountain torrent, the hunt
er may De coming through the thicket.
Without cracking a stick under his
foot, he comes close by the stag, aims
his gun, draws the trigger, and the
roa~ ANs~ B. "a 1~-x $500