Connecticut western news., 1897-08-26

tive to the future and to have faith in some system that proposes to save. l am free to confess that l would be hap pier if l could exercise the simple and beautiful faith that is possessed by many w hom 1 know. lam not willingly out of the church CT out Cf the faith. My state of uncertainty IS cue of un- rest Sometimes 1 dcubt my immortal ity and look upon tie deathbed as the closing scene, after which there is noth- ing What shall do that have not done?" An, skepticism is a dark and doleful landl Let me say that this Bible is either true or false. If it be false, we are as well off as you; if it be true, then which of us is safer?
 Let me also ask whether your trouble has not been that you confounded Chris tianity with tho 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. l men in your profession. Is that any | thing against medicine? You are mer- l chant There are thieves and defraud- CTS in your business. Is that anything | against merchandise? Behold, then, the unfairness of charging upon Christian | ity the wickedness of it's disciples. We I admit some of the charges against those l who profess religion. Some of the most i 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 50 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, 20 cut and take up their sins where they left off To serve the devil is their reg | ular work, to serve God a sort of play spell. With Sunday sponge they ex- pect to wipe off from their business slate all the past weeks 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. It 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 in all, is about the best book that the world has ever seen? Do you know any book that has as much in it? Do you not think, upon the whole, that its influence has been beneficent? come to you with both hands extended toward you. In ore hand have the Bible and in the other hand I 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, 10 the promises on which they leaned, to the cross on which they hung their eternal expecta- tions. You have not been happy day since you swung off. You will not be happy minute until you swing back.
 Great Hindrances.
 Again, there may be some who in the attempt after 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 l you feel that you must swear or die. l know Christian man who was once so exasperated that he said to a mean GUS toner, "I cannot swear at you myself, for I am member of the church, but if you will go down stairs my partner in | atr 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 righteous indignation and not a petu- lancy that blurs and unravels and de. pletes the soul.
 There is a 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" thigh 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 what 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 hos rescued from the thrall 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 help! 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 tion, they cast you off forever. But God forgives seventy times seven; yea, sev- en hundred times; yea, though this be the ten thousandth time, he is more earnest, more sympathetic, more help ful this last time than when you took your first misstcp.
 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 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