Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1897-07-23
CLEANSING
ONES WAY.
Sermon In the Episcopal
Church last Sunday,
by DR.. Bitt|e.

blOle writers, who represent God
i'll his teachings always appear to be
especially solicitous about the young.
They seem TO take it for granted, and
reasonably, that the walk and eonver
sation to which the young man hab
ituates himself will follow him
through life, that as the twig is bent
the tree will be inclined; that if hu
man life has it's harvest season it
must have an antecedent blowing,
: sowing, cultivating period; in n
word, that man must groU into
what he becomes. God does not
glue a man office, he shows him as a
youth the way to responsibility; he
does not elect man to position, He
calls him to the assumption of duty.
God does not take man to Heaven
and happiness, he promotes him to
that field OF service for which he has
fitted himself How shall young
man cleanse his way? A young
man cleanses his own way! Most
men think or assume that if GOD
does his duty, the youaag mans
way will be cleansed before him
They look upon God as sort of
watchful attendant or nurse who
goes before one and removes obstruc
tions from his pathway, keeps him
from stumbling, points out to him
nutritious frnits and prevents him
in some miraculous way from pluck
ing and eating what is poisonous or
hurtful, holds him like child in
leading-strings. Now, whilst such
an idea of God Is very comfortable
and convenient, it will not work out
in practice. I do not mean that
God, our Father, is not solicitous
about his children, or that He would
omit any essential thing that would
guard them from evil, but, with all
his kindness-or. as | should say,
with fatherly kindness in the truest
sense-He demands of us that we
become selfresponsible, that we
gsdS', like saplings into sturdy oaks,
not like tendrils into parasitic vines.
AS He is self.supporting in his own
infinite rectitude, He demands of us
that we become like him-his chill.
dren, self supporting in the dignity
of our rela ationship to him. God
never intended this world TO be d.
hospital for sickly weaklings or milk
nurtnred babes, to whom he admin
listers sort of medicinal regime of
Christian nurture and indulgent cod
ding; on the contrary He sets us in
the way and demands of us that we
cleanse it; He puts us amidst sur
roundings over which ace are to have
control. We are to blame no one
but ourselves if, in the thoughtless
ness of youth we drink henilock
Instead Of wine, if, in headlessness
of his claims, we soil our fingers and
clothes and souls in the mire of pol.
luton which it is our duty to remove
from or pathway and that of others.
The fact that we are to be IN the
world but not of it, is proof of the
farther fact that we are to regard it
ASA gymnasium for the training of
manhood, not as nursery in which
we are to find everything ready to
minister to our morbid and childish
wants. We are not to have qoauts,
we are to conceive and cultivate
ai'as A man says, Il hope my sur
roundings isay be such that / can
escape the temptations under which
] see other men falling, I want infiu
ence among my fellow men, want !,
prosperous life, an easy old age. and
happy, peaceful death. I pray
God in his mercy to grant me health
the means of success, situation OF
independece in my environment, a
seat at his right hand when the end
comes. His aoora, and the expe
rience of christianity for it, God new
, er listens to such prayers though we
wear out our knees in groveling
before him. Are you needing the
laws, Gods laws of physical we'll.
being, restraining and correcting
those animal appetites which grow
like weeds unless pruned and cut
BACK; are you assidiously gathering
up those fragments of time which